Vancouver, BC, Canada

Newbie of 3 months.

N.Era

Thank you for your work on this website. I love the section on phrasing. I`m having trouble with lack of vowels. I know I must be missing something.

(=Maybe do some revising of the instruction book, so you get more familiar with the vocab and can more easily recognise the shapes when you get to the chapters where they start leaving most of them out. When you have read a vowel-omitting passage correctly, read it again straight away, maybe a couple more times, and you will find it goes faster and is more likely to be remembered, rather than struggling through once and leaving it for something else.

I think 3 months is quite a short time to get familiar with a large number of outlines, so rereading all the passages will consolidate your knowledge. If you have not already done so, have a look at my Lessons website as well, and work through that, it will provide fresh passages all written in basic and simple words. BP)

Hampshire, UK

30 years

Hello Beryl,
Greetings from a Crown Court Reporter [now retired], who experienced an \'epiphany\' 2 days ago, when your website appeared under a \'shorthand clubs\' search. The sheer joy of discovering Isaac Pitman\'s New Era shorthand is available to all & generating career opportunities is profound.

Beryl, it seems we trod the same shorthand path: a one-year secretarial course in 1973 in New Era - an inspirational shorthand teacher - speed evening classes same college and then, armed with Senator pens & Quink, I became a trainee, with RSA 180 wpm & Pitman 190wpm; resulting in a challenging & rewarding career as a Crown Court Reporter for 30 years.

Our role was to provide the Court of Appeal with a verbatim record of court proceedings which we duly took down for 4 - 5 hours a day; & the resultant shorthand notes kept for five years. Of course, this meant using as much accuracy/vowel use you could muster, as you could be transcribing something written 2 years earlier. New Era shorthand \"served\" the court reporting profession with quiet grace & efficiency, including times when the legal profession were at \'full throttle\' arguing in court.

Since retirement from the field, my abiding interest in phonetics & phonography led me to research ancient languages & their methods of recording communications & how the literal Ts & Cs for everyday life have been set down, eg Code of Hammurabi etc. on the roadmap of history.

My personal journey of Pitman New Era shorthand has been a wonderful framework, creative & artistic, which builds employment potential, & the resolution to challenge yourself to be the best you can.

Thank you, thank you for enabling so many to \'shake hands\' once more with Isaac Pitman & learn from your exquisite outlines & pearls of shorthand wisdom.

(=Great to hear from you, indeed the very same start for us both in our shorthand learning journeys, I am sure it\'s what every shorthand teacher wishes for their class, knowing some will forge ahead to greater achievements with the skill.

You may know Pitman\'s is not taught any more, it\'s all Teeline for journalists, although Pitman\'s is popular in India. I started the websites as reminders and practice for existing writers, until I found out that teaching had long since ceased, so from then on I expanded it to cover everything and last year launched my lessons website for complete beginners. So the whole system is now available to anyone free of charge, all they have to do is the work - costly in time and energy, but for the enthusiast it\'s an unending pleasure to increase one\'s skill. BP)

Staffordshire

Since 1976

Pit2K and N.Era

Hello Beryl - and anyone who might happen to read this. Sadly, Peter Carter doesn\'t seem to be making his Listen-to-English podcasts anymore. I know not whether he is still with us or retired ......... I\'m trying to get back \"into\" my shorthand - well it never really goes away it\'s like riding a bike but my speed has dropped off and I do need to practise more intensively.

(=Hi Pat, thanks for your message. There seems to be all sort of folks putting up various of Peter Carter\'s podcasts but one can\'t be sure if they are with permission or not. If you are looking for a variety of dictations, do have a look at the Teeline website
https://www.letsloveteelinetogether.com, they have a dictations section with regular new additions, although you may have to skip the outline explanations bits, or you can take down those explanations as well, as extra practice. Best wishes, Beryl)

Suffolk UK

many but intermittent

N.Era

Thanks for your helpful reply about page-turning. I\'m revising the basic rules of Pitman\'s and am puzzled that \'fr-\' and \'fl-\' are treated differently. In \'flame\' and \'frame\' they face different ways but I can\'t see why. What rule requires that?

============

In short, FR is reversed when it is the only stroke and there is no vowel before it (\"offer\" vs \"free\"); it is also reversed if that makes a better join with the next stroke, as in \"frame\". Ease of joining always takes precedence, so \"free\" \"frog\" are reversed but \"Fred\" \"fridge\" are not, in order to be able to join the D and J.

FL and VL are never reversed for vowel indication, and only to make a better join when it comes after K G N or straight upstroke as in \"naval gravel rifle waffle\". So \"flame\" and \"aflame\" both have normal FL.

