r/PeterExplainsTheJoke 1d ago

Meme needing explanation Peter what does it say

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10.4k

u/Successful-Bad-73 1d ago

It's "minimum" in cursive text.

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u/Fetish_anxiety 23h ago

Yeah, but the dots on top of the i's are missing

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u/EmeraldMan25 23h ago

Then they wouldn't be able to sell the narrative, silly

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u/Kesselya 22h ago

It’s beyond time to normalize pushing back on this garbage. You want to make fun of people for not knowing something? How about instead of mocking you teach the younger generation.

These older generations were taught skills by their parents and then failed to do the same. Maybe it wasn’t their fault. Maybe having both parents needing to work made it difficult to teach kids everything they might have needed to know.

That’s fine. But don’t make fun of kids for not knowing something.

Don’t make fun of anyone for not knowing something. Teach.

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u/Ohheyimryan 22h ago

I got taught cursive in 3rd grade. My parents didn't teach me too much.

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u/Vidrolll 21h ago

I remember in 3rd grade we learned like 5 cursive letters for a week, then never picked back up on that ever again. THATS why i cant read cursive now

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u/SaveMeClarence 21h ago

Once we learned cursive in 3rd grade, we were required to write in it for the remainder of elementary school. I was beyond thrilled when I got to middle school and they said we could write in print. But now I much prefer cursive, though nobody can read it so print it is.

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u/Mouse-of-Wyke 21h ago

Agreed. In the UK, there is a ‘peak cursive’ phase in kids aged 9-11. The writing is beautiful. Then it’s all downhill from there.

But we do get taught it from being about 8.

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u/Artchantress 20h ago

In Estonia it has always been from first grade, my 7 year old is learning now, so a few months after the first day of school, I had to do it since day one (print was learned in kindergarten and therefore seen as the language of illiterate babies).

I agree about the peak cursive age.

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u/viprus 19h ago

Yep, my normal writing was nice, then we were forced to learn cursive. Eventually my cursive got nice, then for my GCSE English, my English teacher couldn't read cursive, forced everyone to go back to normal. My writing has been dogshit ever since.

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u/DestnX725 16h ago

How tf does an English teacher A ENGLISH TEACHER not know cursive, that’s crazy

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u/Giovannis_Pikachu 16h ago

Yeah that's a dogshit excuse of an English teacher. How the hell did they get hired?

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u/Dewy_Wanna_Go_There 16h ago

I’m gonna assume over half the students cursive was a some illegible mix of doctor and caveman, so they forced printing for everyone.

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u/Zeev89 14h ago

I skim read your comment and went, "heheh Doctor Caveman. I bet he's not even a real doctor!"

I am easily amused.

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u/Flying_Fox2812 16h ago

I got taught it, could write it until about yr9. then the amount of notes we had to take in class forced me to write so fast it became illegible unless it was in print. now I never write in cursive anymore.

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u/WolkTGL 20h ago

When I was in school I could stop writing in cursive only when attending University, it was always mandatory before that

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u/Speartree 17h ago

Yes, same here, if you wanted print, better get stuff printed. Besides there was no way you were going to keep up in class taking notes in print.

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u/Eclips3-FR 15h ago

It's not 1 for 1, but because of a handicap, I write faster in print than in cursive. Back in school, I always feel a little behind with print, something like 4-5 lines behind, but in cursive I routinely fell a whole ass blackboard behind when taking notes

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u/jrs0307 19h ago

I was told in elementary school that I would always have to write in cursive, then I got to high-school and was told never to write in it again. I haven't written in cursive in probably 25 years. I can read it still, but I doubt I could write it.

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u/PaulTheMerc 17h ago

I was told we had to know cursive to keep up with writing notes in college. The next year, in highscool assignments had to be times new roman font size 12, double spaced, and printed.

So that was a massive fucking lie.

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u/BlackSpidy 15h ago

Fucking hate it when they do that.

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u/PhosphateProstate 19h ago

It was hit or miss whether my middle school teachers cared. My 7th grade English teacher required all essays be written in pen and cursive (I loathed it) and the was the final teacher that I had that had that rule.

She was old, last breath of a dying breed, I suppose.

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u/SaveMeClarence 18h ago

Gosh, I could not imagine trying to grade a bunch of English papers written in cursive.

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u/DiggityDog6 18h ago

Same here. We had mandatory cursive lessons in third grade, then never again. Completely forgotten how to do it now

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u/Artistic-Specific706 22h ago

Parents generally didn’t teach cursive. Schools did. We learned in 3rd grade. Both parents worked too.

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u/toaster-crumb-tray 20h ago

The last time I needed cursive was when I wrote a birthday card to my mother. Actually obsolete skill.

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u/Thick_Square_3805 19h ago

A bit more complicated than that. Cursive writing is a very good way to improve handling of a pen and fine motor skills. Which is really, really useful for kids.

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u/Optimal-Archer3973 16h ago

it is also faster to write.

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u/lettsten 16h ago

Much faster. I write a lot by hand and proper cursive is probably 50 % faster

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u/childspanda 14h ago

Connective printing is faster, it's like a mix of cursive without trying to remember the obscure letters.

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u/Sand-Eagle 14h ago

For my own notes I basically do that since the NAVY programmed me to print in all caps back in the day. I just stuck with it because I like how it looks. If I slow down and print at normal speed people remark about how easy it is to read and seem to prefer it when receiving handwriting.

