One of the things I like about Gregg shorthand is that you can write the infinitive (to + verb) as a single outline. It seems I get carried away with this. In reverse transcribing one of the reading selections from the 2nd edition of the Simplified manual, I phrased to use and to send, but on checking my work, I found that the Mr. Rader wrote each of those as two separate words. Is there a rule regarding when to, and when not to, phrase the infinitive as a single outline?
P.S. While checking the archives to see if this issue had already been addressed, I came across this post:
https://gregg-shorthand.com/2006/08/20/phrasing-rules/ .
While it didn’t answer my question, it is a mighty cool post!
The phrasing of "to" was one of the things that were modified in Simplified. Two things were changed:
1. Before Simplified, if the word following "to" began with o, r, or l (in addition to a downstroke or left s), you could replace the "to" with a t and write the following word together. Examples: to order = t – oo hook – d, to read = t – r – e – d, to like = t – l – a. The o, r, and l part of the rule was dropped in Simplified (with the exception of the phrase "to our", which is still written t – r) because those combinations were not frequent enough in business writing.
2. If the word following "to" started with a right s, you could phrase it as t – oo hook – right s – rest of the word. Examples: to send = t – oo hook – right s – e – n, to stay = t – oo hook – right s – t – a. Those combinations tend to be written separately in Simplified for legibility (there is no rule telling you that you can't).
So in the two examples that you mentioned according, "to send" can be phrased according to theory as long as you write "to" in full, and "to use" would be awkward to join (unless you write it as t – e – oo hook … but that's not according to theory).
BTW, when I write the selections of the blog, I still follow #2 in those written in Simplified or later because I try to phrase as much as I can.
Lastly, the phrasing rules that you mentioned are in general for Anniversary and earlier series. Modifications were made for the later series.
I believe the o-, r-, l- rule for phrasing with "to" also exists in Diamond Jubilee. (Somehow I remember learning and using it early on.)
Of course DJ generally is longer to write than Gregg Shorthand Simplified, but in a few instances longer forms in GSS are replaced by shorter ones in DJ. As another example, "every" is written e-v-e in GSS but just e-v in DJ.
And though this is getting a bit off the subject, even Series 90 has at least one nice short form — the attached -g for "graph", which I consider preferable to writing "graph out in full as in DJ or GSS, and also preferable to the -egraph -ograph approach in Anni and Pre. It makes words like ""digraph" and "anagraph" easier to write. (Ok, I've never had to use "anagraph", but as a mathematician, I do use "digraph".)
Lesson 9 of the DJS manual only instructs to replace to with t after a downstroke. The rule was expanded in the DJS Expert Speed Building book to include o, r, and l (incidentally, the Simplified Expert Shorthand Speed Course only adds r and l). So according to the authors, one has to wait 2 years to learn something that could have been taught the first time. Maybe your teacher was an Anniversary writer and told you to add it o, r, and l in the first place.
Adding the e to "every" was an Anniversary thing that carried over into Simplified. I'm glad it was changed back to ev later.
So the eve family is:
E he
Ev ever or every
Eve every
Ve very
Did I miss any?
Probably not much chance of confusion between ever and every, but for my own purposes I like the E on the end of every. Confidence I can read it back is more important than highest potential speed.
That's why the e was added to the brief form, to improve reading.
Carlos, I'm replying to you about the t- for "to" rule a couple of weeks late, but I wanted to comment on your suggestion that my teacher may have introduced something from the Expert course early.
As it happens, I'm self-taught. But while I was working my way systematically through the DJ manual, I was also very unsystematically reading (i.e. stumbling through) any Gregg I could, regardless of series. This was when I was in the university, and my school fortunately had a large bound collection of Gregg Writers. So I read a good deal of Anni and Pre-Anni stuff. I imagine, then, that I picked up the "t- before o, r, l" rule by osmosis.
This reading also helped me make intelligent choices (well, I hope intelligent) when I decided to adopt some short forms not in standard DJ.
That explains it very well!
Thanks for the thorough answer, Carlos.
You're welcome!
I always wonder whether you can just skip the "to" completely (I do 1916 Gregg, in which words can be removed from phrases). For example, "I want to see" = "a-nt-s-e", "I don't want to see" = "a-d-o-nt-s-e"? The only exception would be "….ing to" which would be written like "going to go" = "g/t-u-g" (because of the conflict with word endings).
Does anybody see any pitfalls with this strategy?
The omission of "to" (and other minor words) in phrases is already a rule in all series of Gregg, so the answer is yes, you can omit it in phrasing, as long as it is legible and the joining of the characters is easy to make.