Hacker News Reader

Comment by withinboredom | Hacker News Reader

I don’t know man. Since the invention of pens/pencils, language has gravitated towards not lifting the pencil. It looks like I can write that in cursive in about 2 seconds. In other words, in the same amount of time it takes for me to draw a really shitty triangle, I can have written an entire word.

View on HN

See my sibling reply. This is true of my native script. It started off with straight lines a couple of millennia ago (when stone tablets were used), but when writing moved to palm leaves (http://www.natlib.lk/collections/olaleaf.php), the script gradually became rounded because the sharp stylus used to tear the leaf.

Totally true. Indeed the goal of creating a conscript, at least for me, is to have fun and be able to keep something like a journal that would look funny and "cryptic" at a quick glance. Maybe one day I will manage to create a cursive that is also nice to see and easy to remember : )

Also, drawing angles breaks the flow and speed of writing. Back in university, I remember replacing squares checkboxes by circles because it was faster to draw. (And a friend copying me when he noticed it) All those angles seem painful to write by hand.

Interesting. Probably it was indeed the case for a period of time that not lifting your quill was fast.

I am not sure that for ball pens or pencils, not lifting has any advantage.

> I am not sure that for ball pens or pencils, not lifting has any advantage.

You already know the answer if you've ever written anything quickly by hand: it has significant advantages.

No. Not for me.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com