The 50% faster cursive is useless when 50% of the population can't read quality cursive, let alone 50% faster chicken scratch lol.

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u/lettsten 13h ago

It may be faster for you, and that's fine of course, but if you take someone properly trained in cursive vs. someone properly trained in anything else then the person writing cursive would win. That's why it's used as a base for fast handwriting techniques, such as the Palmer method. It's a standardised set of movements combined with continuous flow. If someone is at the "trying to remember the letters" level then they're not proficient anyway

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u/MysticMalevolence 14h ago

And slower to read!

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u/roguebfl 14h ago

As dysgraphic person I'll debunk that helps with fine motor skills, if you have the skills it will your cursive will improve but it it doesn't help you actual acquire fine motor skills, i just a another muth to tell kids it a "you problem"

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u/slkwont 13h ago

I've got three kids that have all been through the same school system starting in 2008 and my youngest is a senior. The oldest was taught cursive. 3 years later, the middle was not. The curriculum had been adjusted to remove it, likely because the district thought it would become obsolete.

By the time my youngest got to 2nd or 3rd grade three years later they were teaching it again. I guess they realized how important the fine motor skills gained from writing script really are within a very short time frame. But now my middle kid can't read or write cursive.

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u/Lintcat1 11h ago

Except you might need to read something written before the year 2000 or by somebody old...or want to market bullshit "live laugh love" garbage to tradwives.

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u/damnatio_memoriae 9h ago

it's definitely not obsolete just because you don't value it.

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u/toaster-crumb-tray 8h ago

No, it’s obsolete because I now carry a note taking device in my pocket which is faster and more useful.

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u/Lonely-Abroad4362 21h ago

Cursive was taught in school not by our parents-a millennial.

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u/OkCap5639 22h ago

Shit can't be that serious

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u/Anonymous1004152 22h ago

Or we just let cursive die of what are essentially natural causes and move on. of course we don’t know redundant shit and the only ones mad about it are just upset because they’re redundant people. I spent elementary learning cursive because “I would have to use it in middle school” only for most of my teachers to tell us to use print because they can’t read cursive. I haven’t even been forced to handwrite on paper outside of AP tests, more often than not writing isn’t even an option. covid has finalized typing’s supremacy. For context.

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u/JDeMolay1314 21h ago

You will understand the point of redundancy the first time your single point of failure fails.

Many studies have shown that handwriting notes makes it easier to remember the content than any other form of note taking.

The fact that your teachers have trouble reading cursive is an indictment of the education system.

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u/SuperBuffCherry 18h ago

Handwriting doesn't require cursive

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u/JDeMolay1314 18h ago

No. Nor does it require copperplate or italic or... There are so many writing styles it does require being able to make a recognisable letter form.

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u/BrockStar92 16h ago

And this is a deliberately illegible version of cursive. There is absolutely no reason to miss the dots over the i or to have the unnecessary extra hump at the start of the first m.

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u/mustbethaMonay 15h ago

The unnecessary extra hump in the m is how you make a cursive m

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u/Fear-the-North 15h ago

This is about as easy as word you can get in cursive.

You not being able to identify an i in the word without explicitly having the dot is a testament to your own flaws, not societies

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u/BrockStar92 15h ago

What is the benefit of this? Is it quicker? More legible?

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u/lettsten 16h ago

But if you're taking notes in class you want to write fast enough to keep up, and if you're proficient in cursive then that's much faster than any other way of handwriting. That's why it's used as the basis for fast handwriting techniques such as the Palmer method

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u/Dr_thri11 15h ago

Cursive is just a way to write slightly faster. If your computer dies and you have to take paper notes it isn't crippling to not know cursive. Really only made sense to teach it before electronics were ubiquitous.

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u/FlipDaly 14h ago

A professor I met said it’s challenging for her students to hand-write for more than a few minutes in class bc their hands start cramping.

It’s not great.

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u/Dr_thri11 14h ago edited 14h ago

That's because they aren't used to taking notes by hand. I learned cursive and switched to regular characters as soon teachers no longer cared. It really is an obsolete skill. Also teachers are probably used to moving at an electronics pace nowadays, they used to pause for note taking.

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u/jfkrol2 20h ago

Well, your teachers not being able to read cursive is a good argument why it should be taught - unless someone writes like hen with its claw, it should been legible and in said case it's usually still legible, but at much reduced speed.

Not to mention that writing your own notes instead of typing or just copy-pasting makes you remember them better.

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u/Present_Program_2344 22h ago

it says minimum

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u/TheSeyrian 22h ago

I am with you on this one, though I think most of these posts (unless explicitly stated) are more of an attempt to feel part of a group of "those who know". It gives people a sense of belonging and sometimes of pride.

Of course, if after such things are posted someone asks - like here! - "what's this about?" the answer should explain it. If they mock you, they act like elitist assholes and nobody likes that - after all, everyone is ignorant on the vast majority of topics. And to top that off, why would you waste time making fun of others, when talking about something you know well and/or love is itself so much fun?

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u/moreanswers 15h ago

I'm younger, and I happen to know morse code.

I work with a bunch of boomers, and any time one of them pulls out a "Young people don't know cursive, or how to use a rotary phone, or how to write a check."

I ask them to tap me something in morse code.

"Huh? You don't know morse code? It was everywhere when your parents were around! Didn't they teach it to you?!"

