A single sentence, uttered in the trial of George Zimmerman for the shooting of teenager Trayvon Martin, has catapulted an issue into the national spotlight.

When asked if she could read a letter in court, witness Rachel Jeantel, her head bowed, murmured with embarrassment, ‘I don’t read cursive,’ according to court testimony.

Is it any surprise that cursive — the looped, curvaceous style of handwriting that’s been a mainstay of education for generations — is all but dead? [15 Weird Things We Do Everyday, and Why]

‘Cursive should be allowed to die. In fact, it’s already dying, despite having been taught for decades,’ Morgan Polikoff, assistant professor of education at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education, told The New York Times.

‘Very small proportions of adults use cursive for their day-to-day writing,’ Polikoff said. ‘Much of our communication is done on a keyboard, and the rest is done with print.’

The recently established Common Core State Standards, the standardized educational benchmarks for U.S. public schools, omit cursive as a requirement. Some states, including Indiana and Hawaii, had dropped cursive from their curricula in favor of keyboard proficiency as early as 2011.

‘I think it’s important to have nice handwriting, but the importance of […]