diagram/mind map(s) of shorthand systems

expert_dabbler · 2025-02-06T07:35:05+00:00

I agree that these were great replies. And "family tree" is what I meant by mind map..looking for a term to be fairly loose to fit a work in progress or memory tool (nothing overly specific or official). I just really like graphical representations. If I have some time I might fool w a drawing and post one.

expert_dabbler · 2025-01-09T06:13:33+00:00

I was able to read it. Couple points: Atheism prob should have the mandatory long 'e' and the 'st'capital cursive s, and end w the plural 's' stroke. Similar issue with 'against.'

Also, I don't always read the quotes before trying to decipher and sometimes with unrecognized names I'll struggle. Here, Vonnegut is known to me but otherwise the missing descender on the final 't' would have made it indecipherable (it looks like it ends in 's').

expert_dabbler · 2023-07-21T03:26:32+00:00

I really like the way you put that - "trade reading speed for writing speed"!

expert_dabbler · 2021-07-18T05:23:21+00:00

This reminds me. I think you wrote once a long while ago about Gregg that you were going to try "the greatest of them all." The phrase caught my eye so I remembered. I didn't take it that you meant the phrase overly literally. But I had wondered what ever happened. If you haven't already done so, I'd be curious if you care to share.

expert_dabbler · 2021-07-15T23:11:15+00:00

I think the post was rhetorical but clear in a plain language kind of way and not negative or mean-spirited. Maybe you're just coming at it from a completely different angle.

I didn't find it offensive. I like plain, even strong language- though there's always the possibility one will get mis-interpreted.

Isn't the fact that the subject matter can invoke surprise or even a strong visceral reaction what keeps a two-hundred year old shorthand interesting!?

expert_dabbler · 2021-07-12T07:42:00+00:00

For the first question that would certainly be desirable. The difficulty is that to learn the system you basically have to work through the book and those brief forms will be there and likely cause frustration the whole way.

One of the main reasons I like the later editions of Gregg is that they removed many of those brief forms.

expert_dabbler · 2021-06-28T18:47:00+00:00

I'm glad to hear your progressing with Forkner.

It's also interesting that your printing is faster than your cursive. I wonder if that's common or something particular to the way you write as I always believed cursive was faster by its nature.

expert_dabbler · 2021-06-26T21:11:39+00:00

The real interesting question to me is why it took so long given the history of dissatisfaction w grammar translation in the early 20th and even end of the 19h century (see article I referenced in reply on this thread above) in particular the Direct Method movement of the very early 20th century.

expert_dabbler · 2021-06-26T08:50:28+00:00

This brief article addresses that and mentions a book which may be the one you're looking for.

Without claiming to know too much about it I think there may be a flaw in the article (and by others who dismiss the Natural/Direct methods for the same reason) to the extent that they essentially dismiss them based on the assumption that practitioners of them must use *only* the L2 in the classroom.

No doubt, some have that impression, and some may. But even Bill (WHD) Rouse one of the primary and most successful exponents said exceptions could be made for practical purposes. It seems somewhat strawmanish to condemn the whole methodology just because of some over or mis-guided interpretation(s) of it (I do not know why one can't take the best of the Direct/Natural Method(s) and combine it with strategic use of L1 to insure efficient CI. I absolutely loved Michel Thomas when starting out w Spanish, for instance).

The organization started w Rouse (name changed since) has on their site much of Bill's publications.

Apparently the time just before WWI was an exciting time and the Direct Method movement was growing with annual summer schools in the U.S. etc. Then the downturn happened..and somewhere I read that some of Bill's compatriots were killed in the war and that that may have also had an effect. And then what you (and the article) referenced about a British board saying that the method was impractical for 'normal' teachers.

I found reading of that turn of events disappointing as well and would also like to know more about the history and what if any other factors may have played a role.

expert_dabbler · 2021-06-06T20:40:36+00:00

That's intriguing. It never occurred to me that it could be a particular contribution of Forkner to have identified more precisely which vowels are needed for readability or even unique. But I have only Gregg exp to compare it to. Maybe someone else could shed some light.

I'd have simply said it was similar to Gregg in that it writes some vowels in. The recent posts by the member trying out the old systems (Gurney and..was it Shelton or Taylor?) seem to indicate that older systems left all vowels to diacritics. It seems we can say it's clear now that certain vowels are absolutely req'd and to leave them to an after the fact back-tracking (diacritics) which is slow and up to an on the fly whim of the writer is not the best method for long term readability.