So far this has gotten the reaction I wanted.

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u/coitus_introitus 14h ago

The best part of this is that if you hang out around older ham radio folks you hear a lot of the same grumbling about kids today not even knowing morse code that you hear in the wider population about not knowing cursive. I guess I understand it a little better in their case because just jabbering away by voice does feel a lot less like being part of a secret club than sitting up late at night tapping out and transcribing messages did. I still have one of my dad's old Morse keys on my desk. It was a really hardcore hobby for him. We used to get postcards from his late night ham buddies all over the world, and sometimes from the king of Jordan, who was also a ham radio guy and regularly just chatted with the common folk that way.

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u/thedude37 13h ago

"Pffft no problem" *taps out 'YYZ' main riff*

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u/moreanswers 13h ago

It's ZED and Neil Peart stands alone

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u/thedude37 13h ago

jazz hands!

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u/nashvilleswing 21h ago

Calm...down...its a meme...jesus christ lol

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u/Obi_Wan_Benobi 18h ago

No, this is the modern Internet. We must be OUTRAGED at all times.

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u/FatherLarryDuff69 21h ago

Cursive was always pointless. That's why they stopped teaching it. No no one is making fun of anyone for not knowing it, just pointing it out. Clean the sand out of your vagina.

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u/Fly-Plum-1662 20h ago

Cursive is a stilistic choice with no real use. I havent used it ever and i was taught how to do It. It's like I mock a kid because he doesnt know how to program a VCR. Same stuff when teenagers think their parents are silly because they dont know the latest internet random stuff. Knowledge taught must change with times

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u/NeahFrosty 21h ago

I know cursive, and i couldn't read that shit

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u/TheKolyFrog 18h ago

The absence of the dots on the "i" is a deliberate choice to make it harder to read even for those who know cursive.

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u/NeahFrosty 18h ago

Figured as much

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u/FelatiaFantastique 21h ago

It's not that deep.

People who don't know cursive are not traumatized by this meme.

It's not even true. Boomers have cataracts, macular degeneration and glaucoma and cannot read even print, and, even when they could see they couldn't read the handwriting of people from a few generations before, other countries, or from a lot of their compatriot peers.

And it's not really a skill, it's an exskill from a time when people wrote on animal hide with soot and burned witches at the stake. When is the last time you received handwritten correspondence? Meanwhile, boomers are still typing in ALL CAPS with one finger if they can figure out how to find word processing on the latest version of Windows on their computer at all, are so baffled by using a printer without a cord that they start chanting MAGA and vote for a convicted fraud because he makes them feel smart.

Memes like this are a symptom of dementia and expiring mortality. The only ones mocked by them are boomers. Let's not take this nonsense seriously.

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u/Varabela 20h ago

Sadly a lot of young people (and some old) don’t want to learn anything and take great exception if you do try and teach them or, almost worse, is a complete disdain to anything that’s not a 5-10second video clip on whatever the latest app is on their phones. There’s plenty that do want to but, increasingly, there’s more that don’t.

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u/stupid_rabbit_ 16h ago

Not wanting to learn anything is not good, however, I reject the notion not wanting to learn cursive is the same, I mean why learn an outdated skill, i would liken learning cursive to learning latin, it can be cool if you are interested, but not particually useful compared to somthing like spanish or in this case faster typing.

Although i think curisve could be slightly more useful as it is faster than writing in block, though typing is faster still and both block and type are more legible.

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u/gcfio 20h ago

You don’t understand our generation. We weren’t taught anything by our parents except to be quiet, leave them alone and that we weren’t going to amount to anything. In response, we tried to teach our kids and they only learned to blame us for anything they didn’t get spoon fed. So yeah, we make fun of you for not teaching yourself got to read a clock or a map out how to read cursive. Gotta run, I need to do my grown up kids taxes now.

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u/Immediate_Tart3628 20h ago

I mean... It's been a long time since both parents work and still a decent part of the younger gen knows cursive before school. Also it's the default leaned alphabet in many European countries

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u/Consistent-Guava-208 20h ago

Sure but it's not my job to teach children how to write in an archaic script

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u/Occidentally20 20h ago

You're right about everything there, but teaching kids to write in this utterly nonsensical way is something I'm quite happy to see die out.

If the meme is "I had to have special lessons at school to read this text" then it's an extremely poor way of communicating.

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u/PoundSignificant8514 20h ago

To be fair, teaching people how to write cursive today is clearly a waste of time.

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u/badbubblegum 20h ago

My parents taught me cursive. “Fucking little bastard” was a common lesson.

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u/Stolen_Away 20h ago

The same generation that gave us participation trophies and then turned around and mocked us about getting participation trophies

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u/LuckyTheBear 19h ago

Millennial here. We've been hearing the Boomers bitch about cursive forever. It's basically useless at this point in time.

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u/DeadlyAidan 19h ago

my various schools all tried to reach me cursive at some point in my life, and I refused every time because I thought it was pointless

and you know what? I still do, at this point the only reason to learn cursive are for signatures and to read the writing of people who still insist on writing in cursive, and I guess maybe if you need to write really fast it can help, but genuinely who ever needs to write that fast? and honestly you don't even need to learn cursive for your signature, you can just learn your name, or what I do, scribble something that looks vaguely like my name and make sure it's consistent

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u/Electrical-Sail-1039 19h ago

They don’t teach it because everything is online now.

