Today's rant: A secret code I didn't even know I knew
21I recently had a new intern start her summer internment. She is a high school student, and so far she has really impressed me with her work ethic, common sense, ability to follow directions, etc. She’s a sharp one.
Today I asked her to summarize some notes from a writer. I gave her a folder which contained a few pages of ruled notebook paper with the writer’s handwritten notes. “Please read through this, and summarize the content to me in an email message.”
Turns out she can’t read cursive writing. She was able to make out a word or two, but only because the writer has impeccable script. I guess they just don’t teach that in school anymore.
My curiosity compelled me to dig deeper. Turns out the school district dropped cursive and started pushing typing classes. I asked her to speculate why, and she said her English teacher told her it was because cursive just wasn’t in vogue anymore, and digital technology was the future. Cursive writing, which has existed in it’s various forms for well over 1,000 years… has gone out of vogue. Technology, which requires electricity and expensive electronics are causing the pencil and paper to go extinct.
Already, many kids can’t solve a math problem without a calculator. Now they won’t be able to write anything without a keyboard?
Don’t get me wrong… I’ve had interns come in here and the kids couldn’t use a keyboard or mouse because their entire interaction with technology has been with their thumbs on a smartphone touch screen.
But is this really the end of cursive writing? I guess parents will be able to use it to hide secrets from the kiddies?
- 23 comments, 145 replies
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*actually, what you are referring to is called “long hand” writing. And while I can read it, I don’t write it due to limitations that exist in my person. I should file for disability.
Oh! I almost forgot! Ecreatsay Odesay ofray hetay inway!
@ruouttaurmind I asked this question previously.
https://meh.com/forum/topics/can-you-write-in-cursive
But maybe you should ask it again. It’s been two years and we have different mehtizens on the forum.
@Barney I usually host half a dozen or so interns each year. They come from high school, community college and university journalism programs. This is the first one who cannot read cursive longhand script (covering all the bases; nod to @theraljrn). This is the future. At least for this particular school district. In August I’ll have a high school student for the fall term. She’s from a different district, so I will be able to review the topic then.
@Barney @ruouttaurmind On the bright side, I bet they are whizzes at untangling your gmail folders!
@therealjrn I’ll have to ask about that. I have had other interns who don’t use email in their personal lives. They rely on social media and texting.
I have a relative who teaches and we were discussing this very topic recently. So in addition to cursive writing they are considering a discontinue of learning to read an analog clock. WTH
@tinamarie1974 Interesting you mentioned that. I was compelled to ask about that very subject. She has indicated that was covered in 3rd or 4th year. Of course that would be around 10 years ago, so no indication what’s happening currently.
@ruouttaurmind I am not sure if this is a nationwide initiative, but it is being seriously considered just outside of STL
@tinamarie1974 I have never been to the Detroit airport, but if the clocks there are analog ones, this would be fantastic.
Skip ahead to the 1:27 mark…
@eonfifty
/giphy the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
@eonfifty @RiotDemon You passed the test RD!
@eonfifty @therealjrn just don’t ask me to write a capital cursive Z.
@eonfifty @RiotDemon Mine always looked like big 2’s when my draconian elementary school MADE me use cursive.
@RiotDemon @therealjrn
@eonfifty @RiotDemon Maybe it’s the Q I was thinking of…either way…yuck. lol Cursive is HELL for a left-handed person!
@eonfifty Excellent!
@therealjrn eh… quit your bitchin I can write in cursive with either hand – just cuz, I am weird like that …
But it is messier to write left-handed …
@mikibell Maybe if they had called it something cool like “Silver Surfer Syndrome” I would have stuck with it…
Also, quit being that annoying girl that always ended up sitting next to me.
@therealjrn seriously, it was completely because I was bored. And maybe the girl chose to sit next to you because you are so darn cute!!
@eonfifty @RiotDemon @therealjrn haha… my maiden surname starts with a Z and I’m not so great at it either.
@mikibell and I can write cursive backwards. For reasons unknown I decided to practice doing that in late grade school or junior high or something.
Cursive? Kill it with fire.
@einaschern I cursive and analog clocks.
@Barney @einaschern I analog clocks. I cursive.
@Barney @einaschern @therealjrn analog clocks are great, as are other analog dials. They found that a digital representation of something requires a higher cognitive load because you have to interpret the numbers individually. With an analog clock or other dials, you can memorize the shape of the hands and more quickly internalize what the dial is telling you. They found this out when trying to switch to higher-tech displays in aircraft.
This is why even on a “glass cockpit” (screens instead of “old dials”), some information is represented in that way.
I’m wearing this shirt today.
https://shirt.woot.com/offers/secret-code
@narfcake Fortuitous!
@narfcake @ruouttaurmind Serendipitous!
@narfcake @ruouttaurmind @therealjrn
Uh… Uh… Uh, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
@Barney @narfcake @ruouttaurmind @therealjrn prestidigitastic!
@narfcake
I would purchase that excellent t-shirt, only the current shirt.woot! pricing offends me.
Well, a google search says it is not true, but for some really strange reason I was under the impression that check amounts had to be written in cursive. I have always done it even though I hate cursive writing. I don’t know if I am gonna stop using now or not.
@mfladd Hm…I think I remember hearing that too. But I can’t tell you when or where–probably from Mom showing me how to write checks from my account when I was 11. I stopped doing that when the school allowed me to quit flailing away at long hand. I think I noticed by then that my paychecks from work were printed albeit machine printed, but still…
@mfladd you have probably frustrated several young bank tellers by now with this kind of behavior.
@djslack @mfladd I think that makes him a trouble maker?
