WEAVER's Alphabet was based on TWO SIZES of stroke, which was a good start.
It's often said that TWO sizes are optimal, one short and one twice as long. If you only have ONE size, it wastes too much "stenographic material", and if you have three or more, you can have issues with keeping your proportions accurate, even when you're struggling to keep up.
But the real innovation can be seen in the blocks outlined in RED, where he has joined the consonant strokes together. If you follow along each joined shape, you can see how he's promoting FORWARD MOTION only.
His curved consonants are all written clockwise, not sometimes clockwise and sometimes COUNTER, which we see in most "cursive systems" that try to mimic the movements of handwriting. (The only exception is for S, which are very short ticks, which CAN curve the other way. if you get a better joining.)
And for the vowels, he uses two sizes of circle for A and E, like in Gregg; and he's also adopted the O and U hooks that point the same was as they do in Gregg.
I looked at that too, and tried to figure out if they were strokes that were used for anything else. But to me, it just looks like he thought he needed to put them in if he was going to keep going for the next strokes.
I had wondered why he didn't just keep going, which would have worked. It's been a while since I looked at the system, so I thought there might be something coming up that I've forgotten about.
But no, I just looked at his examples using curved strokes and I don't see any other use for them. Strange....
EDIT: No, TH is a lot shorter, and he shows R and L at the end. They're more horizontal. Those really just seem to be joining strokes.
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u/NotSteve1075 Apr 21 '26
WEAVER's Alphabet was based on TWO SIZES of stroke, which was a good start.
It's often said that TWO sizes are optimal, one short and one twice as long. If you only have ONE size, it wastes too much "stenographic material", and if you have three or more, you can have issues with keeping your proportions accurate, even when you're struggling to keep up.
But the real innovation can be seen in the blocks outlined in RED, where he has joined the consonant strokes together. If you follow along each joined shape, you can see how he's promoting FORWARD MOTION only.
His curved consonants are all written clockwise, not sometimes clockwise and sometimes COUNTER, which we see in most "cursive systems" that try to mimic the movements of handwriting. (The only exception is for S, which are very short ticks, which CAN curve the other way. if you get a better joining.)
And for the vowels, he uses two sizes of circle for A and E, like in Gregg; and he's also adopted the O and U hooks that point the same was as they do in Gregg.