> So what do you think? Is cursive necessary, except to read old Snoopy cartoons? Do you use it?

First, my situation.

I have no idea why, but my cursive became more and more unreadable as I went through high school. Some time around grade ten or eleven, I stopped using it completely. It wasn't really that it was illegible so much as the fact that my printing was (and is) so much MORE legible. I have had occasion every now and then to use cursive for various reasons, and I find that it hasn't really changed for me--but I don't think I will ever go back to using it.

As for how necessary it is, I think it DOES still have value. I find myself doing a fair bit of writing which cannot be done on computer. (Try scribbling engineering notes--which use English and Greek letters, long formulae, and other characters which are in neither alphabet--all on a computer. It really is not feasible at all.) My hobbies and sermon notes at church also tend to require handwritten notes. I do believe that if I wrote in cursive, I would be faster at all these things--but I won't trade off readability. But I DO think that cursive should still be taught. Some will find, as I did, that they simply cannot write legibly; others will gain a speed advantage. And, of course, there ARE still situations where reading cursive can be valuable.

Don "Looking at some of those mangled sentences, I think I should try to avoid posting first thing in the morning." Monkey