So...just How Old Are You?

[Winchester]

Well, how cool is that. Winchester @kashmir64

Now that's pretty cool! I have to agree, though, that being a free spirit only lasts until the baby comes!

Speaking of cursive writing, a friend of mine said that she wrote a check out to pay for something at a store. The woman who took the check kept looking at it and looking at it. Finally my friend spoke up and asked if there was a problem. The woman looked at her and said, "I can't read this; it's cursive and I can only read regular print." I kid you not. She had absolutely no clue at all.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the story.

 

[arouetta]

Cursive handwriting itself has really changed over the years, too. I'm working on a project transcribing labels on herbarium sheets (dried plant samples) that date from 1880 to 2014. Some of the cursive back in the late 1880s is so fancy that I have a difficult time reading it. It has extra little loops, whirls and circles that to my eyes obscure the letter hiding within. I've found that cursive is no easier to read than print or vice versa - it just depends on how clearly the writer makes the letters.

This. When I was a teen I got to see some old letters from the 1800s that my family had kept and it's unreadable. Knowing cursive does not mean you can read it. Chances are you won't be able to, period. Printing is consistent, cursive is totally unique and about as understandable to others as personal shorthand is.

When my daughter was in school the schools no longer taught block printing, they had some sort of curvy printing that they claimed made it easier to transition into cursive writing. My daughter's writing was literally unreadable until I made her learn the Serif font at 18 or 19.

Our modern lives are geared around print. Think of all those doctors' forms when you are a new patient that you have to fill out. Think of all those other forms where they have boxes for each letter. Think of the paper employment forms you have to fill out. Everything official needs print. Nearly everything unofficial needs a computer that uses a print font. The days of writing pages of letters where you can subtly brag about your fancy unique handwriting that other people then have to decipher and then get to brag about their own in turn by making you decode their handwriting is thankfully long over.

 

[flamesabers]

I learned to type on an electric typewriter, pre-electronic, pre-word processor, pre-computer with built-in word processor.

My mom had a mechanical typewriter when I was a young child. I remember having to put the cartridge back in place once you reached the end of the line on the paper. I never used it for school assignments though. When I had to start typing reports for school I just went to the public library.

Anyone remember erasable pens because our reports had to be written in pen with no mistakes?

I remember using white-out instead of pens with erasable ink.

No, the Common Core Standards felt computers/technology was more important. Sad but true! Here's a link if you're interested with more info. and details: Why Don't the Common-Core Standards Include Cursive Writing?

I think I was in 3rd grade when I learned cursive. At the time I was under the impression I would have to use cursive for all school assignments going forward, but for whatever reason that wasn't the case for future grades. The only thing I use cursive for nowadays is to sign my name.

 

[denice]

I remember erasable paper for typewriter paper. I also remember the erase strips that had some type of white out on one side. You put it over the mistake, retype the mistake and it would white it out. I learned how to type on an IBM Selectric.

 

[DreamerRose]

My mom had a mechanical typewriter when I was a young child. I remember having to put the cartridge back in place once you reached the end of the line on the paper. I never used it for school assignments though. When I had to start typing reports for school I just went to the public library.

The carriage had a bell on it too, so you would know when to slam the it back to the left without looking up.

I've got a typewriter like that in the basement. It was my Dad's from the days in the 1930s when he was a reporter for the Washington Post. I also had my grandfather's manual from the 1890s from the days when he was a lawyer, but my son took it. You can't get ribbons for them anymore. I learned to type on those old manuals, and my first office job was transcribing a book-length report on one. You had to have strong fingers!

Those were the days. Now you know how old I am.

 

[DreamerRose]

My mom had a mechanical typewriter when I was a young child. I remember having to put the cartridge back in place once you reached the end of the line on the paper. I never used it for school assignments though. When I had to start typing reports for school I just went to the public library.

The carriage had a bell on it too, so you would know when to slam the it back to the left without looking up.

I've got a typewriter like that in the basement. It was my Dad's from the days in the 1930s when he was a reporter for the Washington Post. I also had my grandfather's manual from the 1890s from the days when he was a lawyer, but my son took it. You can't get ribbons for them anymore. I learned to type on those old manuals, and my first office job was transcribing a book-length report on one. You had to have strong fingers!

Those were the days. Now you know how old I am.

 

[arouetta]

My mom had one of those old typewriters, god only knows what ancestor she got it from. I did type on it, the ribbon had just enough ink left for short school reports, until my parents got me a very modern electronic typewriter. I did have some problems with the keys you use your little fingers for, sometimes they didn't push hard enough and the letter ended up too high.

 

[Winchester]

When I first started college, Rick bought me a new Smith-Corona typewriter. I could type in four pages of text and then, when I finished, it would print the text out. One night my neighbor's husband was sitting on the back deck with Rick and the typewriter was typing away. My neighbor told Rick he didn't know anybody who could type that fast. I really liked that typewriter; I didn't have to hit the cartridge - it automatically went to the next line. His name was Omar (Yes, it's true.....I really do name everything!)

