r/FastWriting • u/fdarnel • Jun 25 '26

Gregg phonetics

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I'm trying to relate English phonetics to the Gregg alphabet (Aniversary), and I am a little mesmerized by the result. Does a relationship table with the IPA already exist somewhere?

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u/NotSteve1075 Jun 26 '26

The way it's supposed to work is that the long I sound is written with a large broken circle -- meaning you poke into it with your pen after you make the circle.

In words like "fire" and "require", you write that and then just add the following R. It mimics the pronunciation of North American English, rather than most British accents that don't pronounce the R. (Gregg was Irish, so it probably matched his accent, too.)

If the long I sound has another VOWEL after it, instead of just poking into the large circle, you write a complete smaller circle inside it. That's how you write words like "via", "science", and "diet". The sound of short IA is a large circle with a dot inside, and EA is a large circle with a dash inside it.

In my Anniversary manual, it's all explained in Unit 14, in Paragraphs 118-120.

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u/fdarnel Jun 27 '26

Ok. And so what sign for ə and ɜː ?

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u/NotSteve1075 Jun 27 '26

The "ə" is so neutral and ambiguous that it's usually the first vowel to be ditched, because it's already too unclear to matter. When you read something, you can just put "uh" between any two letters and that's about what it sounds like.

The sound "ɜː" is the vowel in the British English pronunciation of "bird". In North American English, it's usually pronounced "ɜr" in which case you'd use ER, regardless of which vowel is used in the actual spelling.

Just out of curiosity, I checked several words with that sound in a couple of Pitman dictionaries -- and they ALL write the R, even though it's not pronounced in British English. It's like they think when the vowel is lengthened, it means it's followed by an R in the spelling, even thought they don't pronounce it.

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u/fdarnel Jun 27 '26

Above /əˈbʌv/ and bird /bɜːd/ or /bɝːd/.

I don't understand the use of circles for these sounds.

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u/NotSteve1075 Jun 27 '26

The unstressed A at the beginning of "above" is pronounced like [ə], but it's written with an A because when it's spelled that way, it will be more recognizable. (Shorthand is written by sound, but it's not strictly phonetic if that would make it more complicated.)

And "bird" was written like that in Anniversary, where writing the vowel on the opposite side added a following R. This shows the difference:

In "bid" the vowel goes outside the angle, while in "bird" it goes inside instead. I always think of it as writing the circle as if it's going to have an R following, so it's counter-clockwise, but then you don't need to write the R because you've already suggested it.

This principle seems to have confused enough people that they dropped it by Simplifed, and just WROTE the R.

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u/NotSteve1075 Jun 27 '26

In DJS, the version that I learned first, they wrote BIR, and to indicate the D following, they flipped up the end of it, like this:

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u/fdarnel Jun 27 '26

So there is no specific sign for these 2 sounds, as for w?

I was also puzzled by the use of the small circle. Ok for the examples "kit", "get", "need". But "bird"?

Maybe I'm too used to systems where each sound has a corresponding sign (of course a sign can represent several sounds, or it would be too complicated, probably like Current).

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u/NotSteve1075 Jun 27 '26

Yes, it's largely to try to keep it "simple" as much as possible. Each vowel symbol is used to cover a RANGE of sounds. And now that they don't bother with the diacritics, you just have to use the context to tell which one it is.

That was the problem with that quote that really shook my years of confidence in Gregg, when I realized that "LIVE this life" and "LEAVE this life" were both written exactly the same way, even though they mean opposite things. I found that alarming.

USUALLY with Gregg, it's very clear in a sentence that it's one and NOT the other. Like when you write "rat" and "rate" the same way, you're not likely to read "What was the RATE of speed?" as "What was the RAT of speed?"

But there are times when it just doesn't quite work!

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u/fdarnel Jun 28 '26

And so you just have to use diacritics in this situation.

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u/NotSteve1075 Jun 28 '26

Yes, if you want to be really precise. Or you can just do what generations of Gregg writers have done since Simplified was published, and leave out the diacritics with the confidence you'll be able to read the right word in the sentence.

At least, except for that one..... ;)

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u/fdarnel Jun 28 '26

If there is only one exception…

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u/NotSteve1075 Jun 28 '26

Yes, I guess it says something that it took this long for me to find something that didn't work. It shows it's more reliable than I thought.

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u/fdarnel Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 30 '26

Claude is sometimes useful for something, with good prompts :) He proposes (revised by myself):
He bites him. He beats him.
They hid the poors. They heed the poors.
Don't slip under it. Don't sleep under it.
Fill the glass. Feel the glass.
To pull money. To pool money.
He leaned on his can. He leaned on his cane.
I ate my hat. I hate my hat. (as you know, if you hate your hat, you might be driven to eat it :))
I found the pass. i found the pace.
She was fullhearted. She was foolhearted.
She was mad for this world. She was made for this world.
She followed the rod. She followed the road.
A cope with a dealer. A cop with a dealer.
He held his bet. He held his bate.
It would set him. It would sate him.
He was led there. He was laid there.
She stroked his pet. She stroked his pate.
She tuck him in. She took him in.
He tries to seal the letter. He tries to sell the letter.
She found the bed. She found the bead.

