I couldn’t read the first name of the signature line at the end of the letter in paragraph 52 of Gregg Shorthand Manual Simplified, second edition. I was about to ask you all but I decided it would be more polite to see if someone had already posted the question in this blog first. In searching, I encountered the keys to the kingdom page and was able to look it up. Thanks for making that available!
The outline looked for all the world like the word expression “eh” written in longhand. Certain that that was just a coincidence, I made it out to be Tereshtex. Thus the full name of the letter writer would be Tereshtex Mason. Tereshtex is not a first name with which I am familiar so I was pretty sure I was wrong. Lo and behold, when I looked it up I found out that what I thought was a first name really was “eh.” It turns out the letter writer was none other than E.H. Mason. Now I know how initials are handled in shorthand.
More importantly, now you learned how to handle initials. And I'm really impressed that you tried to even read longhand "eh" as Gregg; no harm done of course. It turns out to be a very long name transcribed that way, :-).
I didn't realize that the specific instruction on how to handle initials in Gregg was removed in the Simplified manual. You can read it from the Anniversary manual here (paragraphs 233 and 234).
Thanks, Carlos.
I can't make sense of the second outline on page 291 of the simplified manual. It is written as men-r (with what appears to be an extra long men) and is in the sentence, that I otherwise interpret as, "When you use our lists you have assurance that your message is being delivered to those merchants throughout the country who are men-r for your goods–and to nobody else."
What is the meaning of that outline?
The outline is the phrase "in the market."
Thanks, Carlos!
You're welcome!