Diffs. between Anniversary and Pre-Anniversary

Has anyone compiled a list of features of Pre-Anniversary that are distinctive from Anniversary?  Anniversary I know pretty well.  As I understand, Pre-Anniversary has certain unique phrasing/abbreviating principles.  I have a copy of the “New and Revised” edition of pre-Anniversary (1916).  Will I find these unique principles in this edition?  Or are they only in earlier editions? 
Also, how does one search the messages/threads on this site?
Thanks.

(by A for everyone)


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30 comments Add yours
  1. Thanks so much. I had just read my way to pg. 76 and discovered the word omissions in certain phrases. A great abbreviating principle. Why was it omitted in Anniversary?

    In general, is it fair to characterize Pre-Anniversary as the most robust (albeit most memorization-intensive) GS system, or is it pretty much a toss-up between Pre- and Anniversary?

  2. You will find the unique principles in that edition, indeed. Here are some differences of Anniversary with the 1916 edition of the manual:

    1. Page 47: the R is omitted in Pre-Anniv between SH, CH, J, and L. For example, the R in the word "charlatan" is omitted in Pre-Anniv, and the L is hooked as in the reversed A principle.
    2. Some of the brief forms of Page 52 and 55 are different. for example: above, after, man, girl, season, principal(ple), present
    3. Page 75: the omission of words in phrases listed in paragraphs 82-85 is not used in Anniv.
    4. Page 96: the TR- principle is expanded in Pre-Anniv, to the syllables alter-, ultr-, matr-, matr-, petr-, patr-, latr-, letr-, natr-, nitr-, nutr-, austr-, abstr-, obstr-
    5. Page 102: the prefix hydr- is disjoined in pre-anniv
    6. Page 109: the suffix -ness is expressed by a joined n
    7. Page 118: the suffix -itis is expressed by a disjoined t-left s
    8. Page 123: the suffix -vity is a disjoined v
    9. Page 124: the suffix -ntic is a disjoined n
    10. Page 132: the indication of -ing is not used in Anniversary
    11. Page 133: the modification of word forms in those phrases was reduced in Anniversary, because some of those phrases were obsolete

    There are some additional differences in miscellaneous words, but those are the most important. Of course, there will be more differences if you take the 1902 version of the manual too. Additionally, some of those principles are taken back when applying reporting shortcuts in Anniversary.

    As for the search, the Google search option will not be operational until Google caches the site. They have told me that it would take at least a month to do so, so I expect that the search will be operational then. I will add a search box soon.

  3. I would say a toss up, because not much was lost. Other things were "fixed". But to this day, I write a mixture of both! The tr- principle is way too good to toss it. Both pre- and anniv are equally memory intensive, in my opinion.

    About the elimination of word omissions, my guess is that it may be that under the stress of dictation, it is a little tough to control the spacing between the words. But to be honest with you, I don't know the real reason.

  4. I haven't learned the pre-anni extra shortcuts, but I want to. They sound very interesting, and when your plateauing for months on end, these little things might really help. Of course, as I've read on this forum countless times, getting more confidence and getting rid of hesitations should always take priority over learning new shortcuts.

  5. I'm positive Anni has word omissions in phrases. It's near the end, but it's definitely there. One of those things where I read ahead and groaned and promised myself I'd trust them, but admitted I'd need to do a lot of reading before picking up the habit myself.

  6. The omissions are great. I think it will take me a while to make these omissions reflexively in my own righting, but I definitely see the advantages in doing so. I also think it's a very elegant principle of Pre-Anni. As is the tr-principle. I'll definitely be adding that to my repertoire too.

    Which makes me wonder: outside of the established systems (Pre- and Anni), have folks come up with their own add-on conventions? I'm especially interested in personal phrase abbreviating practices, or things like the tr-principle. Have such practices been discussed already?

  7. Congrats to McBud on his succinct summation of the differences. I'd like to add that in the Pre-Anniversary and early Anniversary years, the Gregg publishing house magazine The Gregg Writer systematically requested and published phrasing shortcuts from working experienced verbatim reporters which, depending upon the reporter's field of expertise, an experienced writer may wish to adopt. Definitely if you can get your hands on any Gregg Writers from the '20's or '30's,they're worth a thorough examination. The articles, jokes and stories written in shorthand are also excellent practice and application of all the shortcuts.

  8. Indeed. I didn't say that Anniv got rid of all word omissions in phrases: the ones that were eliminated are the ones specifically listed in paragraphs 82-85 of the 1916 manual. The rest is still there.

