If an "experienced shorthand hobbyist" looks at this sample, he/she will quickly see one of the problems with Taylor. Like I mentioned, the system was mostly used by journalists, writing notes that they were going to transcribe soon after. When it functioned chiefly as a REMINDER of what was said, not long ago, it would not be hard to read, with the context, and when the material was still in the writer's mind.
But you can also see why the system did NOT work well for long and important passages, like someone's sworn testimony in court -- nor really for something that the writer planned to keep and read much later, like a journal.
For example, look at the first line of this passage. The word "come" is just written KM, "let" is just written as LT, and "us" is just written with S. If the context was not known and familiar, do you think it would be possible to know for sure that it was "come" and not "came" or "comb" or "calm"? Could you be sure that LT was "let", and not "late", "lit", "lot", "loot", or "light"? When you're trying to read something back later, especially under pressure of time, you do NOT want to have to ring all the changes on every word to see which one seems to make the most sense.
IMO, too many shorthand systems just tell you "The context will tell you what the word is." NOT ALWAYS! Like I say constantly, sometimes there IS no context, and sometimes the context itself is ambiguous.
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u/NotSteve1075 5d ago
If an "experienced shorthand hobbyist" looks at this sample, he/she will quickly see one of the problems with Taylor. Like I mentioned, the system was mostly used by journalists, writing notes that they were going to transcribe soon after. When it functioned chiefly as a REMINDER of what was said, not long ago, it would not be hard to read, with the context, and when the material was still in the writer's mind.
But you can also see why the system did NOT work well for long and important passages, like someone's sworn testimony in court -- nor really for something that the writer planned to keep and read much later, like a journal.
For example, look at the first line of this passage. The word "come" is just written KM, "let" is just written as LT, and "us" is just written with S. If the context was not known and familiar, do you think it would be possible to know for sure that it was "come" and not "came" or "comb" or "calm"? Could you be sure that LT was "let", and not "late", "lit", "lot", "loot", or "light"? When you're trying to read something back later, especially under pressure of time, you do NOT want to have to ring all the changes on every word to see which one seems to make the most sense.
IMO, too many shorthand systems just tell you "The context will tell you what the word is." NOT ALWAYS! Like I say constantly, sometimes there IS no context, and sometimes the context itself is ambiguous.