@mfladd No No No. The written/text check amount is more important than the numeric amount. It MUST be legible. I was taught cursive. I can read it and write it, but I can read printed text much easier with less guess work as to what the person was trying to write.
Cursive is faster to write, but not easier to read.
@therealjrn I wrote my first check today without using cursive. Oh happy days!
You are conflating writing in cursive to writing anything at all using a writing utensil on paper, which isn’t fair. There is no practical use for cursive, and aside from writing their signatures (which are increasingly becoming digital) most people don’t use it at all. Printing words in standard characters takes less time and is universally legible. Personally, I can read cursive just fine, provided the text isn’t chickenscratch, but I haven’t written cursive in earnest in over a decade now. I’m still not sure why it was even taught in grade school…I’ve never overtly required it.
Your secondary point about doing math without a calculator is also similarly addressable, though not to the same extent. The average person won’t ever need to do math in their head more serious than basic addition, subtraction, and so forth, but even if they did, every handheld device these days has a calculator in it. Advanced mathematics is definitely a requirement for careers involving its use, but it’s not really fair to say elementary age students should need to know how to do long division in their heads these days. Calculators weren’t nearly as prevalent decades ago, so back then, it made perfect sense…today, not so much.
@PooltoyWolf Mechanically speaking, cursive is faster and easier provided one is right-handed. You don’t have to waste motion picking up and putting down your writing implement. It was just my luck to have been born left-handed. Pushing that damn pencil is much harder than pulling it.
And people do have to have a sense of numbers. Recently I was in a business meeting for a local non-profit and 30 people in the room were looking at the same treasurer’s report that I was, but I was the only one to speak up about what appeared to me to be a pretty big discrepancy. But for some reason, some people’s brains shut down looking at numbers.
They agreed and scheduled an audit–it turned out to be just a mistake.
@therealjrn Cursive is only faster than printing if you take the time to properly learn and practice it, and unfortunately the time saved is usually not worth it. I stand by my sentiment of not requiring young children to learn relatively advanced math in their heads, though your case makes sense.
@PooltoyWolf My math experience is all business related. Things I use in real life. You know, accounts, bills, percentages, stuff like that. When it comes to statistical or geometric things, I’m lost. So yeah, I know theoretically you can use a 3 foot high stick to figure out how tall a tree is using the sun’s shadow…just don’t ask me to be the one to do it.
@therealjrn Yep, that’s pretty close to where I’m at, too. I was also really good at fractions in school, until they had to start going all improper!
@PooltoyWolf You are referring to arithmetic as “relatively advanced math”? Give me a break. People (so-called adults) who cannot make change from a dollar bill or multiply by 10 without a calculator is a symptom of what is wrong with our education system. Apparently teaching thinking skills is expecting too much nowadays.
Lack of arithmetic skills leads to lack of algebra skills, which leads to lack of calculus skills, which leads to a lack of STEM majors.
Just try teaching factoring in an algebra class to students who do not know their times tables. I’ve seen college students flunk a differential equations exam because they couldn’t do simple algebraic factoring.
[ This comes from my forty plus years as a college math instructor – now retired and getting dumberer.]
@PooltoyWolf @therealjrn Also, I hope the bit about improper fractions was a joke.
Otherwise, you are admitting you don’t understand things like 150%, which ultimately is an improper fraction (of the decimal kind).
BTW, the term “improper fraction” was probably coined by an education major teaching something she didn’t properly understand.
@phendrick @therealjrn No, it was indeed a joke. The only thing I took away from your post above was that you expect everyone in all fields to know and understand calculus, which would be a bit like expecting truck drivers and locomotive engineers to understand rocket science. I get that it’s necessary for certain careers and positions, but let so-called higher education teach the people who choose to pursue those careers. I’d rather not see people failing in school because they can’t pass classes/subjects they will never use in life.
@PooltoyWolf I posit that you need to work on your reading comprehension some. I specifically tied calculus to STEM majors (look it up, if necessary), not to professions such as truck driving or carpentry (talk about needing fractions!)
My point was that I was lamenting the fact that many in the “higher education” classes (STEM, in particular) are not successful because of pitiful training in the basics in their “formative” years, even back to elementary school. And, I guess, that would also apply to all of their particular classmates.
And then I look at my property taxes, and the proportion that goes to the school system. At least the students are learning not to offend anyone.
I’m heading to bed. G’night. Go and sin (and cos) no more.
@phendrick
Here:
https://www.riddleministry.com/riddles/table-height/1633/
You may use your calculator (snicker).
@phendrick I don’t think that problem needs a calculator so much than it needs “common” sense or some kind of algebra. Me, I’d get the cat to jump down and use my tape measure to measure the table in 'Merican. What are those cm thingies?
@PooltoyWolf @therealjrn Yup. If speed is your best argument for cursive, typing wins that battle every time.
@phendrick I convinced my kid to learn how to do some of this in her head so she could figure out how much something cost when it said 10% or 15% or whatever off. Of course now that she has a cell phone I am sure she has forgotten how to do that.
@phendrick @PooltoyWolf I may be a poor example, because I am an electrical engineer instead of a “normal person,” but I’m with @phendrick. I do not believe that I would be able to do the things I need to do today if I had not learned things like long division (since it was called out) in childhood.
I rarely ever actually do long division anymore, though I can if I need to. I use a calculator or Matlab or Python. But, the basics I got and had reinforced through long division are things I use almost daily in my work and also come in plenty handy in my “normal” life. This include specific things like place value/orders of magnitude as well as more general things like breaking down a larger problem into simpler steps. And just the general process of estimating materials needed for home projects. I use these things all the time and they all tie back to long division specifically.