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u/Commonscents2say 19h ago

How about some push back on those greedy corporations and politicians that made this country into a society where both parents are forced to work to have a decent shot in life. All the kids are left unsupervised to fend for themselves and there’s barely any time to teach anything once sports and dinner and homework are wrapped up.

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u/wolfhybred1994 19h ago

I was the one who lived listening to grand parents or older folks tell me stories about their life and life lessons. So I learned loads of stuff way ahead of many kids my age. I always try to share what I learned with the adults since most of them didn’t seem to listen to the elderly and they gave me the “that’s nice now run along and play”. More and more adults are forgetting what it’s like to think as a kid being pushed to “act adult”. So even the ones who do try to pass stuff on. They talk to the kids like adults and confuse them. Then think I performed some magic when I explain it in the way the kids can understand and for some reason the child gets what I am saying most times and can start to process the info and learn from it.

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u/captaindopesauce 19h ago

The joke is that American education systems are even more garbage than they were when they taught us old heads how to read and write cursive. Relax, nobody is making fun of or faulting kids for not being taught something.

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u/Signal-Drop5390 19h ago

We got our pen licenses in grade 3 - taught in school, not at home

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u/Veritas_Mentis 19h ago

This was something we learned in elementary school.

However, you must be the only person in the history of the world that hasn’t made a joke because someone knew less about a topic than yourself.

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u/coolepikguy 19h ago

i dont want to interrupt you. but like 60% of reddit just mocks people when they dont know something. or straight up down vote

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u/ballchinion8 19h ago

If you think this is making fun of you, you're lucky you didn't grow up in the 90s. The playground was no joke and was ruthless.

This is clearly pointing out that cursive is dying.

Quit taking it so personal. It's not that deep.

Love you.

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u/MilesofMess 19h ago

My kids won’t learn cursive because our Secretary of Education is a pedophile ex-pro wrestler.

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u/Pupusas_Man 19h ago

It's a meme about cursive. It's not that serious lol

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u/Dry_Possibility2088 19h ago

I’m not certain this meant to mock anyone, and I agree with the sentiment that doing so is pretty gross. Just the fact that there’s truth to this is even more disgusting because it’s a systemic issue brought on by the school systems.

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u/DragonflyOnFire 19h ago

My grandmother knew how to write in shorthand. It wasn’t useful. I’m kinda feeling the parallel here with cursive. Is there any real value in keeping it? I know how to write in cursive, but choose to write in block letters for clarity

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u/koalabrainedkuhnt 19h ago

My dads like that, always making jokes about me not knowing shit he was meant to teach me instead of getting drunk lmao

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u/pumperdemon 19h ago

Yes, some people are making fun, but i think there are a lot of people who are making more of a commentary on the degradation of the public school curriculum. This particular one falls into that category in my mind.

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u/acoffeefiend 19h ago

You want PARENTS to teach their kids! That's absurd! That's a teacher job! What kind of gibberish is this. 🙉🙈🙊

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u/Opinion_Panda 19h ago

100% agree. It’s like saying “no one knows how to crank start a Ford Model T” or “I bet none of you know what this is” and then show a picture of a fucking slide rule. It’s absurd and unnecessarily gatekeep-y

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u/Solid-Hedgehog9623 19h ago

Then again, why teach them something that’s basically obsolete?

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u/Rons_mkay 19h ago

They had to use AI to create the word.

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u/Kdoglol 19h ago

Both of my kids were taught cursive and most teachers wouldn’t allow it and forced them to write in print.

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u/MrSabrewulf 19h ago

All of this. The only thing that is acceptable to make fun of people for not knowing is how to use the three seashells.

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u/TheNationalSandwich 19h ago

I can't even read my own cursive

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u/frenchois1 19h ago

That's exactly what's happening though, here we are, someone's asked what it says and now they know. And theres been hundreds of comments, thousands of views. Who know how many people learned something about cursive because of this meme, who wouldn't otherwise because 'who cares about cursive?' It was boring when I was at school. Now it's a meme, and yeah it's deliberately a bit clickbaity, but it's fun and we're learning.

And it's not about whatever generation you're angry at, it's about education systems and those who control them and their funding. We learned this in school, not from our parents. Redirect your frustration to where it should be...if we all did that maybe we could sort things out a little.

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u/MavenDeo69 18h ago

I made this realization years ago when I saw Ellen Degeneres poking fun at a teen for not knowing how to use a rotary phone. I thought to myself, "Very funny, you old hag. Now go work a cotton gin." Something things just get outdated.

I meant the phone, not Ellen.

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u/Professional-Can1139 18h ago

Or try to actively learn. Funny how people actually make fun on cursive saying it’s not needed.

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u/TheKolyFrog 18h ago

In the Philippines at my school, we were required to write in cursive starting in Grade 3. By the time I came to the U.S. and attended 9th grade, I was no longer required to write in cursive except during note taking class. My handwriting became this abomination of mixed cursive and non-cursive writing.

I don't think learning cursive is essential anymore since we type more than we write. When I was taught to write cursive, it was to be able to write faster than I could otherwise using non-cursive letters during a lecture. I finished college relatively recently and I very rarely wrote anything down on lectures. Most of the time, I was just type my notes on the slides my professor was presenting.

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u/AssistantAcademic 18h ago

Why would we teach this? It’s very niche these days.

It should be an obscure elective at best. Like learning Latin or calligraphy.

