Every fall, thousands of Monarch butterflies flock to Monterey County in California, settling in at forest groves to wait out the winter. Though the butterflies congregate in areas from Big Sur through Monterey, their best-known wintering-over spot is in Pacific Grove. This area, filled with pine and eucalyptus trees, is the preferred Monarch butterfly habitat during their migration to warmer climates. The butterflies hang in clusters from the branches to maintain body temperature, and the resulting effect is stunning. How Frank Yakimoto, a little boy from the area, welcomed them on their annual flight is told here by American writer Gladys Relyea Saxon. I transcribed it in Anniversary Gregg.
Attachment: welcome-butterflies.pdf
This was a good story, with excitements and loyalty. Written in a conversational style I found it quite easy to read, but I have some questions.
p3 c1 l21: "insist on strict ? and"
p4 c2 l14: "Frank ? try not to show"
p6 c1 l8: "shaded streets ?, and then into"
p6 c2 l13: "? you see!"
p7 c1 l10: is it "wetting" or "waiting" or something else? The sentence seemed odd.
p7 c2 l21: "really good I will have ? "
p8 c2 l5: "? fluttered then lighted"
And I have a few things to check too.
p6 c1 l12: Is the last word "where"?
p6 c2 l10: I couldn't pair-up the end-of-quote at the end of the line.
p7 c1 l5: I read "sparkled" easily, but my dictionary has s-p-a-r-K-ld. (Less easy to write.)
p7 c1 l16: My phrase book has "we are pleased" as u-e-r-p-l, but I guessed your u-e-r-p easily enough.
p7 c2 l14: "for a moment". I'm glad you wrote it as you did for I would have puzzled over f-m which is in my phrase book.
As to the poem, I should have guessed Cho-cho because the main character in Puccini's opera Madam Butterfly is Cio-cio-san. The opera is set in Japan and sung in Italian.
Glad you liked it! I read this story many many years ago and enjoyed it very much. Here are answers to your questions:
p3 c1 l21: "obedience"
p4 c2 l14: "Frank nodded, trying not to show" (I added the -ing)
p6 c1 l8: "beyond"
p6 c2 l13: "Wait'll you see!"
p7 c1 l10: "Frank and his mother and father kept their eyes to the northeast, waiting."
p7 c2 l21: "fif…" (He wanted to say “fifteen”, but stopped the word in the middle.)
p8 c2 l5: "hesitated"
On your other points:
p6 c1 l12: Corrected — I was thinking "were."
p6 c2 l10: Erased now.
p7 c1 l5: It is "sparkled" — not easy to write, but the r-k-ld is there like in the dictionary. If it were "spackled", the a would be outside the angle.
Also, for the last two phrases, remember that even in the Anniversary phrase book, some phrases were not updated. This is the case for both "we are pleased" and "for a moment", even though in other Anniversary books they were updated as I wrote them here. Nevertheless, there's no harm in writing them as the phrase book says as long as you can transcribe them.
Thanks Carlos. I'll have to fix things those points of the compass in my mind. But as for obedience, despite the dictionary, I would have put an E after the B — E being the most prominent vowel.
Also, if I was taking dictation, after my third writing of butterfly I would have made up a shorter outline. That is if I was later to transcribe it on a typewriter.
"Obituary" is also written without the circle.
I agree about "butterfly"; you could stop the outline at the f.
Thanks for the story! It was very enjoyable to read. Some quick questions:
I have been in the habit of writing nearby as N-E-B, overlapping with nibble, since there isn't a dictionary outline for this word that I can find. Is there a theory reason that I should write "nearby" as depicted in this passage with the disjoined and lowered B?
On page 6, what is the first outline in "[left TH-E-F] monarch butterflies fluttered out of his way." At first I thought it might be "there were a few", but it doesn't seem to make good grammatic sense that way.
There was also a repeated outline [L-I-S, H dot above I] that seemed like a location?
Also, other than the manual and the Anniversary Phrase Book, is there another easy reference of Anniversary phrases that might provide inspiration? There are phrases like "there were a few" that I feel might benefit from phrasing and I can exercise my own judgement if needed, but it's nicer not reinvent the wheel when possible. Similarly, the Anni resources at least seem to not have very many phrases which incorporated "her" instead of "him" or "his".
Hi Erik.
Perhaps I can step in before Carlos (!) and suggest
three-or-four
lighthouse
Ah! That must be it. Thank you!
Correct!
As to why “nearby” is written that way, by disjoining the “by” it makes it obvious to read the n-e as “near.” In general, derivatives of words ending in reverse circle tend to preserve the reverse circle. While the word is not in the dictionary, you can find it in paragraph 202 of the third edition of Gregg Speed Studies.
About learning more phrases, as you read more and more shorthand books, you see lots of examples. For starters, the Functional Method Manual and Gregg Speed Studies are excellent sources. Also, books with an indices of words and phrases are particularly helpful, such as Shorthand Dictation Studies by Wallace Bowman, Rational Dictation by McNamara and Markett, and the first edition of Gregg Speed Building (you can also find a nice index of words and phrases of the FMM in the teacher's key). The plates in Functional Method Dictation by Louis Leslie use ample phrasing examples (although sometimes Zoubek seems to skip some obvious ones, see this post); it’s a shame they didn’t index the vocabulary. Another source of phrasing examples is Gregg Speed Practice, the 1909 edition: although it was written for an earlier version of Gregg (the 1901 New Edition), the phrasing examples are numerous, with a section of 43 phrase letters covering antiquated phrases such as "in reply will say", "we beg to remain", etc., as well as other more relevant and useful examples. Finally, reporting books such as the Expert Shorthand Speed Course by Blanchard and the Gregg Shorthand Reporting Course by Swem take phrasing principles to another level.