  9. Everyone adds their own flavor to stuff: that's part of the game too. You will even find specialized dictionaries with suggested outlines for vocabularies in different areas, not only business. I don't recall that we have a specific thread for sharing outlines, but that would be something nice to do; nicer if we post the scanned outline.

  10. I gotta say, for the first time in more than 12 months, I have an uneasiness about the anniversary system of gregg. I know that I've mastered most of the principles, but there's the allure of pre-anni.

    Anyway, what was it with Gregg Shorthand and downgrading instead of upgrading systems? In every new product or program in the world, people strive to add new features, new methods and techniques. It seems Gregg was alone in going the other way.

    mcbud writes that things were "fixed" in anniversary. The only thing I've heard touted that was fixed was the organization of the manual.

    edit: I've just gone through the whole pre-anni manual writing out all the changes. I am still a bit confused. The big things are the -tr rule. I understand for legibility it might be a bit of a problem sometimes, although it is tempting. Some of the ommission rules are enticing, eg. skipping "of the", and the "-ing" dot replaced by the previous letter, well, I can see how they were trying to get ride of all the "write close to each other" rules. I'm confused.

    Someone said on here that the reporting shortcuts re introduces some of the rules, which ones?

  11. "Fixed" in my parlance means standardized or improved. Besides the organization of the manual, some principles were altered for legibility sake. The -ness suffix is an example — the es was added for legibility (to make it distinct). In another example, the -vity ending was changed to v-t-e, because since the word comes from the ending -ve (written as v), it was just as easy to add the -te, rather than lifting the pen for a disjoined v (every time you lift the pen, there is a decrease in speed). Small things like that. Another example are the words "man" and "men". The outline of "man" was changed from mn to m-a-n, and "men" from m-e-n to mn, because a large circle is easier to write than a small one.

    In high speed shorthand, the -ing omissions are reintroduced, the phrasing, and some of the actual word shortcuts that were based on pre-anniv principles.

    As for new features, at the time of invention, the idea was to make it easier to learn (get the beginning students to start writing lots of words quicker, though not necessarily faster!!!). That's where the "improvement" came in the subsequent simplifications of the system.

    Chuck

  12. "Fixed" in my parlance means standardized or improved. Besides the organization of the manual, some principles were altered for legibility sake. The -ness suffix is an example — the es was added for legibility (to make it distinct). In another example, the -vity ending was changed to v-t-e, because since the word comes from the ending -ve (written as v), it was just as easy to add the -te, rather than lifting the pen for a disjoined v (every time you lift the pen, there is a decrease in speed). Small things like that. Another example are the words "man" and "men". The outline of "man" was changed from mn to m-a-n, and "men" from m-e-n to mn, because a large circle is easier to write than a small one.

    In high speed shorthand, the -ing omissions are reintroduced, the phrasing, and some of the actual word shortcuts that were based on pre-anniv principles.

    As for new features, at the time of invention, the idea was to make it easier to learn (get the beginning students to start writing lots of words early, though not necessarily faster!!!). That's where the "improvement" came in the subsequent simplifications of the system.

    Chuck

  13. Do these word shortcuts include the "of the" ommission? PS – There seems to be a serious shortage of anni reporting shortcuts books? Maybe by the time they were made, people didn't take too much to shorthand court reporting so they weren't used much.

    Can't wait till Google Books makes all these out-of-print books available for purchase.

  14. On the basis of only limited Pre-Anni experience (I just finished working through the manual), I have to agree with you. Pre-Anni has all the strengths of Anni and then some. I can only assume that the memorization load of Pre-Anni was considered too heavy (though the mem load of Anni is hardly light). Even so, I think Pre-Anni points the way towards far greater possibilities for shorthand economizing — both at the individual word and phrase levels. After learning Anni I had little notion of building on that system by creating my own innovations. As I was reading the Pre-Anni manual, I couldn't help but think of new features I might wish to add. I'd have to rate Pre-Anni as more 'creatively inspiring' a system than Anni. But Anni is definitely the better structured manual.

    What I'd love to know is whether the first couple of Gregg editions had yet other features that were edited out of the New and Revised (1916) edition.

  15. The answer to your last question is basically no, other than some antiquated business phrases, such as "enclosed find statement of account", "we are in receipt of your favor of recent date", "I remain, yours truly", "and oblige, yours very truly", and others. The 1916 manual added and revised principles. It did not eliminate anything.

