Hello,
In just one day I’ve come across two words that are written differently in the French DJS manual and in the French DJS dictionary. The words are vociférer, written without the i in the manual (p. 221), but with the i in the dictionary, and original, again without the 2nd i in the manual (p. 227) but with it in the dictionary. Besides, I don’t remember any rule from the manual istelf warranting the deletion of the i in those two instances. Are those mistakes? if so, were they caused by the influence of earlier versions of the Gregg method where those i’s wouldn’t be written?
Thanks.
The dictionary is correct. Vociférer is always written with the first e circle, so that was an oversight by the writer. For words that have -gin-, these were written according to the Abbreviating Principle in Anniversary, where the word would stop at the j. Starting with Simplified they added the rest of the word, but in the dictionary some are written with the circle and some without (also an oversight, in my opinion). In the DJS dictionary, they were all written with the circle between the j and the n. So again, the plate writer made a mistake in the manual, maybe influenced by the English outline which does not have the circle (much easier to write without it!).
Thank you Carlos!
I now have a similar question, so instead of opening a new topic (let me know if I should), I’ll post it here: in the following chapter I found "chirurgical" (p.229) and "procurer" (p.230) which are both written without the U. Now this does not seem to be a mistake since both words are written the same in the dictionary. However I can’t find a rule in the manual saying that U between two consonants should be omitted. And it doesn’t ring a bell either. I know it goes away in "ul" and before a descending stroke (and a nasal "un/um" sound) but that’s all I can remember…
Thanks again!
For procurer, since it comes from procure, the -ure rule of paragraph 259 of Lesson 31 applies.
For chirurgical, the obscure vowel rule still applies, even though it is not stated per se in the French manual. This rule was present in the French Anniversary manual, but changed in French Simplified and French DJS to the AL rule (paragraph 13). In French Anniversary, the rule (paragraph 16) used to read: L'omission de certaines voyelles, ainsi que l'o dans "dragon" et l'a dans "métal", rend plus facil l'exécution du signe sans nuire aucunement à la lisibilité. In English Simplified and DJS, it reads more or less like this: "Omission of Minor Vowels. Sometimes a vowel in a word is slightly pronounced or slurred. Such a vowel may be omitted if it does not contribute to speed or legibility." The same rule applies in métallurgie. So both outlines (English and French) are equivalent.
Hi!
‘chirurgie’ without the ‘u’ is a abbreviation in the ‘Études Graduées…’
‘Procurer’ appears also without the ‘u’ in the Sénécal.
A form that has puzzled me a very long time is ‘r-r-l’ that stands for ‘rural’…
We must ‘deal with it’: the ‘u’ is often omitted without any further ado.
And isn’t the small thing annoying to trace? 🙂
Rural is written without the oo-hook to match the English Anniversary form, which is written without it to make it easier to write as you mention. The hook in rural was put back in Simplified, :-(.
A Simplified version less simple… 🙂
Exactly, LOL.
Thank you Carlos and Christine! Yes in the manual they talk about the -ure ending written with R, without specifying that it also applies to "ur" syllables within words…
I must say from the POV of a beginner like me, this sounds very daunting, as I find it hard to imagine I can ever make this become second nature and not have to stop and think "wait should I include U here or not".
Christine I agree that U near R is annoying because you have to change direction (whereas I find it very easy to write U next to a K).
In terms of ease of writing, I am increasingly annoyed with the curves and straight N/M lines following each other. This combination seems to be very frequent in French and I really find that it disrupts the flow. I hope I like it better soon…
Can you give an example of curves and straight lines being hard to write together?
For example I find it uncomfortable to write words such as "normalement" and "s’enflammer" (I’m thinking of those because they came up recently in my texts.
In normalement, I feel like my pen has to stop at least 3 times (between R and M, then between M and AL, then between AL and MENT), in order to ensure that the switch from curve to straight line and then from straight line to curve is neat. Otherwise I sraighten my curves and bend my straight lines.
In s’enflammer, it’s hard to keep the N straight while it follows a curved S and precedes a curved F (it wouldn’t be a problem if it were an P or a B because the curve would create an acute angle which is always easier to write).
These are just two examples, but I’ve been noticing this difficulty more and more – actually, ever since I completed the chapter that teaches how en/an/in can be written with just an N, and such cases now pop up everywhere in the texts I’m copying.
You can round the angle of between the n and the f in s'enflammer making it a little easier to write.
For normalement, welcome to DJS! However, you can always abbreviate in your own writing. If you find the combination hard to write, you could write it as n-o hook-m-m, the m-m written with a jog (le retraite, paragraph 46), that is, omit the r and the l. You will know it reads normalement. I give you permission,:-).
