What has years (ok decades) done to my cursive?

 Remember cursive writing. You might remember because there is a font for it.

This a cursive font, is a fair representation of cursive itself.

I bring this up for a reason. I am trying to edit a document I have typed and printed. The document is multiple pages long and I am editing and rewriting. This process is easier for me when I edit with hand written notes. Of course there is the problem of spelling, but that will be fixed when I make the edits.

I found that what has happened is that the muscles used in cursive writing haven't been used in a while.And they don't hold up like they should. Trying writing pages of notes up in cursive. Seriously, your thumb will hurt. It sounds stupid, but is totally true (except for teachers who must mark up up students work with hand written notes - I get that Phil and Lisa.)

Weird huh?

I have also heard, even though I don't know if it is true, that some schools are begin to phase out cursive. I get it, but it will render many old documents and letters illegible to the majority of the population. If you don't believe me, look at some of the names and info in old census forms. If those of schooled in cursive can barely read that, image future investigators. Cursive will become like "shorthand". Finding a person that can read shorthand is near impossible.

For those of you that don't know what shorthand was, it was an abbreviated cursive system for secretaries to "take a letter" for a boss.  Per Wikipedia:

...a method of rapid writing by means of abbreviations and symbols, used especially for taking dictation. The major systems of shorthand are those devised in 1837 by Sir Isaac Pitman and in 1888 by John R. Gregg (1867–1948).

My grandmother could write shorthand, but it is a lost art now. Reading someone else's writing is even tougher.

It is worst than hieroglyphics.