@Kidsandliz I am dismayed by how many people struggle to leave a 15% tip. Easy peasy: move the decimal point one to the right (that’s 10%); add half that again (another 5%); round up and be generous, when deserved.
@phendrick what is 1/2 of $7.33 + 7.33? Quick!
Edit…too late, we already left the restaurant.
@medz 3.665 + 7.33 = 10.995, call it 11 dollars.
Sorry, I was eating lunch :>)
That was a nice meal; hope it was for more than 2 people.
@phendrick @PooltoyWolf @therealjrn It is true that not all people in all fields need to know calculus and other advanced studies, but without the basic foundations necessary to get to that level, society will gradually lose those skills with each successive generation. I would venture to bet that very few kids dream of becoming advanced mathematicians or engineers while learning basic skills in grade school, but that’s just when young minds are sparked with new ideas and develop the learning skills necessary to pursue those advanced fields as they mature and take interest. Without a good basic skills and knowledge foundation, not many people can achieve an advance status in any field. The best you can hope for is perhaps someone who can follow directions well and are given good directions. Give them bad directions and they will follow them equally well, but never understand why they’re failing.
If things don’t change for the better, eventually we will become a society totally reliant on technology and other specialists to support that technology. And when we run out of those specialists because we are no longer able produce them due to our declining educational systems, well good luck to what’s left of us. I just hope Brawndo really has what plants crave!
KuoH
@Kidsandliz @phendrick Ehh…maybe I’m dumber than I think, but when I’m trying to get 10% of a number, I move the decimal point one place to the left, not right.
KuoH
@kuoh
/youtube in the year 2525
@kuoh I think @phendrick meant your OTHER right.
@kuoh You are right; I am left, to try to figure where I got that direction from. Probably due to definite lack of sleep. (Either that, or I was holding it in the wrong hand… It usually takes me two tries to unlock my car or my house door when the key is in my left hand.)
@Limewater @phendrick @PooltoyWolf Learning math helps form your brain differently. It affects much more than being able to calculate a 15% tip.
@G1 @Limewater @phendrick @PooltoyWolf
I don’t think anyone was advocating everyone having to do calculus in their heads.
What was advocated:
Seems reasonable to me.
Anyone who intends to study seriously or use higher math professionally (trig, calculus, diff EQ, statistics, etc) should prob be capable of doing basic arithmetic with pen/pencil and paper tho.
And these folk who will use higher math should prob have some light introduction to the mathematical method, and what is it and is not. And on what sorts of concepts the method might be applicable.
/giphy “mathematical object”
@Kidsandliz @kuoh @phendrick @medz et al:
I am constantly amazed at the poor basic math skills that most people have currently. Without a calculator they can’t even begin to figure out how to make a simple approximation, how to double (or halve) a number in their heads, etc.
As a nurse I often have to calculate meds based on weight given in kilograms. Most of our weights are taken on a scale in pounds. Making the conversion (1 kg = 2.2 lbs) is something I can readily approximate by dividing by 2 and taking off 10%. Lots of younger nurses will do it with a calculator, then not have a clue if the number is way off…
@Kidsandliz @kuoh @medz @phendrick I once heard the generation gap defined as:
Young people do a problem by hand and check the result with a calculator, Older people do it with a calculator and check it by hand…
@chienfou More like (stereotyping): Young people - do math with a calculator or don’t do it. End of story. Older people - do math in their head if they don’t have a calculator.
@chienfou @Kidsandliz I’ll pile on as well. Being an old folgie in IT, I rarely see any double checking by young people. They expect that to be done by other people or AI and it’s never their fault no matter how badly they misread or transposed characters. It’s almost as if they believe life has an autocorrect feature!
KuoH
@chienfou @kuoh LOL autocorrect - yeah like when it puts in a perfectly good word, except it was not the one you had in mind.
Actually I see the same issues with a chunk of students (certainly by no means all, but this problem is increasing) I teach. It is not their fault they didn’t do something even though it is clearly laid out in the assignment and they are reminded in announcements/emails (I teach online right now so you can’t grab them by the ear as they walk out the door to talk with them or call on them when they are texting to make sure they are listening).
I finally resorted to putting in the syllabus that they are responsible for what is posted in announcements and sent in emails even if they don’t choose to read them. Sigh.
There are plenty of conscientious, good students out there and then… umm well… it can make me wonder at times why some are paying for school at this particular point in their life if they aren’t going to do what they need to do. As in why are they putting a match to their money? There were times when I was in school (actually repeated times) when I had to repeat to myself, “There are good reasons why I returned to school. The fact that I can’t think of any of them right now is not good enough reason to drop out.”.
@Kidsandliz
Maybe I am a bit older than you
@chienfou @Kidsandliz @kuoh I think this is likely a sampling problem.
In previous generations, the vast majority of people stopped their education at high school graduation. Some even earlier. As evidence, I will present the classic 1992 thriller Basic Instinct.
In it, Sharon Stone is a brilliant mastermind manipulating everyone around her. Her superpower? A bachelor’s degree in Psychology.
In 1992, nobody seemed to have a problem with this. This aspect of the film did not seem to stretch credibility with anyone.
More recently, a lot of people who would not have previously been considered “college material” are pursuing higher education because everyone tells them they should and it appears to them to be the only way to obtain a meaningful career that can support themselves and their families. If you greatly increase the number of college students, you’re going to see a lot more duds.
@chienfou @Kidsandliz @Limewater Maybe I’m too cynical, but I wouldn’t rely on movie fiction as evidence. As for most kids discontinuing education after high school, I’ve never researched the statistics, but it certainly wasn’t the impression I got growing up in the 80s and 90s. I’m sure there were a lot of poor families that just couldn’t afford it, but it never seemed like a normal choice one would make if they had the option.