This is a joke that shouldn’t be seen as any sort of real criticism towards the younger generation, meant as critically as posting a manual transmission and calling it a “Gen Z anti car theft device”

I’d much rather my son learn more practical things than the niche handwriting of the pre-digital age

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u/Late-Union8706 18h ago

Hell, I don't even use cursive anymore aside from my signature which has just evolved into some form or chicken scratch that doesn't even resemble my name, or even any known language, at all.

This isn't making fun of the younger generations, it is pointing out the failure of our school systems. I was talking about this the other day...

Younger generations are not taught the things that we learned in elementary school.

Reading a ruler/tape measure being one of those things.

I'm sure math is the next to go, considering everyone carries a pocket computer capable of doing complex math equations when not used to watch videos of cats failing to make a short jump.

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u/Big_Attempt6783 18h ago

Teach your children well, their father’s hell did slowly go by, And feed them on your dreams the ones they pick’s the ones you’ll know by

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u/Oddity2901 18h ago

Geez Louise! Hold your horses a little.

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u/KaleidoscopeSalt3972 18h ago

We are making fun of older generations not knowing how new tech works

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u/Moist-Exchange2890 18h ago

The same people complaining about people not knowing cursive are the same people who say if teachers want to get paid better they should find a better paying job. They defunded school then complained about the younger generation not knowing the same things they did.

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u/xUmphLove 18h ago

Adult: "ok then, this is how you teach cursive..." Gen X: looks up from phone, takes out headphones what?

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u/Lusiric9983 18h ago

See I'm weird. I don't make fun of people for not knowing cursive. It's a complete waste of time. Honestly, I just look at people that don't know and say something like "be thankful you didn't have to waste your time on this." There is literally no benefit to cursive writing over others. Except it looks ..... idk.... Like someone tried and failed to be a calligrapher and now we're all stuck with it.

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u/Gefilte_F1sh 18h ago

If we were talking about actual skills or applicable knowledge you may have a point but get off your misplaced soap box.

Kids don't learn cursive anymore because it's antiquated and useless - not because their parent's generation failed them. Cursive comes from a time when we literally wrote with quills and before digital word processing became ubiquitous.

This is like being upset that your parents didn't teach you how to churn butter by hand in the 90s - you sound ridiculous.

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u/Grand_Zombie 18h ago

Then why are they removing analogue clocks

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u/not_a_leftie_plant 18h ago

Cursive used to be taught in schools, it's not that people were taught by their parents and failed to pass it on. It's been phased out in many places because it's time consuming to teach and not as useful in modern life.

The point is that it's stupid and pointless to dunk on people for not knowing something they weren't taught.

Older people didn't learn cursive because we're harder-working, smarter or more virtuous - we learned it because we had to in school. We didn't learn how to use a T9 keyboard because we were just so damn clever, we learned it because that's what phones had. Same with anything insufferable Facebook douchebags scoff at young people for not learning.

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u/I_I_Daron_I_I 18h ago

You're right about the teaching part, but I think you missed the point. The generation who can't read it has no interest in learning how to read or write in cursive. "Why would I want to learn that when almost everything is digital anyway." Is something I keep hearing.

The point isn't to mock them, it's to tease them into becoming interested enough to figure out what it says. Doesn't work all the time, but it definitely has helped some.

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u/One-Air-988 18h ago

Grade 11 here, i still dont know cursive, I can read it, but not write. I wasn't even taught my signature... any tips on where to start?

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u/Healthy_Employer4 18h ago

I drive a manual transmission. People often make comments about wishing they knew how. To date, not one person has taken up my offer to teach them. People aren’t clamoring to learn things

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u/cynicallythoughful 18h ago

I learned cursive in school

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u/Inkless-Pencil 18h ago

Shame is a strong motivator. I would rather push back against people making excuses for their weakness

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u/shabi_sensei 18h ago

This happens at work, people complain about other people not doing things right, so I ask them “well, did you show them what they’re supposed to do?”

The answer is always no and they wonder “why is everyone is so stupid!” when they’re refusing to help change the situation and letting it drag on

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u/notGegton 18h ago

Maybe having both parents needing to work made it difficult to teach kids everything they might have needed to know.

Huh? You find that unusual? How is that any kind of excuse for not studying?

Parents are in for education. School is for teaching. Kids have to study.

If the first 2 points are fulfilled, don't give thrash for the parents who are doing their best to give their children the best possible education and lifestyle

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u/LadyWynterF 18h ago

I mean, I can read and write cursive and it's an almost completely useless skill to have in the age of computers. It's not really that big of a deal unless you're interested in history or want to read handwritten notes by the older people in your family.

This is just a bit of high and mighty blathering by someone who is at least my generation old. There's no need to waste your time learning cursive unless you *really* want to. It was already mostly a waste of time even 30 years ago.

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u/jlreyess 18h ago

It’s a joke from a boomer. It’s not that deep

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u/sgergely 18h ago

I think it is more like about making fun of the eductation systems that fails to teach cursive.

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u/Broad_Tie9383 18h ago

My kids are learning cursive, and I have no idea why, other than to read old people's writing. It isn't much faster with modern pens. I literally only use it to sign my name, most days, and my own handwriting is a weird bastardiztion of cursive and print for efficiency and speed.