Thank you Carlos! Yes that would be a nice and logical solution. To be honest, my intention is to try and complete my learning sticking to the rules as much as possible, and possibly allow myself more freedom and creativity once I really have a good grasp of the inner system. Small details that are far from conspicuous in the eyes of a beginner but which are crucial for an expert: for example, even if my N looks like an R, I can tell them apart if the following E is above or below the line, and there seems to be a dozen such examples that I am starting to notice little by little, and which incidentally might explain why the writing in the DJS book is sometimes a bit messy: the writer has fully interalized those minute details and thus doesn’t feel the need to write her signs very differently from each other. She is so fluent in the system that she cannot even imagine how some of her outlines could possibly be confusing, because she relies so much on those little cues (like the side of the consonant signs onto which the vowels are written). That’s just my uneducated guess… what do you think?
I agree. Finishing the manual should be your first goal, but finishing it by studying it well, not haphazardly!
The penmanship in the French DJS book is legible. The issue I see is that the proportions are not very consistent, and for that, the student has to rely on how she wrote the outlines (the little cues as you said) and ends up "guessing" instead of "reading" the shorthand. (I think for a beginning book, clarity and consistency have to go hand in hand, but that's my opinion.) However, in the preface of the French Simplified book, Sister Marie-Ernestine wrote:
Nous espérons que la clarté des "Exercices" supléera à l'absence de l'élégance du style, qui siérait mal comme application graduelle des principes énoncés dans chacune des leçons.
So, there you go …
Personally, I'm not against writing normalement the way you say even if, in Sénécal, it is written without the 'r' (and, logically, even writing normal 'n-o-m').
Almost one century separates me from the date of publication of the Sénécal manual. Some renovation wouldn't go amiss… 🙂
That’s really funny Carlos, apparently SME was outraged if she went so far as to write that in the manual. I agree that learning material should definitely be clearer than that, and I find the inconsistencies very annoying. I’m just trying to understand how/why a seasoned writer would write like this and mess up proportions that even a beginner can observe better than her.
Yes Christine, I often think the same about brief forms and phrases as well, some of them have fallen into complete disuse, others are Canadian anglicisms (sincèrement à vous… "sincerely yours"!) and I just came across the abbreviating rule for -somption. I assume this is a direct adaptation of the English DJS -sumption rule, because English has very commun words such as consumption, assumption, and the like, hence the usefulness of this rule. In French however there are only 3 or 4 words that would fall under this rule (the manual mentions consomption, assomption, présomption) and they all are very literary and extremely seldom used. Most French people don’t even know what consomption and assomption mean. Learning a rule for 3 words that one will write once every 5 years, if ever, doesn’t make much sense. Unless as Carlos was saying, you are already fluent in English Gregg and view French Gregg as a mere add-on.
I never came across such rule in the Sénécal so I had to have a look in the English dictionary to see how this ending looks like…
Actually, even the words 'consomption' and 'assomption' I didn't come across neither.
The closest to such words would be, in my opinion, 'exemption' which is written 'e-s-n-p-tion' so it doesn't follow the English version.
English Gregg and French Gregg are quite different, only the base is similar but this part is very quickly learned. 🙂
You know, more you write the word, less you think about the way the form is made.
Personally, I am more bothered when I have to 'create' new words.
I try to stay consistent with the corpus that has already been published but, as shorthand is a compromise between speed, comfort and legibility, the questions are inevitable.
In fine, when necessary, rules can be dropped and the word can be considered as a particular case and called 'abbreviation'.
Of course, if there are too many exceptions, there are no more rules… which is not satisfying.
I’m sorry if I’m straying but can I take this opportunity to ask why NK is long and NG is short? In the whole system, voiced consonants are twice as long as unvoiced ones, except for this pair. Why?
Thanks…
In Dr. Gregg's own words:
24. Why do you express ng with the shorter stroke, and nk with the longer, seeing that g is a longer character than k?
Because ng is the shorter sound. The combination nk is really ngk, as will be seen by pronouncing ran(g)k, ban(g)k. In addition to this, there is the practical reason that the combination ng is much more frequent than nk, and should therefore have the more facile sign.
The Q's and A's book is an excellent reference.
Thank you! That’s what I suspected (the second reason he states about frequency of ng vs. nk). In French though I would tend to think that it’s the other way around (nk is probably more common than ng), so we end up with large outlines for extremely common words such as donc.
This makes me wonder whether tho mantra of aligning the French version to the English one was observed sometimes at the expense of the efficiency and inner coherence of the French version as a standalone system in its own right.
At its core, Gregg shorthand is not made for the French language: look at all those 'le', 'les', 'la', 'des'… They take a lot of place on the page, much more than their English counterparts, 'the', 'of', although they are not that important words.
So 'nk' and 'ng'… it seems marginal to me. 🙂
Good point Christine! It hadn’t even occurred to me but you are right.
Indeed, that's the situation. Each language has its own structure and a shorthand system should be adapted and constructed according to the language's structure (not viceversa). In this case, they were preparing students to be fluent in both English and French Gregg, so it’s natural they made some compromises. However, that doesn't impede you personally to use writing expedients and abbreviate (for example, use the ten blend as a brief form for donc). In that case, words would not be written strictly according to DJS theory, but as long as you can transcribe them, it's perfectly fine.
I've always liked the Q's and A's book, ever since I first encountered it several years ago. It shows how deeply Gregg thought about what he was doing when he developed his system.