KuoH
@chienfou @Kidsandliz @kuoh The movie reference was a joke. It’s just something I’ve always found hilarious about that movie.
The current U.S. average for 20-24 year-olds enrolled in school: 35.6% source
The percentage was around 20% through the seventies to the mid-eighties. It hit 30 around 1991 or so.
Don’t forget that age range includes a lot of people who aren’t in school because they have already completed post-secondary degrees.
About 70% of high school graduates start college the next fall now. That number was about 60% in the early nineties. That’s not saying anything about the higher-education drop-out rates.
@chienfou @kuoh @Limewater
Here is some recent figures on the competition rate - about 60% at 8 years out. Source of the state is credible.
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2019/02/12/new-data-60-students-graduate-within-8-years
Of course if you live in Arkansas you may not get much of a decent education there anymore. The state has pegged the higher ed budget to graduation rates. If 90% don’t graduate in exactly 4 years with exactly 120 credits (so heaven help those who change their major) then they don’t get their budget fully funded. The further off you are the less you get - up to only 75% of your budget.
Now considering the national rates and how few schools out there even meet AR’s criteria, my opinion is that they have rigged the rules to blame higher ed for the cuts, and then knowing the odds are a snowball’s chance in hell that any university will reach that goal (even the flagship was only at 83%) they succeeded in having a stealth highed budget cut while being able to blame the victim.
The school I had a one year visiting was open admissions, paid 1/2 the going rate and had a shortage of anything even remotely resembling modern technology. If your ACT is 16 or higher you are in the “President’s Honors Club” (national average is 20.8). 40% dropped out or flunked out freshman year. Well duh. Made worse by no money to help with anything… not to mention a good chunk of those students would have been better served by trade training; there is no way many had the skills or basic knowledge to survive at the university level, even with remedial work (and some had to take an entire year of remediation).
I was lucky I got them when they were juniors and seniors so I was mostly seeing the ones who were “president’s club” members. As was we had a handful of department scholarships to hand out and a few couldn’t be awarded as there weren’t enough students with a 3.0 gpa.
Second semester, when I had a handle on what reality was there I told my students I was going to manipulate them into buying the book, reading the book, taking hand written notes (research shows better retention of material when you do it that way rather than type for a variety of brain function based reasons, backed up with brain scans and applied research), and studying for the exams. Major eyeball rolls. Whatever.
They laughed. I won. Out of all 4 classes only 3 were hold outs and they all earned an F (with averages in the mid 40’s% - what was usually a C around there - I was told to expect to curve roughly 30-35% and was required to pass, with a C or better, at least 85% of them). My curves second semester were 5-12% depending on the class where as the previous term I had the “normal” college curve (was told point blank I was expected to pass most of them - the budget issue).
The second day of fall faculty meetings prior to the state of the term someone from the state came to talk to us about all this. Her first sentence was, “We all know you will never make criteria, however we will still be applying it”. Umm so why apply it to an open admissions school if you know it is impossible to meet? Nope. Just call it a budget cut and get it over with.
I do think some of the problem is no real expectations in K-12 and they get passed for breathing while not causing trouble, haven’t learned how to study… I was basically teaching that bunch how to study and so one thing I did was give weekly 10 question 10 min quizzes (Normal level of hardness although I started out with only easier ones to reward the ones taking notes and slowly made the quizzes harder until they were “normal”) that were open handwritten, your own handwritten otherwise someone would take notes and photocopies would be sold), notes only, curved off the top grade in the class. I knew that gamble of top grade was good as the softball team recruited only act 23+ and high school 3.5 grades so he wouldn’t lose people off the team due to flunking out or academic ineligibly; thus on those quizzes usually 100% was the top grade.
I watched people cave one by one as their 43’s were at the bottom of the heap and in the F range. They start to buckle down and grades went up. I had a couple of them tell me that they had started to use the “techniques” I had taught them in other classes and their grades were going up. Duh. That would be called doing the work and studying. Sigh. I do think that is part of the overall issue.
…but there is a practical use to learning cursive.
Learning to write in cursive is shown to improve brain development in the areas of thinking, language and working memory. Cursive handwriting stimulates brain synapses and synchronicity between the left and right hemispheres, something absent from printing and typing.
Additionally, “Handwriting therefore may facilitate reading acquisition in young children.”
Research paper here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4274624/
Not to get all meta, but sometimes the point of doing something isn’t the immediately visible result, but going through the process is where the benefit lies.
@canuk Wax on, wax off. Amirite?
@canuk @simssj
Yeah, and my Dad used to pull that shit on me when it came time to pull weeds. :sniff: I miss my Dad.
@simssj exactly. these people getting rid of cursive are usually the same people who think we don’t have to memorize anything any more because you can “just Google it.”
@canuk There is also research that students who take notes by hand (vs computer vs notes on copies of power point slides) get higher grades too.
@canuk @Kidsandliz I work in front of a computer and keyboard (SW engineer), yet I take lots of notes by hand, on paper. Just an old-school habit, I guess, but I remember things better when I write them by hand. I can also usually find items that I have written in my notebook easier than in files. My hand-written notes are in a strange mixture of cursive and block printing.
