Cursive, also known as joined up writing, is any style of handwriting that is designed for writing notes and letters quickly by hand. The letter U along with the rest of the alphabet can be found on the link below written in a cursive manner.
learninghowcatalog.com/images/edu/big/Z/T_38137.gif Joined-up writing was used in English before the Norman conquest. Anglo-Saxon Charters typically include a boundary clause written in Old English in a cursive script. A cursive handwriting style was widely used for both personal correspondence and official documents in England from early in the 16th century. The handwriting of William Bradford, in the English colonies in the early 17th century, still has most of the letters separate, but a few were joined as in a cursive hand. However in England, Edward Crocker had begun introducing a version of the French ronde style, which was then further developed and popularised throughout the British Empire in the 17th and 18th centuries as round hand by John Ayers and William Banson. In Thomas Jefferson's draft of the United States Declaration of Independence, most but not all of the letters were joined. The presentation copy of the Declaration, written professionally a few days later by Timothy Matlack, was written in a fully cursive hand. Eighty-seven years later, in the middle of the 19th century, Abraham Lincoln drafted the Gettysburg Address in a cursive hand that would not look out of place today.
After the 1960s, it was argued that the teaching of cursive writing was more difficult than it needed to be. Forms of simply slanted characters, termed italic, were considered by some to be easier and traditional cursive unnecessary. Because of this, a number of various new forms of cursive appeared in the late 20th century, including D'Nealian and Getty-Dubay. These models lacked the craftsmanship of earlier styles such as Spencerian Script, Zaner-Bloser, and the Palmer Method, but were less demanding and difficult. With the range of options available, handwriting became non-standardized across different school systems in different English-speaking countries.
With the invention of typewriters and computers, cursive as a way of formalizing correspondence has now started to disappear. Most tasks which would have once required a 'fair hand' are now done using word processing and a printer. Some, however, prefer the use of longhand in personal notes to provide a sense that a real person is involved in the correspondence.
learninghowcatalog.com/images/edu/big/Z/T_38137.gif Joined-up writing was used in English before the Norman conquest. Anglo-Saxon Charters typically include a boundary clause written in Old English in a cursive script. A cursive handwriting style was widely used for both personal correspondence and official documents in England from early in the 16th century. The handwriting of William Bradford, in the English colonies in the early 17th century, still has most of the letters separate, but a few were joined as in a cursive hand. However in England, Edward Crocker had begun introducing a version of the French ronde style, which was then further developed and popularised throughout the British Empire in the 17th and 18th centuries as round hand by John Ayers and William Banson. In Thomas Jefferson's draft of the United States Declaration of Independence, most but not all of the letters were joined. The presentation copy of the Declaration, written professionally a few days later by Timothy Matlack, was written in a fully cursive hand. Eighty-seven years later, in the middle of the 19th century, Abraham Lincoln drafted the Gettysburg Address in a cursive hand that would not look out of place today.
After the 1960s, it was argued that the teaching of cursive writing was more difficult than it needed to be. Forms of simply slanted characters, termed italic, were considered by some to be easier and traditional cursive unnecessary. Because of this, a number of various new forms of cursive appeared in the late 20th century, including D'Nealian and Getty-Dubay. These models lacked the craftsmanship of earlier styles such as Spencerian Script, Zaner-Bloser, and the Palmer Method, but were less demanding and difficult. With the range of options available, handwriting became non-standardized across different school systems in different English-speaking countries.
With the invention of typewriters and computers, cursive as a way of formalizing correspondence has now started to disappear. Most tasks which would have once required a 'fair hand' are now done using word processing and a printer. Some, however, prefer the use of longhand in personal notes to provide a sense that a real person is involved in the correspondence.
