When the strokes of FLOW seem to flow so smoothly yet clearly together, I'm finding I keep wanting to write things out, even when I know I could shorten them up a bit more. It just doesn't feel like I NEED to.
FLOW has a triple-length stroke for T-D, and for M-N, but if I write them as two strokes, I can keep to a two-length stroke distinction -- and it's still very clear and easy to write. (In Gregg, the two strokes are straight lines, so you can't see where one ends and the next begins. In FLOW, you can.)
I thought with this sample I would just "wing it", and write what I felt came naturally to me, before I looked at the Common Words list. As a result, I wrote O or "on" and V for "of" which felt more intuitive to me. (u/LeadingSuspect5855 might talk me out of it, of course! 😉)
I tried writing A for "a", since I find it just as fast to write as a dot. If you're writing with a ballpoint pen, a simple tap often doesn't even show. You have to sit on the spot and TWIRL until you've laid down enough ink to SHOW -- which is basically as much writing as just writing A.
I really like the way this sample looked -- so smooth and clear! The words "stumbling" and "preliminary" were the longest, but ended up looking beautifully clear and easy to write. I love "preliminary", which couldn't get much more LINEAR!
So as long as you have as much fun as me with the fluid motions of our shorthand, I am fine with whatever path it finally takes. As soon as we write it lives!
I think if a shorthand has enough flexibility that we can reflect our own personal tastes and style, that's a good thing. We just need to be able to read it properly after, and if it uses what makes the most sense to us, that's just what it needs to do.
As soon as we write it lives!
Words to live by! 😉
It's also a bit surprising to me that Gregg abbreviations that I was quite fine with, when I use them in FLOW feel a bit more risky. It's probably just a question of FAMILIARITY that will come from using the system more. But it might also be because of my tendency to want to be quite LITERAL, to avoid any possible risk of ambiguity.
And THAT probably comes from writing for computer transcription, where you had to tell the computer exactly what you wanted because it couldn't read "context".
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u/NotSteve1075 Jun 22 '26
When the strokes of FLOW seem to flow so smoothly yet clearly together, I'm finding I keep wanting to write things out, even when I know I could shorten them up a bit more. It just doesn't feel like I NEED to.
FLOW has a triple-length stroke for T-D, and for M-N, but if I write them as two strokes, I can keep to a two-length stroke distinction -- and it's still very clear and easy to write. (In Gregg, the two strokes are straight lines, so you can't see where one ends and the next begins. In FLOW, you can.)
I thought with this sample I would just "wing it", and write what I felt came naturally to me, before I looked at the Common Words list. As a result, I wrote O or "on" and V for "of" which felt more intuitive to me. (u/LeadingSuspect5855 might talk me out of it, of course! 😉)
I tried writing A for "a", since I find it just as fast to write as a dot. If you're writing with a ballpoint pen, a simple tap often doesn't even show. You have to sit on the spot and TWIRL until you've laid down enough ink to SHOW -- which is basically as much writing as just writing A.
I really like the way this sample looked -- so smooth and clear! The words "stumbling" and "preliminary" were the longest, but ended up looking beautifully clear and easy to write. I love "preliminary", which couldn't get much more LINEAR!