The Phrase “On behalf”

I was reading and reviewing some phrases this evening in my manual and have a question about writing the phrase “on behalf”. What is the proper way to write the “h” when writing the phrase? Does the “h” get written last (sort of like dotting your i’s and crossing your t’s as in longhand)?

-Zoom


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  1. Thanks, Carlos. That was going to be my first guess as it seemed the logical way, but I wanted to make sure.

    I was doing some reading studies this evening in Lesson 5 and now that I'm being exposed to more phrasing it's getting a little more trickier to read. Usually if I spend more than 10 minutes on trying to transcribe a word I will skip it for now and keep reading (hoping that the rest of the sentence context will trigger the word for me).

  2. 10 minutes on a word? Not the most-efficient way to do it.

    First, just read the sentence out loud. For the unknown outline, use the most-common (first-learned) sound for each letter and move on to the rest of the sentence.

    Most of the time, the context plus those sounds will be all you need. Let your subconscious talk to you. It's smarter than you are when it comes to language.

    Second, read the entire passage, then go back and read it again. Repeat. As you become familiar with the entire passage, you'll probably think of the right word.

    Maybe take a break. Work on another passage for a bit. I often read something a day later and the answer is obvious.

    Third, write the Gregg letters across the top of a page. Under each letter, list all its possibilities. For S you'd have "s, z, x". Pick one from each column and see if it makes sense. Again, let your subconscious speak.

    As I study each chapter, I make a summary of the theory: Gregg letter, English sounds (and syllables and words) it can represent, and other notes. Currently it's sorted by chapter. I planned to sort it by Gregg letter when I finished the book, but by then I don't think I'll need to. Making the summary is part of the studying, so don't just grab one made by someone else.

    Also, somewhere there is a reverse dictionary. It's for Anni, but it's still useful for Simplified. It spells the Gregg outline using the Gregg alphabet and gives the English equivalent. It has words, phrases, brief forms and even advanced reporting brief forms.

  3. Hey Paul,

    I remember being right where you are. I had come across that inviting Simplified Manual at a local thrift store back in the 80s and started puzzling my way through it. On subsequent trips to used bookstores and the Goodwill, I collected what seemed like tonage of Gregg books, including various editions and components of the Diamond Jubilee series and Series 90.

    I also had at least one book written by Leslie and/or Zoubek on the topic of research-based teaching and learning theories and strategies for shorthand. The bottom line in the pedagogy book was that the best way to learn shorthand is by reading shorthand with a transcript handy so as to spend your valuable learning energy on learning comprehending shorthand outlines.

    I don't think anyone could have utilized the massive stack of shorthand books I had collected, and I had a large family, so in 1995 I made a ruthless culling. I chose out all books of the Simplified series and got rid of all the others. (I don't recall whether I had an Anniversary manual back then-I don't think so.)

    What I had left is the basic manual which you have (mine was the old cloth bound yellow and black), Shorthand Simplified Functional Method 2nd Ed. (Green and Black), and Shorthand Simplified for Colleges Vol. 1 and 2, and the Simplified dictionary. The theory and presentation in those books are all basically the same, but in my opinion, the Simplified Manual is the most difficult of any of them. (It's also the one I had the most attachment to.) I did the same thing with it that you are doing. The functional manual that I just mentioned has the transcript in the back of the book, so you can just stick your finger in the back and flip back to the text whenever you get stuck. I think I saw one used online for a low price, so I will post a link if I can find it again. I think Shorthand for Colleges Vol. 1 is the most similar to the basic manual and I came across transcripts for the series at a used bookstore. Even after working steadily in the other books, I would go back to the basic manual and get "stuck." It's really meant to be used with a transcript and/or a teacher. (I think I may have finally got a transcript for the manual, but now my simplified books are all in storage halfway across the country.)

    I'm going to look around and see if I can find anything that will help.

  4. Thanks guys. Well, basically what I have been doing is re-reading the sentence and sounding out the word in question like you mentioned, Cricket, by sounding each letter for each way it could sound (s, z, x, etc). Still wasn't able to figure it out. I would also skip the word and keep on reading the rest of the sentence to see if the word would pop in my head by reading the context of the sentence. I would give up temporarily on that word and keep on reading the next sentences. Well, actually, I found a link to that reverse Gregg shorthand dictionary and low & behold I was able to figure out that the word I was having SO MUCH trouble with was "notice" (don't laugh… ok, go ahead and laugh because I know I did once I found out what that word was) hee hee. It's taking a bit of time getting used to looking at a shorthand word and wondering whether or not it's just a regular word or a brief form or a phrase. This, I know, is important because these different devices are what adds a lot of speed to using shorthand. On a similar note, because of the age of when these books were written that they word things differently and the words they choose can be very dated (I guess because that's the way they talked back then).

    Anyway, I'm going to spend this week getting down pat my Lesson 5 (ses, sis, sus, T in phrases and X).

    Hope everyone had a great weekend and a good week ahead. Hope everyone's studies are going well, too.

    If anyone here is in the path of hurricane Sandy I hope you will be safe.

    -Zoom

    1. I have a pdf of the transcript for the Simplified functional method manual, which differs very little from the regular manual. Although I cannot post it because it is still under copyright, I can make it available for you as a download. Just send me a note if you're interested.

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