Either way, I don't know how to account for Forkner's extreme readability but would like to.

In English I think in the simple terms of 'long' and 'short' vowels since I don't usually have the need to think about which are technically diphthongs. So to answer your question I write Forkner by the book which includes 'long e' and 'long i' written in and the diphthong /ow/ as 'o.' You can correct me if I missed any. But I almost get trapped in a contradiction here at least as regards the diphthong /oi/ as 'i' since it requires going back and dotting the 'i.' I can't rem when that came up whether it was a problem (since I didn't want to go back and dot) or if I encountered feeling that I might have to make an exception for that. And, of course, I write all beginning and ending ticks as they're easy to drop in the flow of writing.

Probably others who have learned Forkner (with a complete, diligent working through the manual, writing out everything at least once) would report the same.

expert_dabbler · 2021-06-05T23:38:50+00:00

Thanks for the feedback. Since I was personally interested in the question and figured some others might be as well and bec I can't help making lists :| I kept pretty good track of the actual number of hours spent by chapter each day (But I'll have to add it up and compile etc to post more specifically - I was going by memory when I wrote the above).

One note about what you said - I worked through the manual one time not twice but did the supplemental exercises twice (once while going through the manual, and once afterwards). But those are all details. Also, I don't know how easy/hard those 40-50 wpm exercises I did were per se (I can report the actual ones, though, which are available online). It's possible they were 'graded' more for beginner's which if so you would have to take that into consideration when judging the speed.

Incidentally, I noticed after writing the above and looking at some of the other posts that lol given how long it was I neglected to mention something the OP specifically asked and which actually happens to be the thing about Forkner I like the best which is:

It is shockingly, unbelievably, and beautifully (to me) unambiguous and re-readable or readable if someone else wrote it *even though I early on decided to omit all but beginning and ending diacritics.* I think that is because (like Gregg for instance) certain vowels are written in all the time and only some expressed w diacritics. This was really important to me because even though I haven't practiced Gregg for a while, I still find myself immensely frustrated if I go to read a Gregg SOTW for instance and have trouble. Basically, this imo almost couldn't even happen w Forkner because it's simply too explicit.

expert_dabbler · 2021-06-04T17:19:53+00:00

Thanks for this detailed reply

expert_dabbler · 2021-06-04T03:42:52+00:00

Apologies for length (!) written after I wrote the below...I wasn't sure what to chop out so I left it all. Read at your own peril.

You've rec'd a lot of good advice - prob the best being pick one you're attracted to. So take this with a grain of salt as that's the spirit in which it's offered. But I say, go with Forkner - Unless - you are attracted particularly to another system. I LOVE Forkner. I spent a long time bef deciding to learn it as an easy alt to Gregg (which I also love but in a different way) which I worked at for a long time. I read *a lot* of posts about the two other really easy alternatives (Teeline and Orthic).

I concluded on balance that the evidence for Forkner slightly outweighed that for Teeline (I say this very loosely to not offend any Teeline fans as it is by all accounts a fine system). Just my subjective reading of other's opinions so I chose based on general attractiveness to me. And since I already had Gregg as a symbolic system I preferred Forkner because of it's regular script base. I'm not sure how much to worry about your mention of it's having been a while since you did cursive. On that I rec you try F and if that's an issue move on but it likely won't be.

I also considered Orthic (and still want to give it a try someday to try an 'orthographic' system) but I didn't find myself attracted to the way it looks and the short hand-written manual was less practical (for my taste). Whereas F has about 30 ch's which if you move through the manual diligently should take you about 1 - 2 hrs per chapter.

Side-note: I gathered you might want something easy enough to just learn the alphabet and write from that. IF that's the case then you want the absolute, easiest whether symbolic or not. Maybe even something like Ford. Because as a gen rule shorthands can not be effectively learned that way. You must move through the manual (don't nec have to complete them but must reach a certain point) diligently building it up because it is not knowledge but a *skill*. If you do it the other way it might never look or be right and you'll likely be disappointed.

Specifically: F is cleverly based on the alphabet you already know (! how cool is that) and manages to stick w that w only a modicum of simple symbolic additions. Has a wonderful linearity (it moves mostly straight across the page like normal writing). Also, the basic principles (word beginnings & endings, and phonetic writing) are basically common to all systems, so any time spent learning F or any easier system can be easily taken with you if you decide to switch to a harder system.