@Kidsandliz @macromeh You have to be careful about that research though (I’m in education, specifically the technology part of it and oh yes has this research paper been discussed!) and people want to throw out all digital note taking. It’s not that the computer/tablet/whatever is the problem, it’s because the technique changes. People who take notes on computer, but use the technique of summarizing, reforming, and diagramming do just fine. The problem occurs when people transcribe is when they get very little benefit from note taking. I’ve found OneNote to be a great tool that feels organic the way handwritten note can be taken: you can write anywhere, it has some good tools to help highlight and diagram. You just have to be disciplined not to fall into transcribing what is happening in the class. When you reform the ideas into your own words, it’s getting stuck in your memory better. I saw a Moleskin or something that had a saying on it “I’m not taking notes to remember it later, I’m taking notes to remember it now.” which I thought was pretty close.
@canuk Pah, all propaganda pushed by cursive lobbyists in DC to promote Big Cursive’s “agenda”
@ThomasF it’s really all a part of Big Education’s agenda. We should all just stay home and watch Netflix.
@canuk However there are brain scans where they see that if people take hand written notes more parts of their brain lights up while doing do. Then when they try to recall that info all those parts light up again. There was some other study that documented that the more parts of your brain you park stuff in the easier it is to retrieve.
The study I am talking about is 2018 there were 3 conditions, type your class notes, handwrite your class notes, have copies of the powerpoint slide and add to that whatever you want. In the first two cases they could still summarize. Controlling for GPA, ACT, previous class grades in that class on tests and assignments, there was about a 1/2 letter grade difference between hand written and power point, there was also a sig difference between hand and type written although not as large. I’d guess the more of your brain lights up has something to do with it, perhaps also you have to summarize more handwritten since generally people can type faster than they can handwrite.
Now for an entirely different type of code, let’s all try to figure out what the hell this script is supposed to say. Ignore ‘xray order’ on the side, that was written after. This is something we deal with every single day at work. I personally believe anyone who is given the power to write a prescription should be required to pass a handwriting class. Fortunately, this is (obviously) for an imaging order and not a medicine. If people wonder how lethal mistakes are made in pharmacies, this is a perfect example.
For the record, none of us could figure out for sure what is written there. Fortunately we know the patient well and why they typically have an x-ray so we verified what it should be and they had their study. Now, can you properly guess what x-ray they were supposed to have?
@cinoclav I wonder if this is why so many prescriptions are sent electronically now. All the prescriptions I’ve seen in person in the last few years have been computer printed and then maybe signed by the doctor, but a lot of time it was an electronic signature.
@cinoclav @RiotDemon My prescriptions are required to be electronically filed if I’m using insurance. I did have a specific type of medicine last year that was not covered but had to be filled at a specific compounding pharmacy. That one I hand carried to the place.
@RiotDemon @therealjrn Ideally, all prescriptions would be sent electronically. Many of our imaging orders come through an order facilitator which registration can pull from. However, the fact that it’s a small community hospital in NJ means many patients go to specialists in the Cooper system (based in Camden, NJ) or in the world class hospitals in Philly and they don’t have access to our systems. The goal has been to create a nationwide medical record system which would streamline the entire process. All pharmacies and medical facilities could access a patient’s pertinent information and prescriptions. Of course once this happens I give it less than a week before it’s hacked.
@cinoclav When I was in undergrad for engineering, we had to learn a standard technical lettering system specifically to avoid stuff like this.
@cinoclav @RiotDemon @therealjrn
i worked in an ER many moons ago. doc brings me a chart to have me order some lab work and a CT. i read through it and get to the CT order. it says “CT groin”. trauma patient comes in, so the doc will be tied up for a while. i ask the nurse sitting next to me, and she says “CT groin”. it’s sunday, so i have to call the on-call CT tech. she comes in and says “are you sure he ordered a groin CT?”. i show her the paper and she agrees.
she goes back to get everything prepped. she comes to pick up the patient, and the doc is walking out of the trauma room. i can’t hear them, but they have a little convo and i see him shaking his head.
he then comes over to me, points at the chart and asks “what does that say?”. i reply, “CT groin”. he gather 3-4 nurses (that weren’t there when he first asked me) and i hand the chart around to them. he says to me “if they all agree with you, i’ll bring in donuts and bagels for the week”. sure enough, they all said “CT groin”. after shaking his head some more, he finally proclaims, “it says ‘CT brain’!”
tl;dr - doc wrote “CT brain”. we all thought it said “CT groin”. no one got their junk scanned. we all for bagels/donuts for a week.
@carl669 That’s great. Though the fact that there’s no specific CT order for a groin would certainly make me question it. Pelvis, hips, femurs - all choices. Groin? Our CT techs would give that a solid ‘what the fuck?’
@cinoclav yeah, i figured the convo between the doc and tech was to get something more specific.
@cinoclav is that English?
@tinamarie1974 Barely. That first part is supposed to say ‘KUB.’
@cinoclav that is embarrassing.
@tinamarie1974 So is all the work this particular doctor does. I always suggest second opinions.
@cinoclav @tinamarie1974 I, uh, don’t see that. At all.
@cinoclav @tinamarie1974 KUB=Kidneys-Ureters-Bladder! I learned something today, and not a moment too soon.
@cinoclav Now, can you properly guess what x-ray they were supposed to have?
The patient’s name was Bill.
Doc wrote, “William is die”.
RIP in Peace, Bill. RIP in Peace.
I knew there was a famous case where a girl was asked to read cursive and it was a shock that she couldn’t read it.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/27/busted-teen-witness-george-zimmerman-trial-cant-re/
I write in cursive, but mostly so my kids can’t forge my signature on notes. I have that classic catholic school handwriting – Palmer method
@mikibell
@therealjrn I hope my children are smarter than that… BUT, it is just a hope They do forge my husband’s scribble … but not without permission.
@mikibell I think some of these cute “look what my kid did” posts are a little suspicious…let’s hope fruits of our loins are a little smarter than this example.
