jkiol wrote:
Not only have I forgotten how to write in cursive, I've forgotten how to write in lower case.
I also don't use lower case letters when writing. Rather, my "lower case" letters are simply half the size of my "capital" letters.
This is due to my time in the military, when I was working in jobs that trained me to write in all upper case letters for clarity (errors caused by unclear handwriting were not acceptable). Even when no longer required by the job, I found that I liked the clarity that writing that way provided to both me and people who needed to read my handwriting.
That is the main reason, besides lack of use, that I no longer write in cursive. Even when writing in cursive regularly, at times my own handwriting was difficult for me to read when I tried to read something that I'd written recently. But with things I've written in block letters (as described above), even decades later they are still as legible as computer-printed documents.
Despite the advent of computers, I think there will always be a need for handwriting. But as it has been made clear by the many posts in the thread, one of the main reasons cursive is fading from use is that many people find it much easier to write in block lettering or in upper/lower case lettering. That, and people's bad experience in trying to learn and use cursive have caused them to abandon cursive when no longer required to use it.
I think that, eventually, cursive writing will move into the same realm as calligraphy. It will be an admired artistic skill that (when done well) produces beautiful results.