Re: [Rollei] Obsolete skills (was Why the 6-element lens for 3.5Fs)

[TrueBadger]

In a message dated 5/3/2003 7:37:41 PM Eastern Standard Time, sld   writes:

> 
> 
> I think this is even more obsolete. I had to learn penmanship with pen
> and ink. In elementary school, I had an inkwell in the top right hand
> (that's right, the state didn't recognize left handed writing) corner of
> my school desk. We had to wear smocks over our school clothes to keep
> them from being soiled with ink. 
> Oh, and yeah, this was in France, the land of Liberty, Fraternity,
> Equality, etc.
> Slobodan Dimitrov

The French were not alone.  US schools taught penmanship with ink pens and liquid ink well into the late forties and probably beyond. Penmanship "exercises" were a daily routine in late elementary school.  They also compelled lefties to write with the right hand during those years. I remember somewhat of a "debate" over whether the newly-marketed ballpoint pens should be allowed.  Similar in character to the more recent debates about allowing students to use calculators.

About once in a decade I still run across someone who can and does write a classic spencerian script.  The most recent was a young woman (she'd now be closer to 35) who had no other highly developed skills I was aware of.  She was an assembler in a company where I did some engineering consulting. 

Her comment to me was "You may be smart, I don't know about that, but you write like a damn fish."

G. King
 

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