The grifts just get bigger as they get older–just last week my adult daughter (with 4 of her own children) “accidentally” used my Discover card in her pizza app. I paid for pizza like over a year ago and let her use my card–I probably need to change the number now. But I probably won’t lol.
@therealjrn I agree about the posts. ohhh the pizza is minor. My dad gives me a thumb drive of all his accounts and passwords every time they travel. If I wanted to be evil, I could be rich!!!
Did it make you smile when you realized you paid for the pizza (after the shock of an unauthorized charge??) I would leave it alone too!
@therealjrn My kid tried to do that for a 4th grade parent excuse note about homework. She spelled my first name wrong LOL.
@mikibell LOL, yeah, I’ll leave it alone. I can afford to buy her and the grands a pizza or two. I did have to ask her about it to make sure the Discover card or the pizza company wasn’t “hacked.” She used a different store from before so it was a real UFO transaction.
@mikibell At the beginning of every school year, my parents had to sign some form or another, and send it in with me.
I would carefully copy the signatures, in my best forged calligraphy, and save it for a rainy day.
It may or may not have rained.
@G1 @mikibell you missed the obvious correct method to do that… just sign the original yourself.
My wife had a note from her mom refused once because her mom actually signed it… not her!
I understand the points that it isn’t going to be terribly necessary in the future (does one sign a contract in print which is more easily forged?). But it’s a sad demise to me. I was surprised when my daughter (a teacher) informed me a few yrs ago that a lot of places weren’t teaching cursive any longer. I guess it’s akin to not needing to know how to build a stick fire to cook a hotdog outside when there are grills available now. But it becoming a lost art is sort of like just losing a part of my history, like cutting loose a long lost friend. And it is faster than printing. It’s sad to some of us boomers.
@lseeber I don’t think tracing a cursive signature is much harder than a printed one. Besides, I would just snap a photo of your signature (or scan it) do a little digital manipulation and paste it onto the document I want signed then print it out. Boom. Lots of stuff are “signed” digitally these days. Even PDFs and DocuSign stuff are just 1s and 0s that can be easily digitally reproduced. The real proof is in the meta-data behind the transaction.
I used to work at a place that wanted to move a lot of paper-driven processes into a electronic forms. Great! BUT…they wanted to display “wet” signatures on the digital forms… Ok… Why though? “So we can tell that person really signed it.” But…the system tracks who was logged in at the time it was digitally approved, so you know who clicked approve. (unless you’re letting your admin assistant login with your credentials which is against policy) “Yeah, but people like to see an actual signature.” Just so we’re clear here…the system will apply a digital image of the person’s signature to the document and that somehow brings you comfort? Further, they sometimes wanted the supervisor’s signature even if the assistant was the one doing the approval. WHAT?! That’s like rubber stamp signature days. What exactly is the point of that? You’re literally forging the signature. Basically, they want people to think the person on top is approving things when they’re really not and their assistant actually has the authority to do the approvals. So…lets just show the assistant as the digital signature? “No, because we want people to know the upper-level person says it’s ok.” The upper-level person has no idea this form even exists or what is being approved! So. Friggin’. Frustrating.
Edit: Also there is a reason why contracts require a printed name next to the signature. They want to be able to tell who actually signed it. The signature tells you nothing other than someone can scribble.
@medz honestly… I don’t feel that strongly about it one way or the other but… not everyone that is receiving something with a signature (check, bill of sale, etc) has the capability to trace all of what you mentioned. A lot of deals take place off line and have no electronics involved at point of sale or such. I have had my signature forged in the past and the only way I was able to get out of it was they compared my past signatures with that and saw the discrepancies. But really… I don’t much care. I just see it as becoming a lost art.
@lseeber I’m not sure it is specifically the case with cursive, but there is another point to sometimes dropping topics. There is a finite amount number of instructional hours in a child’s school career. As the world changes and new topics need to be covered, something has to get cut to make room.
@Limewater I do understand that… particularly with history. But usually cursive is in what… 2nd grade or something? I’m just spouting off. I do understand that it’s not so necessary. Except someone will need to carry on in order to read a lot of historical documents.
@Limewater @lseeber I learned cursive in 1st grade.
@Limewater @msklzannie Close enough… point is… I don’t think there’s a lot of old info they have to move out at that level in order to teach newer, more relevant topics at that grade level.
@lseeber @msklzannie Yeah, I don’t really know that’s the case with cursive. But I will say that my daughter just finished first grade, and she had computer work, Spanish, and Chinese. I didn’t do any of those things in first grade.
She didn’t learn cursive, but she clearly knows of cursive, and has tried to fake it, so I expect it is covered in her school. They also at least began covering how to read a clock.
But my daughter is also in a really good school system. And I feel like they give her a lot of homework for first grade. I would not be surprised if other school districts are a bit more relaxed and more willing to cut certain topics.
@Limewater @msklzannie wow. all those subjects in the 1st grade!? And homework? Other than memorizing my times tables and spelling words, never had regular homework until 7th grade (I think some science projects prior tho). You’re in my neck of the woods aren’t you? Mad county or city?
@lseeber The reason I remember the grade I was in is because we had to write/copy a poem as a Christmas gift for our parents. Only that particular teacher had her students do that each year. I believe my parents still have mine. I’d almost included in my earlier reply that it was 30-some years ago and I don’t know if the school district is even still teaching cursive. I would guess not based on the number of kids and teens who can’t even sign their names and print instead.
@lseeber Yep, Madison City schools.
She’s learned a heck of a lot this year, but I do feel like they’re working her too hard.
At the start of spring break she said excitedly, “I’m not going to learn anything!”
