Having fully accepted my status of "old fuck who shouts and shakes fist at clouds", the number one thing that I regret supporting is the move to drop cursive from the educational curriculum.
I mean, I get it, cursive is really stupid. Look at that capital g, that's fucking stupid as shit, doesn't even look like the goddamn letter; but it has had the effect of multiple generations growing up who cannot fucking sign their own name.
So we have loads of people, even right now, who are required to sign agreements and paper contracts that only know how to print their name. I am horrified. Because you see signing your name makes it less likely that someone will commit you to something that you did not actually do. That's why they teach doctors to sign their name incredibly illegibly so that no one forges their name on prescriptions.
My last neurologist, who graduated from college the year I was diagnosed with the disease he was treating me for, was absolutely panicked when asked to sign his name live and in person as was required by a government form. Because apparently his employer, my monolithic insurance company, had assured him that one time was all he needed to do and then thereon everything would be signed electronically. Which the government specifically forbade on this particular form. And the sheer look of terror at having to block print his own name on the government form made me realize that we are doing our children a very serious disservice. You cannot be distinctive with your signature if it's all block printing.
That's why I learned to forge a particular teacher's name instead of my mother's name, who had learned to forge by copying her father the artist's signature. It was too complex for me so I forged the easier one. And now we have multiple generations of people who are adults who are being required to sign contracts for things like leases and bank accounts and other contractually binding shit that is still handled with paper, and they cannot write their name in a way that is not vulnerable to malfeasance.
I am attempting to teach my youngest to develop a distinctive signature, but he will not practice.
Cursive is just a game of seeing how many letters you can write without lifting your pen off the paper. It's not that scary.













