Is cursive script an anachronism?

[Al B. Sure!]

When handwritten essays were introduced on the SAT exams for the class of 2006, just 15 percent of the almost 1.5 million students wrote their answers in cursive. The rest? They printed. Block letters.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001475_pf.html

[Nikolai]

When you say cursive, I have a feeling you don't mean cursive as in cursive?

[Al B. Sure!]

Hva?

[Nikolai]

"Kursiv" in Norwegian is those slightly leaning letters you get when you use the [i ] tag.

[Al B. Sure!]

Cursive in English:

[Nikolai]

Ah! That we still learn. I always write cursive. I have to focus to write each letter separate if I am required to do that. And I almost always end up joining some letters anyhow. It's much easier, and MUCH faster, to write in cursive. How to write cursive has changed over the years though. My mum learned to write it somewhat different than me, more elegant in some ways. I learned it pretty much as in your pics. My siblings learned a kind of cursive which is more alike printed letters.

[Al B. Sure!]

oh and in English, we refer to this as italics

[Nikolai]

Heh, that would explain the [ i ].

[Al B. Sure!]

Nikolai:

Yeah, the style has changed over the years. In the US, the type that most people my age learned was a type that has only been around since 1975 (it is represented by those images).

[Ben Kenobi]

class of 2006

As I said, it's a generation gap. I'm class of 1999.

I learned it pretty much as in your pics

Same here, except my P's go down to the bottom line, and there's no back on the T. And none of the frilly circles either.