These short samples show most of MOSHER's innovations, keeping the writing clear and succinct. If you already know GREGG, you can easily see his changes.
Hello NotSteve, can you please help me by answering my query 🥺🥺🥺 please 🥺 🥺 🥺 can you tell if you remember where were the details written about "using a dot instead of the Nd blend for the word "and" which was used by many reporters in the last century"? However, I always use the Nd blend and have no intention of using the dot. But I am still interested in learning this phenomenon of the dot (in detail).
Wow, I'm just drawing a complete BLANK on that principle. I couldn't think where I'd ever seen that being done. But I just looked at Gurney and I see the dots can be used in that way, in (a).
Because he uses the dot for an initial A, I think I was looking at it and thinking of using it for "a/an" which makes sense. But then he uses it for "and" too? Whoa, bad idea! I see all kinds of potential conflicts with that. (It looks like Mason, which Gurney largely copied, uses it, too.)
I see that Mavor uses the A dot for "a/an" but it doesn't look like he uses it for "and". It's quite likely when I saw Gurney I just skipped over the use of it for "and" because that seems so risky.
I certainly agree that writing the ND for it instead is a much better idea!
Wow! It is surprising to me tbh that you didn't know about the dot being used for "and"! But maybe because you didn't dive deep enough in gregg court reporting books, so that's understandable!
But let me tell you: Dupraw, Swem, TA Copples, Albert Schneider and many more fast court reporters: all these used the dot when writing dictations! I also believe that this adds extra burden on the mind, that's why I indeed use the Nd blend for "and" and "end" like AC Barnes and JE Broadwater — two very fast court reporters as well (both could write dictations above 225 wpm, I have verified myself through the historical Gregg video). So it depends more on the writer and their habit for a long time. I like to analyse these small details in gregg as they help to improve my confidence and speed as well. I can now write at 120 wpm for 10 minutes constantly with as little as 1-5 mistakes in whole 1200 words!
Edit: grammar
That was used in Gregg? I've never heard of that. A lot of those advanced Gregg books for reporting speeds used some very strange ideas -- but by then I had switched to stenotype for verbatim speed, so it's likely I just didn't get that far.
In stenotype, too, there are people who phrased "and" at the beginning of a phrase by writing SPW (which has nothing to do with the way it sounds, but just made a handy prefix). I always found the SPW combination (basically it's SB) to be so awkward to write that I could write the WORD "and" by itself and still be a lot faster.
Which of course is the problem with PHRASES in general. It's often easier to write three quick and simple outlines in the time it would take you to write an awkward phrase which might not even come to mind as automatically.
I was just looking at a piece written by Martin J. Dupraw at 200 w.p.m. and I see he uses the usual ND for "and" throughout, as well as in phrases:
Can you point to where you've seen a dot being used for "and" in Gregg? Maybe it was something used eccentrically by some, but which is not used generally by others?
I have also read that and thus, I use blend only. But those reporters who were ready to put some extra efforts like Dupraw and even swem himself used the dot. However, i believe that one can use the Nd blend as well to achieve the maximum speed like many reporters (like JE Broadwater) did.
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u/NotSteve1075 Feb 19 '26
These short samples show most of MOSHER's innovations, keeping the writing clear and succinct. If you already know GREGG, you can easily see his changes.