I don’t know that I have a strong opinion but my cursive is so bad that often I can’t read my own notes. I find I just print most of the time, even for a letter. I often ask my wife to interpret her cursive because I can’t read it. Being a teacher, her work was difficult reading papers from students. In college every paper was typed on my portable typewriter. I also have trouble reading the old documents like the constitution unless converted to print.
So I don’t know but the purpose of a paper document is to be read, so anything that makes that easier I guess I am for.
Same here except even my printing can be hard to decipher. Somebody once said, it looks like you duct taped a pen to a chicken’s leg and held him by the neck BAWK! BAWK!
I was never able to read cursive as well. While I can make out most words in cursive writing, I tend to pause and get lost when something isn’t written out clearly. I think cursive is outdated and no longer a necessary tool.
When I was in 5th grade, my teacher (Miss B.) decided that, if she didn’t like the way that I wrote words on my weekly spelling test, she would mark them “wrong”, and instead of getting my usual 95-100 marks in spelling, I was suddenly just barely passing that subject. My mother had a brief “meeting” with her, and after that Miss B corrected her ways–even though my cursive script didn’t improve.
My writing didn’t really become good until I was in 11th or 12th grade, but at this point in my life, if I am not using my computer printer, I rely on block letter hand printing for the sake of clarity. Anyway, here is what one professor had to say on this topic:
Now that I think of it, I always write my checks in cursive but I’m very clear on the dollar amount. That’s what was taught in high school so hard to change.
Yeah mothers. I suspect my mother had a chat with the lady she knew at the local draft board. She never said so but all I needed was a couple weeks delay to sneak into reserves. Mothers are like that. My biggest concern was after spending all that money on school I didn’t want to get killed before the loans were paid.
My former employers (Silicon Valley high tech companies) often asked me to sift through a long list & interview the best of the lot of potential job candidates for the company’s technical staff. I paid a lot of attention to the candidate’s grades, which courses they took, and how many course hours per week. I soon found with this screening process I could immediately eliminate candidates with mostly A’s if they took easier courses and/or less than 18 credit-hours per week. That type of candidate usually couldn’t perform as well as needed. The best candidates usually had B+/A- averages, and took the more difficult courses, and generally 20+ credit-hours per week.
My son is 53-years old and he was never taught cursive in school. Now days, the schools teach “keyboarding” in lieu of cursive… they do not even practice printing other than on the computer… The teachers say so many documents are electronically signed it does not make sense to practice printing the letters…
I taught my son cursive and back then; teachers still knew how to read cursive… Now days, he writes in a mixture of printing and cursive…
For reference, he stated kindergarten in '76 and he has never had any school training in cursive, not even to sign his name. I taught him that and there are people here in Hampton Roads Virginia of that age who only sign their name in a sloppy type of printing that has the letters sort of connected as if it’s faux-cursive…
I understand that some schools are teaching cursive now as an elective. It came about when a Congressman tried to read excerpts from a printed copy of the original US Constitution and he could not, so he back peddled and started talking about the Three Branches of the Government and he said they were “the House, the Senate, and the Executive branch…” (It’s not, it is the Executive Branch (the President), the Legislative Branch, (Congress – House and Senate), and the Judicial Branch (Supreme Court).)
I think the reason so many folks do not read the assembly instruction of Ikea furniture is that it is written at too high a grade level…
"See Mack put part A onto part B…
See Muff put part C back the put part A onto the real part B… L o L . . .
I thought I’d share this DMV road rule test with the CarTalk community.
I’m shocked that I got this question incorrectly. The question asked what would I do if I come to a stop sign at an interaction. I selected stop because a stop sign requires traffic to stop and yield to traffic.
Coming home one night I had a police car behind me. For two stop signs I carefully stopped. He lit me up and said I didn’t come to a complete stop. Nice guy, just told me people had complained and let me go. Neighbors seeing the lights flashing let them know the police were listening. I still argue about pronouncing bag. Only wrong answer on the test in 6th grade. The tester is always right.
I get furious at drivers who don’t come to a complete stop at a stop sign. Around here, and I actually hate typing this out as I’m a person who doesn’t generalize, it’s mostly women who never seem to come to a complete stop at a stop sign for me. Even when I arrive first at the intersection controlled by a stop sign, a woman would still expect me to wait and let her through.
I conclude that maybe she is treating the road rules as some etiquette. You know, like holding doors for her and such.
Still, I had some close encounters because of that.
I come to a complete stop.
But never do what an insurance commercial implies, counting to five before proceeding. Then seems a lot of people do not know the rules for a four way stop.
Over the past few years, I have gotten into the habit of waiting a couple of seconds–and looking both ways–before proceeding when the light turns green.
It seems that the incidence of people blowing past red lights has increased, especially at certain intersections. All I needed was one instance of almost being T-boned at one of those intersections to prove to me that a bit of hesitation & caution is a good idea.
I was posting about Stop Signs, not Stop Lights. But, I was T-boned. Driving on a 55 MPH road, a van ran a Stop Sign from a side road. My car went off the road, landed nose down in a ditch. Car was totaled. Fortunately the location of the hit, just forward of the drivers door, I only received a cracked rib and minor lacerations, wife only had a bruise from the shoulder belt.
Unfortunately the van was not insured, if my insurance company went after them to recoup the money they paid to me and to my medical expenses, I do not know.
I’ve been driving in the United States for about 20 years. In those 20 years of driving on a daily basis, I was involved in one car accident when an elderly failed to yield the right of way coming out of his driveway. Luckily for me, a police officer was hidden in a bush at the scene and saw when it happened. Cited the elderly for reckless driving. I had a broken left foot as a result.
Got ticked for speeding only once and it happened in Virginia. Got 10 points on my license from a railroad which was the fault of a malfunctioning gate signal. And lastly, got pulled over by a Chinese cop for speeding but was never ticked. And recently, a school bus violation that caught me by surprise.
Not so bad of a driver I’m, am I ?
Now let’s hear about your driving record , VOLVO. I’m willing to bet you have zero error on your driving record, as you’re the king of the road
At stop light interaction, I always wait a little while before I proceed through once the light turns green. Doing this has saved me once ( this year ) when a guy ran his red light.
Though, people behind me easily become impatient and would yell at me to “ go “