See Instructor Chapter XIV for complete description https://archive.org/details/isaacpitmansshor00pitm

Suffolk UK

very many intermittently

N.Era

Is there further advice on page-turning technique using a reporter\'s pad? One takes a bottom corner with the free hand, but are there any more tips to make it quicker and easier?
==================================
Hi Ben, Below are quotes from two very high speed writers on this subject. From my own very much smaller experience, I have used a combination, sticking to Smith’s method of holding some part of the left hand side somewhere near the bottom in readiness to flip the page, but if there is a pause (e.g. when taking minutes) I take that opportunity to slide the paper up so there is an upstanding fold at the top, with one of my fingers under it but the others holding the page firm to prevent a jumpy surface, then it is very quick to flip the page over. I would only do that once half the page is filled, so I am not writing near that fold where the paper is not flat and stable, and it is quicker because the page is just slid away from under the writing hand, without having to lift that hand out of the way as one would have to do during the normal type of page flipping. If there was a pause when I was near the bottom of the page, I would use it to turn the page, so I am turning it when convenient rather than when necessary.

Emily D Smith “Speed In Pitman’s Shorthand”: “A commonly adopted method of preparing to turn the page is to push the page slowly upwards with the left hand while writing with the right hand so that it is up at the top when the last line is written. Certainly no time is lost in this way, but there is the very real drawback that the writing has been done on a page which is not flat and which can jump up and down under the pen movements of the writer. A much better method is to turn up the left edge of the page very slightly for the whole of its length. As soon as the writing begins the thumb and first finger of the left hand take hold of the page - finger above and thumb underneath - and the left hand slides gently down the page line by line as the shorthand is written, and is also in the meantime keeping the page quite taut. When the last line is reached the finger and thumb are already gripping the left-hand corner of the page, and as the last outline is written the page is quietly and without panic turned over and the first outline on the new page is written, without a break that is perceptible.”

Morris Kligman “How To Write 240wpm in Pitman Shorthand”: “As you write along the page, after writing 2 or 3 lines of shorthand, slide the page up with your left hand. Do not move your right arm down. The page must be kept sliding up, so that when you get to the bottom of the page you simply flip it over and your pen is in position immediately to start writing at the top of the succeeding page. You may find it a bit awkward to go through all these motions at first but a little patience and practice will help overcome it quickly.”

Tete, Mozambique

32

New Era

Hi Beryl

I would just like to take this opportunity to thank YOU for all the amazing new resources and lessons on your site. This is SO wonderful! I\'m going back and revising theory and practice and you\'ve provided so much on your site.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!

(=You\'re very welcome indeed, and I am glad you are still enjoying your shorthand. I am having a great time doing all this, and it\'s also very satisfying that it is helping people in their jobs as well as newbies learning shorthand as a hobby. BP)

London

20

Tee

Hello Beryl, I wanted to drop you a message to say thank you for posting all this wonderful material. I learnt Teeline shorthand 20 years ago in journalism college, and I use it to this day; I refuse to use a dictaphone, and over many years of working for national publications have never carried one. I have always been curious to learn Pitman and finally started a couple of months ago. I have been reading your blog for practice and find your short-form documents so valuable. It goes without saying, of course, that your shorthand is beautiful. I am now reminding myself how much fun it is getting my speed up. Interestingly, when I am at work, my brain switches seamlessly to Teeline, but when I am practicing Pitman it seems to be able to make the change with no overlap or muddling up of the systems. The brain is indeed fascinating! Thank you again.

(= Thank you, I love doing it all. That\'s very interesting that you can do both without muddling, I think it\'s probably because it is so mind-consuming whilst working on it, there isn\'t room for anything else. I plan to have a graded lessons website up this summer, still working on it at present, lots of checking necessary.

Do visit the Reddit shorthand group https://www.reddit.com/r/shorthand/, it would be great to have a Teeliner of long experience to help folks who are learning, and of course any other hints and tips for success in shorthand and reporting.

Staffordshire

Since 1976

2000 then N.Era

I tried to post a few weeks ago but seems the internet gremlins decided it was not to be. I found this page of a list of resources (for machine stenography but mentions some dictation material). Some of the dictations have already been mentioned but I think there are some new ones. https://stenonymous.com/2017/08/12/resource-page/
I also found a few dictations on this YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/user/Patnurse1 There aren\'t many dictations but the lady dictates clearly.

(=Thanks very much, Pat, I\'ll be having a look through the dictations links, there\'s a good amount there! BP)

Alameda, CA

60

Pitman circa 1964

Thanks for being a great resource. I\'m in the early stages of an art project using shorthand, Asian (writing) characters and street tar marks as means of communication. My steno skills are pretty rusty, so it\'s been fun to refresh and try to read your blogs. Thank you!

Australia

52 years

New Era

Thank you for keeping Pitman\'s New Era shorthand keeping on. I learned it at Business College 52 years ago, aged 17, and still use shorthand regularly - to take notes during phone calls, minutes of meeting and to get my thoughts down quickly. \"If you don\'t use it, you lose it.\"

(=Glad you\'re keeping it going as well, and hopefully intriguing your colleagues enough to investigate this very useful skill. If people knew how fantastic it is to be able to write at the speed of thought or speaking, they would be so eager to learn! I have had comments from people who are now \"dusting off\" their shorthand and resuming the enjoyment of it all over again, but without the delay of having to start right from the beginning. I think probably memories come back fairly readily once they get going, as long as there is material available to practise with. Best wishes, BP)