despite

d-s-p-i-t I know that the “i” should be put on the BACK of the “p”, in that same way that “a” would be (e.g. in “pat”), but it seems much easier to write it on the INSIDE of the “p”, bringing the line through the centre of the large circle (as is done for “while”)…

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Applied Secretarial Practise

Something reminded me of the “Applied Secretarial Practise” book I got 10 or 20 years ago. It is not at all useful for shorthand, though there are some “motivating” paragraphs in shorthand near the end from which I did pick up the useful phrase “as far as” s-f-s which was not in my phrase book….

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batteries

I was going over some writing exercise in the anniversary manual to regain some “lost” outlines and principles.  In para 226(4) when writing batteries I wrote   . But when checking the correct form afterwards I saw that battery is and so presumably batteries is . I think I’ll stick to my outline because (1) it…

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confrontational, eyebrows, clothes

I needed to write confrontational and put an L in [1] but it looked odd so I checked my dictionary. The dictionary showed confront [2]and confrontation [3] but not confrontational. I think [1] is bad and so I should use [3] and allow the context to provide confrontational rather than confrontation.   When I write…

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S-L

Considering words such as slow and sleep….. I thought, right from when I was first learning, that it would be easier to write s-l using a right-S rather than the left-S which we use. It is much more “facile” (to use an expression commonly used in describing Gregg writing).  I quite understood at the time…

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Such

Why is it that “such” has a left S?  The ‘favoured’ way (I thought) was a right S. (In the word “session” the right S is used.  The word “sent” has (as the rule for putting curves outside a sharp angle) a right S.  Similarly “sand”.) I’ve only fairly recently realised that the left S…

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Not really a quiz

My writing has been getting worse lately, and before I do some of the drills in Speed Studies (not to increase speed but only to improve clarity) I thought I might show what my Anniversary writing looks like – in the form of a “quiz”. The quiz part of this is for you to identify…

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-ish, -ile, -ed

I am speaking Anniversary Gregg in this comment. -ish I frequently need to write words to describe something. Colloquial words. For example blue-ish, green-ish, heavy-ish, etc. In longhand one can insert a dash if needed. In Gregg I have, so far, just used the sh, joined. Decipherable if the word ends in a consonant, but…

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Overly

I wanted to write overly (as in “he was not overly tired”). I wrote the usual o-hook above the line, and then the e-circle ON the line (e-circle as a word-ending indicating ‘ly’).  Thus ‘over’ + ‘ly’: But it looks open to misinterpretation (though I cannot yet think what else it might mean).  I tried…

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I had

Reading Carlos’ transcription (Anniversary) of Santa’s letter, and seeing “I had” written as [1] made me think of the various similar forms: I had, he had, we had, they had (also you had, & who had). 1,2,3,4,5,&6 are consistent, however the manual (paragraph 148 in my ©1930 copy) show us 7,8,9,&10 (I had, we had,…

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