A headline worth sharing. When King Charles went into hospital to have repair work done on his prostate, Associated Press headlined its story: ‘King Charles III admitted to hospital for prostrate treatment’. Well, I suppose he was lying down when they worked on him.

In the United States, 23 out of fifty states have now made it mandatory that school children be taught ‘cursive’ writing. Surprisingly, the hyper-woke state of California (under Governor Gavin Newsom, a darling of the left) is the latest to join this ‘cursive’ phalanx.

Thinking back to my own days in primary school I remember ‘cursive’ was first called ‘joined-up’ writing and then ‘running writing’.Beginning in 1784, ‘cursive’ was used to label a style of penmanship in ancient manuscripts – especially Greek. From this it was extended to mean any writing in any language that could be written without lifting the pen from the paper. Interestingly, the expression ‘running writing’ is found in our own Macquarie Dictionary but is not in either the Oxford or the Merriam-Webster.

So, was ‘running writing’ a distinctively Australian expression? Was it used nowhere else in the world? Although it’s not listed in The Australian National Dictionary as one of ours, I suspect it might be.

But back to this resurgence in running writing, or ‘cursive’. Advocates say it helps a child’s brain development and fine motor skills. Back in 2009 the great Umberto Eco wrote an article on ‘The Lost Art of Handwriting’ in which he said, ‘Most kids – what with computers (when they use them) and text messages – can no longer write by hand, except in laboured capital letters’. Then he added, ‘My generation was schooled in good handwriting, and we spent the first months of elementary school learning to make the strokes of letters’. Much the same happened in my school days (and possibly yours).

One thing that ‘joined-up’ writing did for me was to show me how units of language connected and flowed together – letters into syllables, syllables into words, words into sentences and so on. Umberto Eco believes that good handwriting connects the brain to the language being written, and that students are more likely to take pleasure and pride in something they have written well.

What is the state of ‘cursive’ writing in Australian schools? If you know the answer, drop me a line and let me know if it is still being taught.