[pjlegato]

Cursive may well functionally fill the role of social class shibboleth in certain circumstances and specific social environments, but that is very secondary to its highly practical primary function: you can write _much faster_ in cursive than by any other means.

There were no typewriters or computers through almost all of human history. Writing was it. This skill had, and to a large degree even today still has, enormous practical and economic value.

The utility of this ability to efficiently produce text artifacts is vastly higher when one can do so in a manner that is readily legible to others, which requires that one use an approximation of standardized, well-known glyphs. The closer you can produce them, the more differentially legible your written output is to others. It's not merely a coded signal for your elite status.

Even today when many can take notes on a keyboard, writing notes by hand has a well studied secondary practical effect of improving retention and comprehension, as well as being available any time a pencil and paper are at hand. These still work when dropped, when they get wet, when the power is out, or when you forgot to charge them.

[mgas]

Agree on all accounts, except for paper working when wet. :P

[potta_coffee]

You can read it after it gets wet, mostly / sometimes. Writing is another story.