Tag Archives: penmanship

Cursive

Cursive: (adj) handwriting in flowing strokes with the letters joined together

Upon seeing the word, I immediately sat down to see if I could remember how to write in cursive.

It’s still there. I can do it.

It’s completely useless, since I’m not going to be writing a farewell from a Civil War battlefield, nor composing sonnets for Juliet.

When I learned cursive, I was told it was very important.

I want you to listen to this: I was GRADED on it. They asked me to work on it and improve it.

Was there not one mortal over the age of twenty who had enough foresight to realize that we probably would not be scribbling notes to one another in the very near future?

Doesn’t it make you suspicious of other things?

There is a litany of rules and regulations—not to mention, stipulations—that are laid on us every day and pronounced essential.

Case in point: I remember as a small child my aunt teaching me how to correctly use silverware. Honestly, I am not sure that the majority of American people in the course of one day ever touch a fork or a spoon. With our food all coming to us in packages and our hands being the most logical tools for grasping, I just can’t imagine how my aunt’s training on cutlery has proven to be magnificently beneficial.

We are lied to by liars who were lied to before us.

We are prompted by prompters who were prompted.

And we are trapped by trappers who themselves were ensnared.

What is important?

It is a question we do not dare ask. In doing so, we might offend at least half of the populace, and then, when we turn around and pose it in a different way, absolutely annoy the other fifty percent.

Whatever you may think, cursive writing was not a necessary practice, and more than likely will fail to achieve a comeback except in little cults, holding competitions for “Best Penmanship” as they listen to Mendelssohn and chomp on crumpets, sipping herbal tea.

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Author

Author: (n) a writer of a book, article, or report.

I guess they have to say something about me.dictionary with letter A

I’m talking about those individuals who are assigned the mission of introducing me at concerts or public speaking events.

So I do allow them to call me an author.

In the practical sense, I have written 12 books and pen 3 daily blogs. I guess I am within the boundaries of the definition.

But honestly, an author is someone who has an idea, finds a way of communicating it and presents it in such a way that it causes the reader to be transformed. Up to that point, you are merely practicing penmanship or speculating on paragraph formation.

Here’s what really makes you an author:

Did you have a good idea?

Did you keep it in a vernacular which is understandable?

Were your readers impacted?

Without these three elements you’re just writing.

So I have to be honest:

  • Sometimes I am a writer
  • A paragraph carver
  • A shifter of words
  • A predicate to a nominative

And then there are times when I am inspired by simplicity instead of motivated by complexity–and I put down a few concepts which rattle the heart in the chest and awaken the mind to a new possibility.

If Shakespeare were alive today, he would reject his own material as outdated. He would laugh at those people who revere his syntax and he would learn the street lingo of our time, and author from his heart.

If you’re going to be an author, you have to realize that sometimes you just write. Not everything that comes out of your computer is inspired, nor worth public consumption.

But it is through the error that the trial gains beauty.

So I will continue to write, and on rare occasions, will author something worthy to be considered by my fellow-humans.

This is not a position of false humility, but rather, the realization of the limits of my scope and the tenuous nature of my mortality.

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Applicant

dictionary with letter A

Ap·pli·cant (n): a person who makes a formal application for something, typically a job.

Filling out a form often has no reason.

I have done my share, as I’m sure you have.

Matter of fact, in the business world, being handed a form to fill out is often considered to be a formal greeting. Sometimes there’s a clipboard so you can sit and write on your knee, using the pen attached by some sort of wire.

They are certainly attempting to communicate that this is part of their process, and demanded if you plan to be included in their little cult of the organized.

Each application has its own personality. It also has its own level of nosiness.

At a doctor’s office, an application can include questions that go back into the lifestyles of your ancient ancestors.

Did my great-grandfather have rheumatic fever? (Honestly, I don’t know, so I make up an answer.)

If you’re applying for a loan at a bank, they want to know lots of things about your lots of things–even lots of things about your little things. And especially little things about lots of things.

Probably the most grating experience in the human panorama is watching someone peruse your application while you sit, wiggling and squirming in silence.

  • Did I answer right?
  • How was my penmanship? (Mrs. Bosley always said I made really ugly “n’s.” Of course, I was in the first grade…)

Yes, there’s nothing quite as frustrating–dare I say aggravating–as being condemned over answers scrawled on a piece of paper.

And I have made the mistake of trying to be humorous on such applications, only to have the interviewer, who obviously has no mirth anywhere within his or her soul, question me as to the meaning of my answer. At that point, it hardly seems to be appropriate to say, “I was kidding,” and saying I misunderstood the question is even more embarrassing.

No, being an applicant and filling out an application is serious business.

It demands an adult mind–one which is still childish enough to believe that such filling in the blanks is actually a microcosm of one’s life.

 

 

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