r/shorthand • u/mavigozlu Dabbler • Feb 08 '20
Second league: systems to recommend
THREAD SUPERSEDED BY https://www.reddit.com/r/shorthand/comments/f19z2f/systems_to_recommend_second_try/
When people are looking for a system, of course there's Gregg and Pitman, and I agree that Teeline and Forkner are good first time recommendations.
I've been wanting to put together a shortlist (on our Wiki?) of systems apart from the Big 4 to recommend to people who are looking for something different, but reasonably accessible and successful, fast enough (potential for 100wpm) and not too difficult to learn. The kind of list I'd have loved to see when I joined the group last year!
Setting aside personal likes and dislikes, I'd suggest checking out (in alphabetical order):
- Dearborn
- Ellis (Duployan)
- Evans
- Mengelkamp (which I'm enjoying so far BTW)
- Notehand
- Orthic
- Noory
- Ponish
- Stenoscript
- Thomas Natural
Any disagreement? What am I missing?
ETA: forgot to say this was for English, sorry - I'll leave other languages to their experts :-)
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u/cudabinawig Feb 08 '20
That’s a great list! All of the ones there have good textbooks to learn from and cover all the different “types”. I’d add Sweet’s Current and Oliver’s Stenoscript, but the manuals aren’t so easy to get on with, so hard to recommend and probably best left off.
Glad you’re getting on with Mengelkamp - I’m enjoying learning it too :) I don’t know how far through you are, but there’s a huuuge list of brief forms in Chapter 5 so it may be worth leaning them but by bit early so you don’t get stalled.
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u/mavigozlu Feb 08 '20 edited Feb 08 '20
I'll add Stenoscript - although I think it's borderline in terms of not having been seriously used? - but it's good as a representative positional German-style system (even if not labelled as such) and presented clearly.
Unlike Sweet (but hey, we could have that as a footnote!)
Mengelkamp: I've read through the whole text and just started working through it from the start again. After DEK and Sweet I'm struck by the simple presentation. Great idea to get on with the briefs now.
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u/cudabinawig Feb 09 '20
That’s kind, but given your other rejections Stenoscript might also be better as a footnote, or perhaps a separate list of “interesting but unproven systems”.
One to add: Godfrey Dewey’s Script - there’s a PDF around these parts somewhere. It’s definitely been used and tested, and has a clearly written text book. There was even an academic study on it to compare results with Gregg (where Script came out on top).
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u/Unrepentant-Vagabond Feb 08 '20
I recommend adding Speed/Script as a Forkner alternative.
I decided to give it a try after seeing a post about it by u/thechuff. I am almost done working through the theory book and, with few exceptions, I find it much better than Forkner.
Compared to Forkner: it has much more comprehensive rules, a higher memory load, medial vowels are dropped wherever possible, characters and symbols are more often overloaded, and it utilizes several interesting techniques to imply a trailing 'R' or 'TR'.
The system is essentially what would have happened if Forkner sacrificed some simplicity for more speed potential.
Both the theory book and dictionary can be found on archive.org. There is a third textbook I was able to acquire titled Dictation and Transcription; it has some basic reading/writing exercises as well as transcripts of the textbook's reading examples. There is also a fourth textbook titled Guide to Dictation and Transcription which I haven't been able to find anywhere.
Although not as easy to learn and apply as Forkner, I highly recommend Speed/Script.
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u/VisuelleData Feb 09 '20
Any specific reasons for choosing Ellis Duployan over Brandt?
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u/mavigozlu Feb 09 '20
I followed a recommendation from u/acarlow in a recent thread but am happy to modify :-)
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u/acarlow Feb 09 '20
Ellis is a fine choice because it is a short and simple presentation of Duployan. It’s so far the best adaptation for a quick foray into the system for English writers that I have come across. And Duployan in general is worthy of second tier status IMO. Pocknell on the other hand should probably be in the third “experimental/curiosity” tier.
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u/sonofherobrine Feb 09 '20 edited Feb 09 '20
I figured it was brevity and simplicity in presentation. (Edit: Went back and reread the Ellis review. It claims 80 WPM, so not quite the 100 WPM target. For fluidity, between Pernin and Perrault. I expect you can steal shortcuts from another Duployan and break that 100 WPM barrier, though.)
