PreAnni: detached t for ted, ded, ed

I’m curious about an item in the 1916 manual:

“At the end of many words, ted, ded, and sometimes ed, may be expressed by t being placed beneath or close to the preceding character.”   (section 53)   The examples given are

invited     n-v-i / t
divided    dv-i / t
demanded    dm-a-n / t
printed    pr-e-nt / t

What I’m wondering is why the last item isn’t pr-e-n / t, and is thus an example of  “sometimes ed.” Thinking that the outline of the root verb might be a clue, I looked in a dictionary (unfortunately Anni, as I don’t have a dict. for Pre) and found invite as n-v-i, and demand and dm-a-n, but divide is dv-i-d, so the added decoupled t seems to be taking away the d from the main outline in that case, leaving me still uncertain about the case of pr-e-nt / t.

What is the operating rule here?  And / Or … is there a precise rule, or is this one of those occasional places where we pass the outer limits of systemic exactitude, and into the land of the Free and the Brave?


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  1. I don't write pre-anni or anni but could it be because those words are brief forms? I know in simplified brief forms that end in ed or ted, etc. is expressed with a disjoined D. Or maybe I'm thinking of something completely different. It's late for me LOL.

  2. This is one of those rules in the 1916 manual that it is not explained clearly. The original rule was that when the past tense forms a separate syllable, the disjoined t was used. That's why you see "invited", "divided", "demanded", and "printed" have the disjoined t, whereas words like "dreamed", "reached", and "trained" which do not form an extra syllable in the past tense are written with the t, the d, or the blend. However, in practice, the "separate syllable" rule was not always applied, as writers would attach a t or a d if the joining was easy to make even in those words, if their last sound is t or d. By 1923, The Gregg Writer presented a change in rule and it was preferred that writers would join the t or the d in those words. With the change in rule, the following past tenses that used to be written with the disjoined t were now written with a joined d or a blend: "printed", "guided", "divided", "needed", "omitted", "painted."

    Also, words that ended in reverse circle used to form their past tenses by a disjoined t. Likewise, the rule got changed with time, and words like "starred", "stirred", "tired" were eventually written with the joined d. Same case with verbs that ended in l (such as "equal"), their past tenses were changed to the ld blend ("equaled").

    The disjoined t was retained if the word ended in -tion, like "mentioned", "cautioned", etc., but eventually in Anniversary that also got changed.

    So the bottom line is to join whenever it is an easy thing to do, and disjoin if (1) it is an abbreviated word that does not end with the last consonant (words like "abbreviated", "accepted", etc. although there are some exceptions, such as "formed"); (2) in past tenses of words that end in r when we cannot form a reverse circle ("reared", "glared", "poured"); and (3) after a reverse circle if the previous consonant is n, m, ng, or nk ("neared", "marred", "lingered", "tinkered").

    1. Yes. For example, a word like "learned" needed to have the disjoined t, because if we wrote it with the nd blend, it would have read "leaned" (since there is no r).

      (In my own writing, I join almost everything now because it is faster to write. I'm following the Simplified convention of disjoining only if the outline does not end with the last consonant of the word. So I write with the blend words like "formed", "turned", and their derivatives. In a word like "learned" I write it with a joined d — no blend! Disjoining adds an extra lift of the pen so I try to avoid it — if I can blend or join, I would do that first.)

    2. I just happened across an even better example last night: consider (k s) with a joined t makes constitute (k s t) which is why the T is disjoined for the past tense.

      Same with advantage (a v) and advertise (a v t) when the T is joined for the past tense.

      Then there's believe (b e) which becomes bit (b e t) when joined if the circule is turned and it becomes a complete disaster when one tries to loop the d under (you get bird) or over (you get b e t but it will be misread as cheered since the d on top would indicate the downstroke is straight and not curved–which I expect no one but true Anni writers will understand).

    3. Yes, Marc. Those outlines do not end with the last consonant of the word, so by rule they are written with the disjoined t because of the problem of legibility that you describe. I was thinking of outlines that end with the last consonant of the word but are written with the disjoined t.

    4. One is f-o / t vs. f-o-t. Imagine "the students followed all my instructions" becoming confused with "the students fought all my instructions."

      "I caught my mother this weekend, like I always do."

      (b- reverse-e d on top) "He jeered everything the company rep told us."

  3. Thanks to Carlos for telling us so much about this rather multifarious stroke. (Tho I am still foggy about when a t or d is written before the detached t.) I am wondering about the relative speediness of using this / t vs. the attached ted/ded stroke — for the latter you avoid the pen lift, but it can also take you far from the base writing line ( e.g. demanded as dm-a-n-dd goes pretty high) so you will have a longer move to the next form. I will have to experiment.

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