My first computer had no hard drive; it was all 5-1/4-inch floppies. I was using Word Perfect at the time and the A drive was used for the WP floppies; the B drive was for blank floppies for my papers and such. I finally got a computer with a 40 MB drive and thought I was in heaven.....until I blew the hard drive out with more information that it could handle, trying to load a sports card pricing program for Dear Richard. And let's not forget the old dot-matrix printer; at least mine was color. My very first cookbook was printed out on that dot-matrix.

And those were the good old days!

 

[mani]

I've just found this and remember doing typing at school. We're going back about 50 years and I think I did it to get out of some even worse subject. We all sat in front of our typewriters and they played a piece of marching music and we typed to the beat, with, of course, two spaces after a full stop.

I can still see and hear it.. it was so funny as the typing became another instrument to the music, including the Whizzing of the carriage at the simultaneous end of the lines.

 

[arouetta]

I remember my first computer, a TRS-80. It used ordinary 16 track cassette tapes as drives. I learned to program in BASIC on that computer. I learned it before the school taught it in 6th grade, drove my teacher nuts that I would put and "end" command in the middle of the program because a previous choice could jump below that command and continue.

Here's one before my time, let's see if you old fogeys remember this one. 8 inch floppy drives. I saw some among some old computer parts once, they pre-date 5 1/4 drives.

 

[betsygee]

I remember erasable paper for typewriter paper. I also remember the erase strips that had some type of white out on one side. You put it over the mistake, retype the mistake and it would white it out. I learned how to type on an IBM Selectric.

Oh, yes! I remember those erase strips.
I learned to type on an older typewriter model than a Selectric, and I'm too old to remember what kind it was. When I started working, though, it was with an IBM Selectric.

 

[golondrina]

My first language is Spanish and my first foreign language is French. English became my second foreign language after having lived over 40 years in France. Quite frankly I had never heard about this two spaces after a period rule until I read this thread. It surprises me that we worry about spaces when orthographic and syntactical rules are so often disregarded today. Phrases like "I have WENT" instead of "I have GONE" make me cringe like unpleasant noises.

Anyway, I would very much like to understand if this "spaces rule" applies to British or American English or both or to all languages when typed in the USA.

Please forgive my ignorance.

 

[arouetta]

It's not an English rule. It's a rule for the use of typewriters, same as how to justify and the use of "x" to mark through a mistake. Nothing to do with language.

 

[golondrina]

Thanks so much Arouetta. AH well, no wonder I never heard about those spaces!!! I never took typing lessons in my life. For the computer I just used some common sense and practice did the rest. I wouldn't know if my secretaries ever respected the "spaces rule" I paid attention to grammar and spelling and that was it.

Thanks again Arouetta for your lesson. We live and learn.

 

[foxxycat]

I for one also have a hard time reading cursive. I didn't care for learning it, everyone assumed because I could draw that I could write..well my writing is just as bad as a doctors lol and I printed most of my words-easier for me to read. My mom had super messy cursive writing but I got used to it and could decipher it. Once in a blue moon we get a card from my Aunt- dad's sister= she writes in cursive and neither of us can decipher half of it...I too prefer print.

 

[golondrina]

Surely throughout the school years scholars and students had to use cursive writing? or not?

 

[Willowy]

Surely throughout the school years scholars and students had to use cursive writing? or not?

Not for a long time, I think. I suppose they forced kids to use it at some point, but not recently.

 

[neely]

Here's an interesting article about whether to us one space or two at the end of a sentence. Even cuter is the pic of the cat typing at the top of the article.
We Still Can't Decide Whether To Put One Space After A Period Or Two | HuffPost

 

[Mother Dragon]

I never did write much in cursive....my handwriting is a combination of cursive and printing and it was always like that.

The first time I signed for my learner's driving permit, the lady wouldn't take it because it wasn't an "actual signature", meaning, I think, that it wasn't cursive. Dad was with me and she showed it to him; Dad said, "So what's wrong with it? That's her writing." The lady sighed and let it go.

Mixing printing and writing is usually a sign f creativity,

 

[golondrina]

Here's an interesting article about whether to us one space or two at the end of a sentence. Even cuter is the pic of the cat typing at the top of the article.
We Still Can't Decide Whether To Put One Space After A Period Or Two | HuffPost

I have read the article and noticed that only ONE space was put throughout the article. Then?

 

[raysmyheart]

View attachment 193495


According to this, if you still use two spaces after the puncuation at the end of a sentence, you're old school and need to learn to "stop leaning on the space bar"! Who knew that was such an old-fashioned thing?

Nothing Says Over 40 Like Two Spaces after a Period! | Cult of Pedagogy

For the love of God, I still use the two spaces and just another example of how tired I am that someone would point this out to me. Sorry, just venting, but I am 55 and should stay home. I will keep using the two spaces thank you. Just tired of us "old people" being misunderstood as stupid. I have a Bachelor of Science degree and have gone through 6 years of higher education. I have no problem with learning the new punctuation, but I would never think of pointing out someone's style of writing! I think this article and grey/orange banner is categorizing people. Now, the fun of posting is gone. The article could have been informative without shaming us as those silly old folks.