@Limewater I remember when one of my daughters was in school (she’s 38 now), straight A student (also was awarded perfect attendance for like 9 yrs in a row or so), she and 2 other kids were always in competition all throughout the school yrs over which one would come out on top (they were the top 3 students in their grades). She even graduated Univ with a 4.3. but… when she was younger she was sometimes totally bogged down with homework. She took her schoolwork very seriously and would often come home from school, have a snack and then spend 3-4 hrs on homework. I finally had a sit down at the school asking when the heck is she supposed to be a kid and enjoy her youth? Anyway… didn’t mean to veer off course but yep… I understand you and your daughter on that for sure!
Fuck cursive. Let’s go back to cuneiform.
@Pavlov If we’re getting all sentimental about preserving history and stuff, why not drop written language altogether. Spoken language came first, after all.
@medz @Pavlov Let’s just stop communicating all together. It’s the source of all problems anyway. Or at least go back even further. Let’s stick to “Grunt and point.”
@medz The Inca did ok without written language. There was that issue of human sacrifice though . . .
As someone who was forced to learn cursive back in the Middle Ages when I was in grade school, I’m happy to see it end. I hated it, and it took more time to do it legibly than it did to print letters. Then in the 8th grade, when I got to chose between a class in HomeEc or Shop, I learned how to do the hand-lettered font you see on blueprints. (Obviously in Shop class. Does anyone here think I would opt for HomeEc? ) I found that I could print it fast and legibly, and even keep it in even rows. It has worked well over the years to take notes, write checks, and write on chalkboards when teaching classes.
However, fast cursive was also useful, after a fashion. I really hated college lectures where the instructor was just repeating what was in the book but expected everyone to be furiously taking notes. I found that if I scribbled notes in my mostly-illegible cursive, I could write shopping lists, notes to myself, and strings of expletive-laced comments about the instructor’s teaching style, while looking like I was taking notes. It wasn’t as if anyone else could read it, even the wandering instructor.
@rockblossom I took HomeEc. I remember writing fake checks and balancing a fake checkbook. I also learned how to sew buttons and stitch-up small holes in clothing.
Today, I handle the family finances as well as any clothing and stuffed animal repairs that need sewing. I also do the typical DIY handyman stuff around the house, so I think I’m a pretty well-rounded person. Thanks, HomeEc!
@medz @rockblossom A lot of kids/teens have no idea anymore how to write checks. As a cashier I’ve taught some how to fill them out. I’m okay with filling out a check for someone who has vision problems or can no longer write very well, but I’ll talk through those who just don’t know how to write a check.
In elementary school, the teachers emphasized how important learning cursive would be to such a degree that my anxious child brain completely dropped using print in favor of cursive for the next several years.
I had difficulty writing in print again until some time in high school.
Let’s mandate the return of cursive, and stick shift transmissions, and disenfranchise a whole generation!
@ajdillon I think we should learn the metric system too!
@ajdillon @tinamarie1974 What? This whole mess STARTED when the commies introduced that crazy scheme of the so-called “metric system”! Give me back good ol’ hogsheads by the barrel.
@ajdillon @therealjrn
I had decent cursive and printed handwriting once upon a time.
Then I went to legible chickenscratch because speed.
Then keyboards took over my life.
Now, I can, of course, read cursive, if the writer is legible.
I can write it. Quite nicely. For a few words or for a sentence or two. Then the handwriting deteriorates terribly.
I lost the muscle facility to write even a decent-length paragraph legibly, thru lack of active and frequent practice of the fine hand movements, and my hand muscles tire into generating completely unreadable garbage so quickly. (And my hand aches.)
I presume a little practice could restore me, but have not done this.
I regret this. my dad kept beautiful handwriting all his life.
Not being able to write cursive is one thing.
Not being able to read cursive is another issue.
I’m really surprised that this admirable intern was not taught to do that, at least. Not that hard. Seems useful.
What if someone wishes to read their grandparents’ letters? I hope that will not require a cursive OCR translator.
I don’t like to think that anyone doing historical research on original written documents will be effectively blind, needing a translator.
Personally, I think cursive should be taught. Very lightly. Each year in elementary school. A wee bit of practice in writing and reading it. Then ignored.
That’s really all that’s needed to connect personal literacy from the past to the future.
I hope you encourage the intern to learn to read cursive, @ruouttaumind.
/giphy cursive
@f00l Shh. Genealogy researchers will be able to charge more if the historical records are in cursive and their clients can’t read them. Wait, pretty much all handwritten records are in cursive. Funny how that works.
@f00l I think you just explained why there’s a shift away from teaching cursive. How else can computers and robots take over if they couldn’t read our writing?
@f00l @narfcake
How will future generations read the black speech on the One Ring if they can’t read cursive?
Poor things.
/giphy one ring
@f00l
@f00l @rockblossom
@f00l @therealjrn Now I want that hat.
@f00l @rockblossom @therealjrn “I don’t get it”… cocks head to side… OH, never mind…
I did most of my primary education in the 90’s. We learned cursive in elementary school, used it briefly in middle school, and then I typed or wrote with printed (non-cursive) characters for everything else. I can generally read it fine, but have probably forgotten how to write some of the more elaborate letters (like capital G). Honestly, it doesn’t bother me at all that people aren’t leaning it. I never much cared for it myself when I was a kid and I guess was never forced to use it enough to grow a fondness for it.
Hey @therealjrn
You promised to send me your public and private PGP keys.
I think that communication will go more efficiently if you just post them publicly here in the forums.
Then we can all share.
Unless you’d rather put them on Reddit. Or on FB. Or on Instagram.
