War Damage Commission claim form c1 p2 (cropped)

Block letters (known as printscript, manuscript, print writing or ball and stick in academics) are a sans-serif (or "gothic") style of writing

Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greece, Greek city of Cumae, in southe ...

in which the letters are individual

glyph A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...

s, with no joining.

Elementary education Primary education or elementary education is typically the first stage of formal education, coming after preschool/ kindergarten and before secondary school. Primary education takes place in '' primary schools'', ''elementary schools'', or ...

in English-speaking countries typically introduces children to the literacy of handwriting using a method of block letters, which may later advance to

cursive Cursive (also known as script, among other names) is any style of penmanship in which characters are written joined in a flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster, in contrast to block letters. It varies in functional ...

(joined) penmanship. The policy of teaching cursive in American elementary schools has varied over time, from strict endorsement such as the Palmer method in the early 20th century, to removal by

Common Core The Common Core State Standards Initiative, also known as simply Common Core, is an educational initiative from 2010 that details what K–12 students throughout the United States should know in English language arts and mathematics at the concl ...

in 2010, to being reinstated. On official forms, one is often asked to "please print". This is because cursive handwriting is harder to read, and the glyphs are joined so they do not fit neatly into separate boxes. Block letters may also be used as a synonym of block capitals, which means writing in all capital letters or in large and small capital letters, imitating the style of typeset capital letters. However, in at least one court case involving

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling disclo ...

s, the term "block letters" was found to include both upper and lower case.
Fossil Inc v The Fossil Group
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References

Penmanship Language acquisition {{Latin-script-stub acquisition-stub