  16. Yes as well. We used to have a copy of the first manual (it was really a pamphlet) in the documents section. Perhaps someone can download it again. It's good for historic purposes. If you see the shorthand there, it looks very rough.

  17. Indeed the -ing ommission is re-introduced. I just found in the "Reporter's notebook" page of a Gregg Writer from the 1940s that a Zoubek wrote "going the" g-th (underneath). I am doing a full study of the Reporter Shortcuts 1916 version, and will include this.

  18. Librum asked: "What I'd love to know is whether the first couple of Gregg editions had yet other features that were edited out of the New and Revised (1916) edition."

    I've found myself thinking more about this, too. I don't know enough to compare the "New and Revised" with the earlier books and pamphlets.

    Is someone here familiar enough with the earlier forms of Gregg to speak to the "creatively inspiring" factor or other advantages or drawbacks of the pre-1916 lessons?

  19. My view is that the manuals before 1916 were still a work-in-progress of sorts. I think the 1916 is the most "complete" in the sense that it has all of the features of the previous versions, plus additional standardizations. However, it is more abbreviated than Anniversary. In fact, I still prefer Anniversary, because the abbreviating principle makes more sense than in the 1916 version. The only thing I regret from the 1916 and earlier versions was the omission of some beginnings and endings, but you can always add them in your writing.

  20. The list of differences provided here by Chuck is very useful.

    There is one comment I don't understand: "The outline of "man" was changed from mn to m-a-n, and "men" from m-e-n to mn, because a large circle is easier to write than a small one."

    But Dr. Gregg had indicated just the opposite assumption in the construction of his system. Ex.–one of his addresses at the Silver Jubilee:

    "Manifestly, the circle is the most facile of all shorthand characters, and manifestly, too, the small circle–a mere turn of the hand–is more facile than a large circle. It is equally clear that the most common vowel in the language is the letter_e_, . . . It logically follows, therefore, that the small circle should represent the vowel _e_."

    Did Dr. Gregg's view change on this over time? (I had assumed that the change in Anni might have been due to a greater frequency in practice of "men" over "man.")

    On one other point, there's a "Synopsis" of Anni (which I believe has been posted here before) taken from certain of the Speed Building books, where the heading reads "TR Principle." Yet I don't find this term used in any other Anni literature. Did they really mean it? 😉

    1. I think that whether a large or small circle is easier to write is dependent on the writer (so I disagree with Dr. Gregg here), but if he used that argument to assign the e to the small circle and the a to the large circle, then so be it. Personally, I think it's easier to write a large circle than a small one, so when I wrote the comment, I was speculating and I should have said so. Thinking about this further, the most logical explanation for the change is that the m-n blend is always used for the men- syllable, so by changing the outline of man to m-a-n it makes men- consistent with other words. I haven't found the official reason yet, but if I do, I'll post. Or perhaps it is, like you said, because "men" is probably more common than "man."

      About the tr- principle, yes, I've seen that.

  21. I don't think it could have been due to any concern about consistency in the men- blend, as the change was evidently applied only in that one case. Check the Anni dictionary for words beginning "man." After the word "man" itself and its derivatives, EVERY "man-" word is still using the men- blend, the only exceptions being "mania" and its derivatives, and "manganese."

    Of course, it could have merely been a response to reports from the field about experience with conflicts that led to problems in transcription. I suspect that's why the "e" was restored in "teach," the way it was in the early days of the system, since there was surely a possible conflict with "touch."

  22. I find small loops and hooks and even lines are slower, since I have to be more careful when writing them. Long is easiest. Just aim and go. Circles depend on the lines around them. Between short lines, it's easy to do small circles. Between long lines, it's easier to do large circles.

    1. I'm not sure I disagree with Cricket or with Carlos here. It just seems strange that Dr. Gregg came to the opposite conclusion, as he was very careful in making these determinations.

      His explanation for assigning the o-hook and u-hook is a case in point. He determined that the upward hook involved a slightly greater degree of pressure between pen and paper, so he assigned it to "u" as being less frequent than "o." The difference is infinitesimal, but he reasoned that over a period of hours and tens/hundreds of thousands of outlines written there would be an appreciable difference overall.

      It is possible that he just got this one wrong, but I'm willing to it slide. 😉

    2. Also, it may be the thought at the time that writing in smaller outlines was better. Look at the way the early books were written and sometimes you need a magnifying glass to decipher them!

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