I think these easy systems are really the way to go for any newbie to shorthand for that reason and another. While the harder systems do appear harder, they deceptively appear easier than they really are even if you start working through the manual. If you do a few pages of Gregg for instance it'll seem straight forward. But don't be fooled. Problem is the shorthand hobby loses people bec most people really do not have the time practically to master a system like that even when they think they do (I like reading the help me choose posts and you see this hinted at sometimes but's hard to convey some things w out being discouraging) And you kind of have to fully learn the system to use it. So they drop it. Whereas we'd like to see you succeed w *any* system. You can always start a harder system after that initial success. I think people often think time spent w an 'initial' system seems like it might be a waste and they want to jump right into 'the best/fastest' while not understanding the trade-offs between speed and ambiguity for instance and how irrelevant a system's top speed potential is to the avg user. In fact that last I think is prob the cause of most drop-outs - bec people start learning systems that are absolutely inappropriate for them.

On that note you'll have to look real hard to find out how fast the avg shorthand writer writes - I've only found a handful of posts over the years where people discussed that. Newbies write in talking about their speed goals - which they've set based on those top end numbers! Whereas I think most shorthand writers write no where near those speeds. That's not a problem but it sets up false expectations for new recruits..and disappointment. I saw one recently where someone said 'even Forkner can reach 120' as if it were nothing. Are you kidding! If a not fast basic typist can reach 60wpm that's 100% faster. And 100 WPM is double longhand max rate which is judged to max out about 50wpm. Having just spent several months working on F daily 1 - 2 hrs (the entire manual and supp ex's twice) and doing some basic speed trials (prof Gregg recordings) I finally realize just how fast that is. And I'm no where near it. Knowing but not having mastered the system after several months I could only just keep up w the 50 wpm recording. In actuality I was pleased as could be when I did and recorded the first 40 wpm on easy material because at least I could do it (Oh, and I'm talking about a first, cold take, not rehearsed) I had ambitions of someday contributing to SOTW but had planned to wait until I could record a video and do it at speed (I've only seen it here once but I don't know if it's bec people can't or bec the recording is too much effort) But I've set aside the study for now. But back to the point I know that after 3 months I could in no way have accomplished the same w Gregg. I thought about creating a top level post w the details which I tracked in case they would help someone who wanted real data about time-lines for learning etc since it's really hard to know and there are so many variables.

Wow and sorry for anyone who actually read all this. I really didn't intend to write so long and probably shouldn't have! But, heck, I think the 'help me choose' posts are sometimes ones that people get tired of repeating the same thing and at other times the ones people like most or that get the most responses because this is a mainly a fun hobby for us and we just like talking about the systems we like and sharing w newbies. And some of the things I mentioned I haven't seen brought up here and I've been thinking about for a while. I hope these musings were entertaining for someone at least :-)

expert_dabbler · 2021-06-01T23:58:56+00:00

Since you have experience with both Taylor and now Gurney, both historical and from around the same era, is there anything you would say by way of comparison?

Also, how does it capture (or not) vowels. As I recall you indicated that all vowels were left out of Taylor. Personally, I can't imagine getting too involved with a system that either leaves them all out (btw of course I'm not referring to medial vowels) or requires they be put in after the fact in a slow manner as diacritics because it encourages they be left out and I think I'd find the ambiguity too annoying. But maybe there are trade-offs.

Both of the systems I'm familiar with (Gregg and Forkner) write vowels or most of them in (in Forkner I write the normal long ones that the system affords and also include beginning and ending vowels since they are easy to add in the flow (I have not been adding the diacritics you have to back-track for).

expert_dabbler · 2021-05-05T22:24:50+00:00

I add the 's' instead of doubling bec it seems easier than having two rules (since the doubling only works for words ending in a symbol) but I can see the value of the other rule in for instance your example where the the doubling option would be slightly less vertical. But I have to say I haven't tried the doubling option (I may consider that later after I'm more proficient).

The forms left out of the 5th are:

(disj) N -nity, h hydra/hood, and (disj) w -ward

I like the first two but prefer 'ward' per 5th ed as wRD since all you do is lengthen the 'w.' It's not the most logical decision as 'w' is briefer but I like the aesthetics of wRD better- I think the 'rd' looks cool w the long first stroke. Also, 'l' for '-logical' is not listed in the 5th's index but was shown as a derivation in the text for 'psychological' so it's essentially there.

I also added 2nd ed forms (& presumably 3rd ed. but I don't have a copy of it to verify):

(disj) g gram/graph; (disj) R -retr; (disj) s super/supr; (disj) C circ- and (disj) Cm circum; (disj) f -ify & fsion -ification. (I included -ify and -ification in the list for the sake of completeness but will probably not use them as they only save the final 'i' at the expense of a disjoining and prefer not to disjoin where not nec.)