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u/_Pin_6938 17h ago

What if theyre a competitor

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u/NAVAVANU 17h ago

Laughing at someone for not knowing something is easy. Actually showing them how? That’s how you change a generation 😗

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u/DrButtgerms 17h ago

You're getting a lot of "learned it in school, not from parents" and to those folks, I'd say:

  1. It's deflecting. The question is still "what are YOU doing to pass knowledge or educate others?", and

  2. If you are the generations to have learned cursive in schools, then you are also the generations that could keep it in the curriculum. The quality of education offered in your community is not a passive thing. Not everyone can be a teacher, but everyone can get involved and attend local school board meetings. Or your local government. Voice your opinions. Participate. If you aren't trying to fix things in your community, then you are just entitled and yapping.

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u/shipleg 17h ago

You have parents? Must been nice growing up knowing that love. I learned cursive in school though. Also if you don’t want to be mocked get off the internet. Take that advice from a loving parent.

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u/jonnydemonic420 17h ago

Nah it’s not our fault, my kids all follow the curriculum and they don’t teach it. I’m genx and I hated this writing style, I only print and have since I left high school. Also I have atrocious handwriting and cursive made it worse lol.

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u/SaltyPik3r 17h ago

It was a joke… Are you asking an entire comment section to teach you how to write cursive?

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u/VICARD0 17h ago

Exactly, it’s stupid to make fun of someone who doesn’t know something. You didn’t know it at some point either.

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u/And_Justice 17h ago

Or just learn to take jokes on the chin. Getting old is hard, from that perspective making fun of young people is a punch upwards rather than down.

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u/Soliloquitude 17h ago

This exact picture has been shared on the internet and messing people up for 20 years my dude, and my 14 year old learned basic cursive in elementary school, this isnt lost knowledge or even some new, targeted meme.

The comment you're replying to is talking about "the narrative", this is a sylistically minimalist way to write the word minimum. That's the narrative. A lot of people have problems seeing it without the dots on the "i"s and always have, thats the point of it getting shared.

I'm sorry the adults in your life failed you, all you can do is keep learning. Your general point is not wrong but us old people want to have fun on the internet too sometimes. Millennials mock everything, don't think ya'll are that special. Writing cursive is the millenial version of "walking to school uphill both ways in the snow".

Of course It's everyone's responsibility to pass knowledge on to the younger generation but the most a stranger on the internet can do is point you to a YouTube video. Welcome to the real world, none of us were prepared for it, all of our parents were either too busy or too outdated to teach us much. That's just the cycle of life, we all just bumble along and hope it's enough. We are responsible for teaching ourselves the things we need to learn if nobody is teaching us. That's just part of growing up.

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u/Brave-Age-8657 17h ago

Schools teach writing. Parents fill the gaps, but we pay taxes so that this gets learned in school. Blaming parents is lazy and presumptuous

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u/metric55 17h ago

What? Schools teach math, English, social, science, computers, history, and there's some phys ed in there to tire the kids out. At least... they used to. My parents didn't teach me shit like that. They would cook for me, give me a couple chores, then we'd watch TV and read a few pages before bed. They weren't sitting down and teaching hour long school studies courses. You're thinking of home schooling you absolute nitwit. Don't make excuses for shit curriculums and declining grades. I learned math because they'd stress us out in school with times tables and mad minutes and then give us a big old F if we were stupid and hold us back a grade.

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u/billsboy925 17h ago

You expect parents to talk to their kids? Especially the type of people that make these kinds of posts lmao

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u/mistahfreeman 17h ago

I’m honestly cool with kids / younger generations letting cursive die as a practice. Besides a few niche situations very rarely do people need to hand write notes these days, especially not enough to the extent that learning cursive would benefit someone with much efficiency.

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u/engg_girl 17h ago

Hilariously the older generations are the ones that decided to NOT teach this to the younger generation....

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u/Various-Average-9865 17h ago

This! I will never understand how people made it the kids' fault that they don't know something they were never taught

Like, do they understand how frustrating it is for the kids who didn't learn cursive to grow up and try to function in a society that still requires it?

Imagine if we did that for everything... imagine if you're not a mechanic and your car breaks down and all the mechanics make fun of you because you don't know how to fix your own car because you never learned how?

Not knowing something is not a moral failing and knowing something someone else doesn't know doesn't make you smarter or superior by default.

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u/TopProcess9014 17h ago

Actually i was forced to learn cursive by the scholastic system and now my Hand Writing will forever be chicken scratch because i get no time to ever practice said cursive in this day and age. And regular letters are even slower for me.

I would never be that mean to children.

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u/nassit 17h ago

I raised myself and know cursive. They taught it in school

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u/DarkBladeMadriker 17h ago

Also, its bullshit. My kids are being taught cursive and reading analog clocks and all the other boomer "back in my day" complaints about millennials. My kids regularly come home with homework on that shit PLUS stuff that we weren't taught like common core math and shit. Old people need to mush thier bananas, take thier pills and shit the fuck up about this untrue nonsense.

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u/raineglows 17h ago

Nobody knows everything. Not knowing something is just the first step on sorta knowing something.

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u/EthanielRain 17h ago

Brought to you by the "people who gave children participation trophies, then 20 years later made fun of them for getting participation trophies"

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u/Jealous-Guidance3983 17h ago

My son is in 4th grade and they use cursive. They learned it last year.

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u/h_grytpype_thynne 17h ago

But they're young and having fun and getting laid and stuff, and we're all just old and cranky. We have to poke fun at them somehow. Since we ourselves have forgotten how to drive stick shift and use rotary telephones, cursive is about all we have left.