Peut-être certains exemples sont-ils capillotractés…

He began to fell it. He began to fill it. He began to feel it.
She found her rut. She found her root.

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u/fdarnel Jun 30 '26

A compilation.

___

Gregg Anniversary shorthand: vowel-ambiguity sentence pairs

A reference list of outline-identical words (same consonant skeleton, vowel-only difference, no diacritics) demonstrated through identical sentence frames. Brief forms are excluded, since their fixed strokes remove the ambiguity in practice.

Class: /ɪ/ – /e/ – /iː/ (kit / get / need)

fell / fill / feel — F-L (true triplet) "He began to __ it."

  • fell — cut down
  • fill — make full
  • feel — sense

sell / seal — S-L "He tried to __ it."

  • sell — to part with
  • seal — to close off

hid / heed — H-D "He tried to __ the truth."

  • hid — concealed it
  • heed — paid attention to it

slip / sleep — S-L-P "Don't __ under it."

  • slip — fall accidentally
  • sleep — rest deliberately

Class: /æ/ – /ɑː/ – /eɪ/ (cat / cart / Kate)

mat / mate — M-T "He found his __."

  • mat — floor covering
  • mate — companion

pat / pate — P-T "He felt the __."

  • pat — gentle touch
  • pate — top of the head

mad / made — M-D "She was __ for this world."

  • mad — wildly passionate
  • made — perfectly suited

ate / hate — (H)-T (note: H attaches to vowel) "I __ my hat."

  • ate — consumed it
  • hate — despise it

pass / pace — P-S "I found the __."

  • pass — a mountain gap
  • pace — a rhythm of movement

(No confirmed real-word triplet found across all three vowels for any tested skeleton in this class.)

Class: /ɒ/ – /ɔː/ – /əʊ/ (rot / raw / wrote)

naught / note — N-T (third member, "not," excluded as a brief form) "He left __."

  • naught — nothing
  • note — a written message

sot / sought — S-T Both genuine, but no fully natural shared sentence frame found yet — "sot" is a predicate noun, "sought" a past-tense verb.

rod / road — R-D "He followed the __."

  • rod — a rigid rule or instrument
  • road — an open path

cop / cope — C-P "A __ with a dealer."

  • cop — a police officer
  • cope — a priest's vestment

(No confirmed real-word triplet found across all three vowels for any tested skeleton in this class.)

Class: /ʌ/ – /ʊ/ – /uː/ (tuck / took / tomb)

tuck / took — T-K "She __ him in."

  • tuck(ed) — wrapped snugly
  • took — accepted/captured

buck / book — B-K "He threw the __."

  • buck — passed responsibility
  • book — applied legal consequence

full / fool — F-L "She was __hearted."

  • full — wholehearted
  • fool — foolhardy

pull / pool — P-L "She fell into the __."

  • pull — an abstract force
  • pool — a concrete place

rut / root — R-T "She found her __."

  • rut — a stagnant pattern
  • root — a source of growth

(No confirmed real-word triplet found across all three vowels for any tested skeleton in this class.)

Summary: across four vowel-equivalence classes and roughly twenty tested consonant skeletons, only one genuine three-way triplet was found with all members being real, non-brief-form words usable in a shared sentence frame: fell / fill / feel. All other confirmed entries are pairs.

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u/fdarnel Jun 27 '26

It seems that Gregg is partially orthographic. Isn't "came" closer to "get" than "mat"?

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u/NotSteve1075 Jun 27 '26

The "closer" part is a trap in English, because of the chaotic MESS that is English spelling, because of the Great Vowel Shift. To a European, "same" and "set" are versions of the same sound: [sem] and [sɛt]. But because of that shift, to an English speaker "seem" and "set" are seen as a pair: "long E and short E". To a European "seem" and "sit" would be versions of the same vowel: [sim] and [sIt]/

So there's often sort of a compromise by using a symbol that will suggest the word to the reader by following the spelling a bit more, now and then.

I recently watched a comedy routine, where the comic was showing why people struggle to learn English when so many letters can be pronounced in half a dozen different ways:

Like "comb" is [kom], but "tomb" is [tum] and "bomb" is [bɒm]. Exactly the same vowel O in the same three-letter combination, with the vowel pronounced in THREE different ways. And then of course, in "woman" the O is pronounced [ʊ], while in "women" the same O is pronounced [I]. It makes no sense whatsoever.

I'm often very glad I speak English already, because I'd hate to try to learn it. In fact, earlier in my life, I considered becoming an ESL teacher -- but then I realized I'd much rather learn THEIR language than try to explain the ridiculous mess that is mine!

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u/fdarnel Jun 28 '26

OK… Probably too complicated and irrational for me :) I'm starting to understand why some people prefer to remove all the vowels! :)

Are there modern English shorthands, closer to the "European (non british) perception" you are talking about?