Reference for speed building: Diamond Jubilee

There’s a book in the Diamond Jubilee series that those of you who are interested in maximum speed might be interested in looking at.  I’ve had a copy on my shelf for some time, but only recently took a really detailed look at it.

The title is “Gregg Expert Speed Building”, by Charles Zoubek.  The Diamond Jubilee version is copyrighted 1968.  From the preface, ” ‘Greg Expert Speed Building’ is designed to enable the student to reach speeds beyond 120 words a minute.  To help him achieve these speeds, the text provides approximately 200 Expert Shortcuts for frequently used business expressions and phrases, shortcuts that will be of tremendous value to the student after he automatizes them.” 
These “expert shortcuts” in fact are a new set of brief forms.  For example, in the first lesson the following are provided:
cover (blended kay-v)
appropriate (a-pr-a)
employ (m-p)
insure, insurance (n-ish)
administer (a-min-e-s)
application (a-pl-ish)
It would be interesting to study and see how many of the “expert shortcuts” are actually just the re-introduction of brief forms from earlier versions of the system. 
There’s also an emphasis on “expert shortcut derivatives”, and some advanced word-building principles (such as “the dot for ‘h’ may be omitted in the following words:  has, him, himself, had, her, whether”).
The book has lots of “expert speed pointers” as well.
Anyhow, it may be something worth watching for on e-bay, or looking for at abebooks.com or at other used-book dealers.
Alex

(by
alex for everyone)

 


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3 comments Add yours
  1. Except for "appropriate", and "employ", that sounds like straight Anniversary to me .  The "a-pr-a" and "m-p" outlines are reporting shortcuts in Anniversary.  Thanks for the info.

  2. Gregg originally wanted to focus on a simplified system, but that met with considerable resistence when he introduced his system (1893). Therefore, he used many brief form and short cuts to gain support of teachers and writers of other systems.
    Then he gradually phased out those shortcuts–noticeably in 1949 version and again in 1963 version. This was intended to reduce the memory burden while at the same time preparing students to take office dication at 100-120 wpm. Reversion to the expert verion was then needed for writers who wanted to hit 200+ wpm.   It has always been my guess that this simplification parallel a trend in the workforce. As women had more career options, fewer of the brightest students prepared for office jobs; the simplified versions appealed to a middle-of-the road students who wouldn't have invested 2 years of high school to learn shorthand. The advent of and increased use of machine shorthand also reduced the need for the expert-level shorthand writers.   Brian

  3. Yes, that system does favour Anniversary a lot!  Employ is written "mpl" in Anniversary.  Thanks for the information, as it has given me a slightly higher image of the Diamond Jubilee Series.   In response to Brian:  Machine writers are radically fast.  For information on the workings of the odd machine, check out the article that I recently published at Wikipedia on the system:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stenotype   I am learning the machine in addition to my other studies.  It is always a good skill to have. 🙂

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