But, in the meantime, we have a totally secret and secure method of communication!
Here ya go:
@therealjrn
It’s a new font!
Uglè Illėgiblę Distortéd Fingėrtip Cursivë
@f00l Did I guess correctly?
/giphy the quick brown fox
@f00l That reminds me of notes I used to leave myself attempting to document my dreams.
@msklzannie
An inspired guess/interpretation. But not correct if I recall.
My offering is in a secret ultra-secure code. Not even I can read it anymore; too much time has passed.
I now can only tell what the message doesn’t say.
/giphy illegible
/giphy unintelligible
Hint: that message doesn’t say very much.
/8ball am I intelligible?
It is certain
Come on now, /8ball.
/8ball am I intelligible?
My reply is no
@f00l I figured with this being meh, there might have been a couple of additional “descriptive” words included.
@msklzannie
Ya think?
@f00l @msklzannie kinda more like the somewhat lazy fox tried to jump over the frozen dog. lol
https://www.wbez.org/shows/wbez-news/is-illinois-cursive-mandate-in-schools-producing-cursive-scribes/8fc9d64b-73d7-461f-97d4-6ffdd4718dbd
You imprisoned someone for the summer?
I think the word you’re looking for is “internship”
or was that used ironically?
@Pufferfishy
I would guess that’s a “swipe-keyboard-on-mobile-device-and-then-autocorrect-went-mad” type error.
After all, proofreading is a pain, and is nearly impossible to do well, when one is distracted or in a hurry.
Or when one truly hates to proofread.
Otoh perhaps @ruouttaurmind’s company offers very rigorous internships.
/giphy proofread
/giphy rigorous
@f00l @Pufferfishy @ruouttaurmind Proofreading is also a “lost art”. Nobody seems to bother any more, having a “they will get it anyway” attitude.
Reading the newspaper has gotten really frustrating for that reason.
@chienfou @Pufferfishy @ruouttaurmind
I don’t mind “failure to proofread” errors in casual communication; so long as things are intelligible or can be made so.
With professional or formal communications, I have a different reaction.
If you are catching proofread-failure errors in a commercial newspaper, that’s still kinda a “wow”.
I think “failure to proofread” is becoming more common even in professional or business settings.
Perhaps that habit will become socially acceptable soon. Or even become the norm.
In which case, ouch.
If professional communications start to originate more and more - or mostly - from mobile devices with touch keyboards, I see many more errors coming our way.
On mobile devices, both proofreading and error-correction aren’t easy. The devices seem to encourage “skimming”, so proofreading one’s own work on such a device effectively becomes “an activity apart” (in method, mindset, and mood), from ones normal interaction with the device.
@Pufferfishy Yes, irony based on the stereotype for treatment of student inmates… er, interns.
@f00l
No, irony. I despise swype type technologies. I struggle with all touch screen interfaces, and the last thing I need is another complication in the mix.
@chienfou I operate a publishing company, and I can attest to how difficult it is to get writers to proof their own stuff, and even more challenging to find reliable proof editors.
@ruouttaurmind
Well, cool.
I did think that might be “your sort of joke”, and quite deliberate, and quite a witty implication, as an alternative.
I use swipe-type kbs, because wrist probs otherwise.
But I’m no good at using them.
@f00l I just stick to a real keyboard when I can. I get frustrated on touch screens.
@f00l @ruouttaurmind that was my biggest compliant about windows 10. Most of it seemed aimed at social media and not productivity. I will wait to get to a keyboard and proofread my stuff way before I will use a phone or tablet. I’m not one to dash off something half cocked…
@chienfou @ruouttaurmind Profreading is for loosers.
@therealjrn Absolutely! Assuming you’ve got the typing, spelling and grammar skills to do it right the first time, every time.
@chienfou @ruouttaurmind @therealjrn Yea, poofing is so booring! thats wut autocorec5 it soppose ta do!
KooH
@chienfou @ruouttaurmind @therealjrn
Speeling is for genuses.
@chienfou @ruouttaurmind
We all ought to be about at least to proof our own simple and short biz communications.
But I’ve been told (by professional proofreaders and editors I knew in NY once) that proofing your own work is not that easy.
We tend (so they said) to read over our own errors, and a portion of our own minds autocorrects our own errors because we know our own intentions.
That said; most people can proof their own short stuff intended for professional or biz use. They sometimes just don’t want to.
It’s a diff mindset; it feels like “work”; and people sometimes think they should be exempt from it.
For example: I don’t like doing it. And when I do it, I’m afraid I’ll miss something.
(I prob just misused a bunch of semicolons. )
@f00l @ruouttaurmind I’m ok with being a bit liberal in the use of punctuation, especially in a forum like this one where commas, ellipsis, colons (“full” and semi) etc. are used to put emphasis, pauses etc in your thoughts. What I have trouble with is when people use autospell/autocorrect but don’t check to see if the change is actually right or not.
In the paper I see lots of examples of phrases that were started one way, then obviously reworded and inserted to replace the original, without actually taking out the original words… resulting in things like:
The accident is under investigation by the has been assigned to the highway patrol. That just drives me bat-shit crazy!
@chienfou I see this frequently when an editor proofreads a writer’s work. The intention was spot on to improve readability, but the implementation crashes in flames. I always hear the justification “That is a 1,785 word article with 5 errant words and three spelling errors. That’s less than a 1/2% error rate. Still an A according to my college grading scale.” Apparently errors are ok, as long as there aren’t too many? Yes, given a publication with tens of thousands of written words, errors will inevitably slip by, but strive to be better, not to accept “good enough”. I constantly preach about a quest for continuous improvement. Sadly, it constantly falls on deaf ears.