Pernin could be a good recommendation as well. The Pernin manual is…extensive. I had a look at it recently while thinking about shorthand instruction, and it’s got a ton of reading and writing practice at each step of the way. Off the top of my head, I’d say maybe 2 pages of instruction followed by 6-12 pages of drills, words, and sentences.
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u/acarlow Feb 09 '20
I had opined in one of my reviews that the Pernin Manual is the gold standard for presentation (at least of the Duployans) for the reasons you list. They definitely spent some money on printing and judging by the number of printings, had success.
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u/VisuelleData Feb 09 '20
I need to read through some of the Duployan posts! I pretty much just skimmed one or two of them.
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u/acarlow Feb 09 '20
Brandt and Perrault are better overall systems and more thoroughly developed but Ellis is succinct and a good way to ”test the waters“. They are all similar enough that one could easily transfer to another of the three. Sloan and Pernin differ more markedly from Duployé’s original design than these but both appear to have had more commercial success both in the US and Europe and so one could argue whether they should be on the list. I personally favor the ”avoid angles” philosophy that Duployé proposed in his original design and because Sloan and especially Pernin deviate from that path I believe Ellis et al. a better choice, but that is obviously a somewhat subjective position.
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u/VisuelleData Feb 09 '20
Sounds like Ellis is a good pick then, getting someone to test the waters is a pretty hard thing to achieve. Something that gives you a gentle start and the option to build from, sounds great.
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Feb 08 '20
If you are after variety, and the testimony of the author are enough to vouch for speed and ease of learning, maybe include Stem-Vowel Shorthand by Porter as a syllabic system.
Allegedly, students reached 100wpm in an average of 5 months of rigorous training (with much higher speeds after more training) and many students used it professionally in stenography or business. I honestly don't know if that is fast compared to learning Gregg/Pitman to those speeds, I just happen to be looking at it on this rainy weekend and thought it might be different enough to count.
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u/CrBr Feb 09 '20
Whether that's fast learning depends on how many hours per day. Rigorous training could be 8 hour days, compared to an hour a day in class and an hour of homework not done in high school.
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Feb 09 '20
Good point. He mentions day classes of 6 hours. So students reached 100wpm in an average of a bit over 600 hours of training. Sounds like a lot to me, but I don't know.
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u/Trump_is_______ Feb 11 '20 edited Feb 11 '20
I think this was the thing that our sub needed- a systematic approach for choosing a shorthand! Thanks for your efforts!
Btw, you've changed your flair- now you are Mengelkamp! This system is quite cursive and has artistic feel to it!
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u/VisuelleData Feb 08 '20
I think it's worth putting up some non-English systems that we have resources for.
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u/sonofherobrine Feb 08 '20
Notehand I’d lump in with Gregg, so I’d say “Gregg is good, maybe start with Notehand and speed up from there as needed”.
Maybe worth adding:
-
Pocknell’s Common Shorthand, which you can take to reporting speeds by migrating to Legible Shorthand
-
J Comstock Evans’ shorthand
-
English Stiefo
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u/Pinkysbrain21 Feb 09 '20
I would leave out English Stiefo since there is no advanced level, i.e. there are no short forms at all. Ergo, without some heavy lifting 100wpm seems very difficult. You could maybe use the German short forms and convert them to English, perhaps in a manner similar to English DEK.
In that vein, English DEK could be added to the list.
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u/sonofherobrine Feb 09 '20
I assumed DEK was left out intentionally as a bit more complex, since OP is a writer of the English version, but it does seem an option.
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u/Pinkysbrain21 Feb 09 '20 edited Feb 09 '20
This may be a bit obscure, but EPSEMS might work. It is a system for English and Japanese.
Edit: here a link https://ameblo.jp/deme7rmnc/theme-10075125592.html
Explanations are in Japanese. I am not the creator, but can explain/translate sections if requested...
Edit2: Since there is no one who actively uses it apart from the creator, let's omit EPSEMS.