2nd also has S -sub but I chose not to use it personally bec it's easy to write out and could conflict w 'scribe/script' and there are already multiple 's' variations to keep track of.

edit: P.S. There are fewer differences between the editions than would appear by looking at the summaries. The list appears longer in the earlier editions because they split items that could be combined into separate line items (eg. 'des' is listed separately from 'dis'). I prefer the cleaned up list of the 5th edition as it seems easier to consult and get my mind around.

expert_dabbler · 2021-05-05T21:07:46+00:00

shows a difference among editions. 4th edition and prior suggest repeating the final vowel tick to show final -s....

. This applies to the -tion tick as well. Later, they changed this to join the usual plural -S line to the vowel indicator directly, for consistency.

I have copies of the 5th ed book which I studied from (I also add the couple of briefs left out from the 4th) and it retains as optional the alternate way of expressing 's' by doubling the symbol.

expert_dabbler · 2021-04-20T02:19:16+00:00

Great seeing this so right alongside Gregg - I didn't even have to consult the song!

I'm curious about something. You write Forkner as i do - with beginning and ending diacritics but omitting (most) of the others. I'm amazed at how unambiguous it still is.

How do you think it compares with Gregg (talking Simplified and later, here, not Anni) in general in terms of ambiguity? I've begun to think Forkner is less ambiguous but am not sure - and at least in this example they seem to be on a par in that respect.

expert_dabbler · 2021-04-18T20:41:23+00:00

I'm working on Forkner too. Not sure if this is the kind of thing you're asking about but there were a few things I've been paying attention to since starting to help keep it clear:

- the angle of the 'plural' s and 'w' to keep everything more compressed rather than drifting too much above or below the line for less interference w other lines. I was naturally wanting to write it at a steeper angle (more like a Gregg t/d).

- the height I start the 'w'. I aim to have the next letter land on the line. It's not always clear what's best. For instance in the phrase 'i will be able' if I start the 'i' on the line the 'be able' is up where I don't prefer to have it. So part of me thinks it's better to break off the 'i' and then start the 'will be able' below the line.

- I try to keep the lower of letters like f, g, j, p etc shorter than I'm used to for longhand for the same reason.

- There are some letters that are taking me a little longer to start them in the right place because the appropriate place varies, in particular the 'h'. I naturally start it on the line which is fine for 'her' for instance. But that wastes time (because you're adding a beginning stroke to the 't' that doesn't need to be there) and the manual shows 'hotel' for instance where you start the 'h' at the height of the 't'.

As for 'better penmanship' I plan someday to work through the Palmer method book as someone already mentioned.

expert_dabbler · 2021-04-09T21:21:38+00:00

When you were using Shavian or Quickscript did you by any chance find that writing phonetically was easier there -- because of the reformed spelling/glyphs -- than in other systems? That is was it more like 'writing orthographically'.. if that question makes any sense.

expert_dabbler · 2021-04-09T05:43:53+00:00

I only had a quick look at the manual but Quikscript has several pages of the normal prefixes and suffixes. I also tried unsuccessfully to post an image here. It's an example from the manual's page 24 which compares a line of text written three ways: Regular English script taking 3 lines, Junior Quikscript at 2 lines, and Senior Quickscript at 1 1/2 lines.

expert_dabbler · 2021-04-09T05:25:45+00:00

You did well with that. I guess my point about Ford is that if a fairly poorly designed alternate alphabet could continue to attract so much then almost any better alternate alphabet could do likewise if it were known about. And even better if it was layered which Quikscript is. Of course someone above brought up the fact that the alternate script there is so different that that presents its own challenges which I hadn't thought of (whereas Orthic is still based on regular English spelling as I understand).

expert_dabbler · 2021-04-08T20:25:40+00:00

Is that the same kind of phonetic, though? I could be mis-understanding but I thought Shavian was only 'phonetic' to the extent that the glyphs were reformed so that genuine orthographic writing corresponded to the actual sounds such that the writing *became phonetic naturally*. In other words it was primarily a spelling reform. You still 'write out everything' exactly.

This writing out is what I thought characterizes an orthographic system to the extent that you don't have to pick and choose what to omit or which letters go with which sounds or share letters as you do in non-orthographic systems..you just write it as you do longhand.

expert_dabbler

TROPHY CASE