Cursive (from Latin ''curro, currere, cucurri, cursum'', to run, hasten) is any style of handwriting that is designed for writing notes and letters quickly by hand. In the Arabic, Latin, and Cyrillic writing systems, many or all letters in a word are connected.

In the United States of America, the name "cursive" is most commonly used to describe the method of writing that instructs students to join every letter in all words. In the United Kingdom and in Ireland, the phrase "joined-up writing", "real writing" or "joint writing" is far more commonly used, while the term "running writing" or just "cursive" is most commonly used in Australia. Cursive is also commonly known as simply "handwriting" in Canada, New Zealand, and the US. Cursive is considered distinct from the "block letters" or "print-script" method of writing, in which the letters of a word are unconnected. A distinction is sometimes made between cursive hand(writing), such as the D'Nealian method, in which the risers of the letters are slanted loops, and letters such as f, r, s, z, D, F, G, L, Q are quite distinct in shape from their printed counterparts, and italic hand(writing), such as the Getty-Dubay or Barchowsky Fluent Handwriting methods, which eliminates loops. There are no joins from j, q or y, and a few other joins are discouraged.

In Roman cursive, many, but not all letters are connected. In the research domain of handwriting recognition, this writing style is called "connected italic", to indicate the difference between the phenomenon of italic script and sloppy appearance of individual letters ("cursive") and the phenomenon of connecting strokes between letters, i.e., a letter-to-letter transition without a pen lift ("connected cursive").

The origin of the cursive method is associated with practical advantages of writing speed and infrequent pen lifting to accommodate the limitations of the quill). Quills are fragile, easily broken, and will spatter unless used properly. Steel, dip pens followed quills, sturdier, but still with some limitations. The individuality of the provenance of a document was a factor also, as opposed to machine font.

Cursive Greek

The Greek alphabet has had several cursive forms in the course of its development. In antiquity, a cursive form of handwriting was used in writing on papyrus. It employed slanted and partly connected letter forms as well as many ligatures. Some features of this handwriting were later adopted into Greek minuscule, the dominant form of handwriting in the medieval and early modern era. In the 19th and 20th centuries, an entirely new form of cursive Greek, more similar to contemporary Western European cursive scripts, was developed.

English cursive

Cursive handwriting developed into something approximating its current form from the 17th century, but its use was neither uniform, nor standardised either in England itself or elsewhere in the British Empire.  In the English colonies of the early 17th century, most of the letters are clearly separated in the handwriting of William Bradford, though a few were joined as in a cursive hand.  In England itself, Edward Cocker had begun to introduce a version of the French ''ronde'' style, which was then further developed and popularised throughout the British Empire in the 17th and 18th centuries as round hand by John Ayers and William Banson.

Back in the American colonies, on the eve of their independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain, it is notable that Thomas Jefferson joined most, but not all of the letters when drafting the United States Declaration of Independence.  However, a few days later, Timothy Matlack professionally re-wrote the presentation copy of the Declaration in a fully joined, cursive hand. Eighty-seven years later, in the middle of the 19th century, Abraham Lincoln drafted the Gettysburg Address in a cursive hand that would not look out of place today.

In both the British Empire and the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries, before the typewriter, professionals used cursive for their correspondence. This was called a "fair hand", meaning it looked good, and firms trained their clerks to write in exactly the same script.

In the mid-19th century, most children were taught the contemporary cursive; in the United States, this usually occurred in second or third grade (around ages seven to nine). Few simplifications appeared as the middle of the 20th century approached.

After the 1960s, there lay an argument that cursive instruction was more difficult than it needed to be. There was the consideration that conventional cursive was unnecessary, and it was easier to write forms of simply slanted characters called italic. Because of this, a number of various new forms of cursive appeared in the late 20th century, including D'Nealian and Getty-Dubay; most of these models lacked the craftsmanship of earlier styles such as Spencerian Script, Zaner-Bloser, and the Palmer Method, but almost all were less demanding. With the range of options available, handwriting became non-standardized across different school systems in different English-speaking countries.

With the advent of typewriters and computers, cursive as a way of formalizing correspondence has fallen out of favor. Most tasks which would have once required a "fair hand" are now done using word processing and a printer. However, some western etiquette advocates the use of longhand in personal notes (e.g., thank-you notes) to provide a sense that a real person is involved in the correspondence.

English cursive in education

On the 2006 SAT, a United States college entrance exam, only 15 percent of the students wrote their essay answers in cursive.

In a 2007 survey of 200 teachers of first through third grades in all 50 American states, ninety percent of respondents said their schools required the teaching of cursive.

A 2008 nationwide survey found elementary school teachers lacking formal training in teaching handwriting to students.  Only 12 percent of teachers reported having taken a course in how to teach it.

In 2011, the American states of Indiana and Hawaii announced that their schools will no longer be required to teach cursive (but will still be permitted to), and instead will be required to teach "keyboard proficiency". As of 2011 the same was true of Illinois.  Since the nation-wide proposal of the Common Core State Standards in 2009, which do not include instruction in cursive, the standards had been adopted by 44 states as of July 2011, all of which have debated whether to augment them with cursive.

Cursive Russian

Cursive Chinese

In Persia, the title "the Great" at first seems to be a colloquial version of the Old Persian title "Great King". This title was first used by the conqueror Cyrus II of Persia.

The Persian title was inherited by Alexander III of Macedon (336–323 BC) when he conquered the Persian Empire, and the epithet "Great" eventually became personally associated with him. The first reference (in a comedy by Plautus) assumes that everyone knew who "Alexander the Great" was; however, there is no earlier evidence that Alexander III of Macedon was called "''the Great''".

The early Seleucid kings, who succeeded Alexander in Persia, used "Great King" in local documents, but the title was most notably used for Antiochus the Great (223–187 BC).

Later rulers and commanders began to use the epithet "the Great" as a personal name, like the Roman general Pompey. Others received the surname retrospectively, like the Carthaginian Hanno and the Indian emperor Ashoka the Great. Once the surname gained currency, it was also used as an honorific surname for people without political careers, like the philosopher Albert the Great.

As there are no objective criteria for "greatness", the persistence of later generations in using the designation greatly varies. For example, Louis XIV of France was often referred to as "The Great" in his lifetime but is rarely called such nowadays, while Frederick II of Prussia is still called "The Great". A later Hohenzollern - Wilhelm I - was often called "The Great" in the time of his grandson Wilhelm II, but rarely later.

Rulers

Religious figures

Other

See also

Notes

Category:Monarchs Great, List of people known as The Category:Greatest Nationals Category:Epithets