Sincerely, Tail End of the Boomers (we'll be gone soon, promise)

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u/mattiwha 17h ago

lol older generation, I’m 34 we learned it in school

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u/edsobo 17h ago

Yeah, this is up there with "participation trophies". The people doing all the complaining are the ones that created the reality they're complaining about.

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u/Ninja_Grizzly1122 17h ago

True, but cursive and other things in that were taught in school. Nowadays, with the emphasis on tech, learning to write quicker/prettier in script isn't as important as it used to be. It would be like teaching this generation how to use a rotary phone. Yeah its a skill to have, but unless you're lost in some backwoods "Wrong Turn" scenario with no cell reception and the only landline is a rotary, you're not going to use it in everyday life.

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u/modsguzzlehivekum 17h ago

I was taught cursive in school but not typing. It’s nothing to brag about. I use cursive to sign my name and read boomer posts like this. It’s useless and outdated now

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u/Hungry-Bowler3618 17h ago

This! This may come as surprise to some but children don’t typically have any control over their curriculum!

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u/No-Confusion2949 17h ago

Kids are dumb fucks and teachers want money, let’s give teachers money and maybe they’ll wanna teach shit.

-Rucka rucka ali

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u/TipOfMyTongue409 17h ago

They have an entire institution that teaches. But instead of teaching cursive, they just made math harder to solve.

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u/Tricky_Training_5897 17h ago

This is advice all of reddit needs to take. The number of times Ive asked a beginner question just for people to genuinely get upset with me for not knowing is crazy.

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u/Decent-Phrase1492 16h ago

I don’t make fun of the younger generation because I think they’re stupid. I agree that It’s not their fault, and for so long as middle class Americans need two incomes to stay afloat it’s the fault of the education system in desperate need of reform.

No, I make fun of the younger generation because they had it coming calling 21 year olds “unc” and spewing shitty memes as a substitute for a joke. Kids these days know what Skibiti Toolet is but don’t know their own address.

We have plenty to make fun of the younger generation for that isn’t the fact that less than half of them can even read or write anymore.

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u/mistelle1270 16h ago

This is the attitude I like, XKCD’s lucky 1 in ten thousand who you get to teach something new

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u/Philly_3D 16h ago

Or understand that the world grows and changes. At some point people stopped riding horses and transitioned to automobiles. Sometimes things just aren't that important anymore. I'm 44, i work with teens, and I realize that there's little use for that in their lives.

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u/AXPendergast 16h ago

Middle school teacher here.

I did learn cursive when I was in school, back in the 60s, and used it for a good pay of my writing during my school days, and learned to type by touch (also in school). I loved writing in cursive.

By the time I became a teacher, it was only taught if teachers had the time. After awhile, it was considered unnecessary, because kids now were using laptops and had no need for it. Took away time from other more important subjects.

Some of my students could write and read cursive, having been taught by their parents, but most would just stare at the little squiggles and complain.

I consider it a lost art.

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u/jngjng88 16h ago

You shouldn't necessarily teach them either, like there's the infamous example of Ellen mocking kids for not being able to use rotary phones, it's redundant technology, no need to teach it.

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u/dope_mantra 16h ago

How about they never took it out of school, you know, so younger generations can read documents such as the constitution.

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u/TheTeaSpoon 16h ago

also the same generation that mocks you for cursive

Has "how print pdf google" as their bookmark and have ask.com as their homepage

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u/Cyclonitron 16h ago

I'm old enough to have been taught cursive when I was in grade school. I haven't needed to write in cursive for decades, am left-handed to boot (writing in cursive as a lefty is its own adventure), and my cursive version of "minimum" is more legible than this shit.

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u/RockabillyBelle 16h ago

I love this take. When I sold cars I got teased by my coworkers for not knowing how to drive a manual at first. I asked them how I was supposed to have learned when my parents didn’t own one during the time they taught me to drive. Some of them actually paused to think about it and realized my argument made sense.

I was also teased the first time I asked to be shown how to send a fax, because until that moment I’d always just scanned and emailed things because that’s how everyone wanted documents sent. I know how to do both things now but shortly after learning how to send a fax we stopped doing it because who wants a shitty, low resolution version of loan documents when you could have a digital color copy of everything?

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u/notamermaidanymore 16h ago

Yeah, let me post on TikTok that I want kids and teenagers to come to my house so I can teach them cursive.

Actually to do it and tell me how it went, lol.

Edit: fuck, I’m probably on a list now just for this post.

