I have had similar thoughts recently when attending language courses where I write a lot of notes by hand. This problem is exacerbated by umlauts. If the language doesn't have letters like ō (are there any? i only see this letter to represent a sound, never in a word), then the two dots can be replaced with a line and so, I guess, the lowercase T technique from the blog post could be adapted to it. I think I know what I am gonna do after work today
Huh, I just indirectly learned from this article that the way I write a lower-case "t" in cursive is a Dutch way of doing so. A quick search suggests it has been replaced with an English style of "t" in the last decades too.
I wonder if that makes my handwriting harder to read for anyone who isn't Dutch and over 40 years old.
Anyway, just bringing it up because you don't need to lift up your pen to write that kind of "t".
Search for "koordschrift" on https://primarium.info/countries/the-netherlands/ to find the illustration showing how I was taught to write it in the late 80s. It's the letter vaguely shaped like a pine tree.
You may want to look into Sütterlin script. It's a bit harder to learn than standard cursive, but it's very pretty, and a level-0 encryption since few people can read it nowadays.
For anyone interested in optimising this further, orthographic (letter-based) cursive shorthand systems are the answer. I personally only know part of the Melin system[1], but there are variants designed for English as the primary language too. (Melin is of course perfectly usable with English also.)
The flow of a cursive shorthand system is unmatched by anything else. I highly recommend learning enougnh to experience it.
(The drawback with more phonetic systems like Gregg is that one has to learn entirely new ways of spelling words. But normal English spelling is so complicated that tradeoff can be worth it for heavy usage. Orthographic systems often also contain phonetic components, but they tend to be optional extensions that improve efficiency, rather than required like with purely phonetic systems.)
> Isn't that what everyone is doing, or are we Frenchmen the exception?
> For reference if the author reads this, we write the latin x exactly like the cyrillic х, i.e. reverse c, bottom-left to top-right diagonal, normal c.
I was taught script in the US and Italy as a child, and never learned it like this.
> One way to remove backtracking is to lift the pen immediately instead of waiting until the end of the word, as if doing italic calligraphy. Pen lifts alleviate the mental queue problem and give a chance to readjust the palm, but they break the writing flow.
Usually writing small, in all-caps, except code: in lowercase, and the "t" and "i" retain their lower curve. Cursive is difficult; easy to write, but (later) hard to read.
Can see how penmanship there would be appreciated.
I wonder if that makes my handwriting harder to read for anyone who isn't Dutch and over 40 years old.
Anyway, just bringing it up because you don't need to lift up your pen to write that kind of "t".
Search for "koordschrift" on https://primarium.info/countries/the-netherlands/ to find the illustration showing how I was taught to write it in the late 80s. It's the letter vaguely shaped like a pine tree.
The flow of a cursive shorthand system is unmatched by anything else. I highly recommend learning enougnh to experience it.
(The drawback with more phonetic systems like Gregg is that one has to learn entirely new ways of spelling words. But normal English spelling is so complicated that tradeoff can be worth it for heavy usage. Orthographic systems often also contain phonetic components, but they tend to be optional extensions that improve efficiency, rather than required like with purely phonetic systems.)
[1]: http://melinsstenografi.nu/image/sti-ukast.png
The point of the phonetic systems is that you don't have to ‘spell’ words at all: what you say is what you write.
(Then there are briefs, of course, but those are for additional benefit.)
Wouldn't the ф as well?
> [for the x], I draw two mirrored c’s
Isn't that what everyone is doing, or are we Frenchmen the exception?
For reference if the author reads this, we write the latin x exactly like the cyrillic х, i.e. reverse c, bottom-left to top-right diagonal, normal c.
I was taught script in the US and Italy as a child, and never learned it like this.
Not if you write it as qo for lower case and oJo for capital.
> One way to remove backtracking is to lift the pen immediately instead of waiting until the end of the word, as if doing italic calligraphy. Pen lifts alleviate the mental queue problem and give a chance to readjust the palm, but they break the writing flow.
Can see how penmanship there would be appreciated.