Errors in Anniversary Manual

The first printing of the Anniversary Manual (1929) was delayed and had numerous errors.  For that reason, a second printing with revisions was made.  Unfortunately, if you buy the Manual from eBay, there is no way to tell from the date whether you have the original first printing, or a subsequent printing (unless you buy the 1942 printing version, which is clearly stated), unless you read the printer codes.  However, if you have this manual, you would be able to tell whether you have the first printed version.  If you turn to page 14 (paragraph 29), the outline for the word “where” should also say “aware”.  If it does not, you have the original printing.

I’m including in the documents section an article from the Gregg Writer (May 1930), which lists all of the errors in the original printing of the Anniversary Manual.  The name of the file is “publishing-errors-anniv-manual.pdf“.  So if you have that first printed version, make sure that you make the corrections.

The gregg.angelfishy.net website has the “error-free” version of the manual.

(by Carlos for everyone)


Previous post:
Next post:
15 comments Add yours
  1. The actual story of the delays is interesting, and it is told in Dr. Gregg's biography by Leslie Cowan.  Dr. Gregg had assigned Rupert SoRelle to do the revision of the 1916 manual because he wanted the work to be performed quickly, in time for the 40th Anniversary of the system.  Also, Dr. Gregg wanted to give Mr. SoRelle something to do to divert his attention from personal tragedies in Mr. SoRelle's life: Mr. SoRelle's youngest son had died of pneumonia when he was 16, his middle son had died suddenly of another disease, and his oldest son had committed suicide since he was suffering from major depression.  To top things off, Mr. SoRelle's wife died of a long illness in 1926.  Though Mr. SoRelle married again, his marriage was not a happy one.  In other words, he was down in the dumps.  On the other hand, Dr. Gregg's first wife, Maida Gregg, died in June of 1928, victim of pneumonia.  So Dr. Gregg neither realize how deeply was SoRelle affected by his personal tragedies, nor he could effectively supervise Mr. SoRelle because of his own grief.   The manual was published in 1929, but with many errors.  A second printing was ordered with the corrections.  Apparently, at the time, the manual itself didn't win the acceptance of shorthand teachers, and had it not been for the economic depression of the 1930s, Dr. Gregg probably would have written a new revision.  The dissatisfaction with the manual was offset in part with alternative Gregg Shorthand textbooks which, although these synchronized with the Anniversary Manual, they stressed a particular method of instruction: the "Direct" method (which means imitating the outlines of the teacher and writing from the beginning), the "Analytical" method (which studies how different characters are joined), and the "Functional" method (which stresses reading well-written shorthand before writing).  So if you see books about a particular method of instruction, that's what it means.

  2. I own here two versions of the Anniversary Manual, both with the copyright 1929.  However, these books are drastically different.  The one that I scanned is in poorer shape than the other, and appears to be much older than the other one, whose pages are almost white.  The font size of the preface is much smaller in the version I scanned.  Several font sizes are different throughout the publications.  The newer-looking version does have the word "aware" where it should be, paragraph 64's spur is still there.  The rest of the errors are not present, even though, a few colons differ here and there.  However, the Special Forms list in the back of the book is almost completely different.  The newer-looking one starts, "abandon, abstract, abundant, accomodation, accurately, affadavit, afford, alphabet, ambassador, American, application, approval, argument, assist, assistance, Atlantic, attorney, authoritative, automobile, avoid", while you will see a definite difference in my scanned version's order.   While looking around, I did see at the very end of this book the interesting catalogue of Gregg publications.  If anyone here is in possession of, or can find or purchase a foreign-language adaptation (like Spanish, Esperanto, French, German, Polish, Portuguese, and/or Italian) of Gregg shorthand, please scan it or discuss it here or something.  Soy mucho curioso.

  3. Interesting — I had not noticed that. Thanks for pointing that out. The "abandon, abstract, etc." list is the Special Forms list from the 1916 version. So apparently, there was a printing with those words and not all of the corrections. Later printings have the updated list of words, which is similar to the list in the "5,000 Most-Used Shorthand Forms" and in the "Functional Method" books.

  4. Hi,   My Anniversary manual is the UK edition, copyright 1930. It's just that little bit different to the US'. The texts are a bit different, the cities and towns are all UK and 'colonial' and the contents before chapter 1 have changed. People are going to a Cricket game in the second reading practice!   steve

  5. The small booklet that came with the book is not that interesting by the way Chuck. Just 8 pages of the simple ones; they must be as I know more than half 🙂 I've never seen anything that old so perfect though. It must have been in a dark still place for 70 years.  I must be the first to look I think!   Steve

  6. The catalogs in the back of some of the Gregg publications are really interesting.  I recently bought (on E-Bay) the May 1, 1948 "Price List of Gregg Publications"–it's 29 pages long . . . and includes a number of other business publications than just shorthand.    I actually have the "Gregg Shorthand Adapted to Esperanto" booklet.  It's copyrighted 1918, and was done by Ernest L Jackson, "Certificated Teacher of Gregg Shorthand".  It has the usual kinds of abbreviating principles, adapted to the language Esperanto (for example:  "The noun-ending O is not written.")   (As an aside, I might mention that Esperanto is alive and well in the modern world, although little known in English-speaking parts.  There are even several more modern stenography systems in Esperanto, the most detailed of which is called Unesteno–which seems to be kind of a mixture of Pitman and Gabelsberger systems.  Dr. Gregg was very interested in Esperanto personally, and had the idea that his shorthand could become the "universal writing system" just like Esperanto could become the "universal language".  He even attended the world Esperanto Congress that was held in the U.S. (in Washington DC) in 1910).    Alex

  7. Alex, I implore you to scan that Esperanto booklet. 🙂  G^i estas lingvo interesa.  Mi studas g^in po unu jaro.  Malmultaj personoj reale scias g^in en Usono.   It'd be a fun reference. 🙂

  8. du aliaj esperantistoj  mi estas komencanto…   actually it was my interest in languages that got me into both esperanto and gregg. im really really interested in that booklet, i saw it in the publications listing in the back of my anniversary manual and thought how exciting of a thing it would be to have, but i figured it would be so rare and hard to find…  

  9. Thanks for posting how to verify the edition. I'm relieved to find the word "aware" under "where" on page 14! Good to know that the right column on the site is the corrected edition. I'll pass it along.

Leave a Reply