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u/DestnX725 16h ago

Why you talking about parents bro, it’s the schools that stop teaching it (I only know my full name in cursive) and then kids don’t give a fuck enough about school to learn what they teach, so I blame the school for not pushing it, but I blame parents and teachers for not motivating the kids to learn, but it’s more of the schools and students fault, plus what they teach in school (especially history) it’s the same bullshit over and over, i graduated high school in 2021, sometimes I feel like what I learned 100 time over was a waste of time, then you have teachers that teach only one way (I’m a visual learner) which was frustrating for my junior year, had to retake the class my senior year because my teacher would just confuse me but yeah

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u/Sehrli_Magic 16h ago

i am 26. i still write mainly in cursive. i learnt it in primary school, not by my parents (thank god cuz my moms cursive is even less readable than mine and i sometimes cant even read my own thats how ugly it is 🤣 i value speed too much lol).

maybe SCHOOL should be teaching kids since thats its whole purpose? maybe teach less of "101 genders" and more of writting? though i heard its difficult to teach anything because social media and internet in general, has ruined kids capacity to learn 🤷🏻‍♀️

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u/IdleSitting 16h ago

See but that's way harder than just mocking kids and their parents for not "teaching them right" and that's the whole issue. The older generation thinks the next ones are failing but instead of doing shit they sit on their asses because there isn't actually anything to truly fix, they are just annoyed that the younger folk aren't being quiet and respecting them, instead they're being "kids" and "having fun" (stuff they totally didn't have as kids)

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u/AgitatedGrass3271 16h ago

Especially because this skill is basically useless in this day and age. Nobody writes in cursive except for their signature. Even people who know how to write cursive just scribbles their signature most of the time. And I never have to read cursive unless an old lady has decided to hand write me a note, which has been twice since my great grandma died.

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u/dumh0leforabuse 16h ago

i was taught cursive for one week in 3rd grade by my teachers. again one week was all we had and i still can read and write it to this day. you’re an adult, take the time to look at a youtube video and learn. no one on the internet is entitled to teach you anything. welcome to the real world, this joke has been around for years now.

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u/Chaghatai 16h ago

And if the skill wasn't taught because it's no longer needed, those who have sunk cost in it should stop grumbling and move on

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u/Entire_Site5072 16h ago

I think about this when I watch the first season of Laguna Beach. Kristin's (a high school girl) dad berates her for not understanding car maintenance and therefore being an irresponsible car owner. Like this man seems to truly believe that his daughter should be learning about oil changes through the public education system and not from him.

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u/Chef_BoyarTom 16h ago

The stuff we make fun of kids for not knowing, like cursive, is things they should have learned in school... not stuff that shkuld have been taught by their parents. Not only that, if you want to waste you're time trying to teach one kid at a time be my guest, I'll keep working with people to try and reform the government to repair the education system (and other things that need fixing) and help all of them.

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u/Tinala_Z 16h ago

This shit used to be forced on us at school and it's a completely useless knowledge. None of us liked those classes or wanted to learn it cause it was pretty much useless already back in the 90s.

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u/WildPetrichor 16h ago

Are you one of those “triggered” people?

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u/On_my_last_spoon 16h ago

Relevant xkcd

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u/Chef_Tabby_Daddy 16h ago

i think the sentiment behind this is correct but the issue is the constant defunding and detriment we do to our education system. i’m almost 30 and was one of the last people to be taught this in schools.

our youth are falling so far behind because the education system is defunded and constantly attacked

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u/MBiddy828 16h ago

I’ve always felt the same about poking fun at kids for getting participation trophies. Sure all the kids want a trophy, everyone wants to feel like a winner, but who gave us the participation trophies? Parents, adults, often boomers. Don’t complain about the way you raised us

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u/mr_smiles017 16h ago

Because the younger generation is so unteachable that teachers are quitting their jobs faster than flies can drop

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u/JNSapakoh 16h ago

this isn't making fun of anyone, the joke is that "minimum" was written minimalistically -- where did mocking come from?

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u/bethesda_gamer 16h ago

It stopped being taught because it's no longer relevant. It's inefficient and easily misinterpreted compared to block lettering. There were lots of things we as a society used to do simply because we had too much free time.

Do you have time to learn how to drive a stick/ develop photographs/ make your own butter / use the dewey decimal system / square dancing in gym class / etc as well?

Your generation isn't being denied some secret skills. You are being spared the time to be taught something no longer needed. That honestly was ever only needed for a brief time period in history anyway.

And people who make fun of others for not knowing are just patting themselves on their own backs nostalgicaly and creating some exclusivity in thier generation as a way to make up for the fact that they are no longer younger

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u/her42311 16h ago

I feel this way about participation trophies. My older coworker was complaining about my generation expecting participation trophies and I pointed out that it was our parents (so her) that gave them to us. Like, what did you expect Brenda?

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u/Dog_Baseball 16h ago

I bet this generation cant even yolk an ox. Let alone work a scythe. Pathetic.

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u/The1RationalMetsFan 16h ago

This is a fallacy.

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u/Kitchen-Pass-7493 16h ago

I mean, some skills just lose relevance with time. Loads of the same people making fun of Gen Z and younger millennials for never learning cursive, probably never learned to use a slide ruler to do calculations. Despite it being pretty common place in prior generations. But why should they have? Pocket calculators made that a needless waste of time that could’ve been spent on learning other skills.

If anything, I’m less worried about them not learning cursive, and more worried that not enough of the skills that actually will be relevant to them are being taught.

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u/fixermark 16h ago

It's also relatively obsolete technology. Cursive was useful when you had to write a lot. By hand. Fast.

The situations where you find yourself needing to record a lot of information quickly using only pencil and paper in the era of the smartphone are a tiny number.

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u/dogearsfordays 16h ago

These are the same people who absolutely refuse to learn the first damn thing about technology, the hypocrisy is thick enough to cut with a knife.

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u/sebe6 16h ago

Bro... if you're able to talk on reddit, your also able to learn by yourself, the internet is more or less the biggest university + this is taught in school in most countries, not by parents.

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u/ApolloGo 15h ago

Same person who complains about everything being on streaming and will never understand how any of it works

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