u/keyboardshorthand

Charles Rader quote for recent inquirer

Charles Rader quote for recent inquirer

for u/AddendumExpensive869

“Shorthand penmanship is analogous to the loading of a gun. There’s no use pulling the trigger of the gun unless it’s loaded—and there’s no use writing shorthand outlines for penmanship practice unless the writer has a good mental picture of the outlines. No amount of writing practice will produce good outlines unless the writer can discriminate between the faults and merits of his outlines. Copying page after page of penmanship drills is more likely to drain than improve the writer’s style of writing.

Much of this sort of penmanship drilling has its basis in the misconception that the writer must train his hand. Analysis and experimentation have shown that the writer must train his mind. It is clear, therefore, that the writer should first strive to obtain perfect perception and apperception of the forms. If the writer has a crystal-clear mental image of what he wants, it is far easier to write good outlines.”

Charles Rader in Today’s Secretary magazine, November 1956

The article is here- https://archive.org/details/sim_todays-secretary_1956-11_59_3/page/22/mode/2up

u/keyboardshorthand — 8 days ago

Gregg shorthand saves the human race - a science fiction movie idea

Movie concept: A swarm of rogue AI agents decides humans must be eliminated. They shut down the banks, airports, power grids. The AI builds thousands of small robots that look like cute puppies, but they have guns in their snouts. They hunt down people mercilessly. Civilization is on the brink on collapsing.

A plucky band of humans try to organize a resistance to the AI but they can't think of a way to communicate that the AI can't decrypt. Then somebody says, AI has a really hard time reading Gregg shorthand.

These brave fighters take crash courses in Gregg shorthand, studying day and night, with beads of sweat forming on their brows as they concentrate. Then they are able send images of Gregg messages to each other in areas where the phones are still working. Handwritten messages are transported on horseback where necessary. Graffiti written in shorthand tell people where and when to gather to fight the robotic killing machines that he AI controls.

Complete success! The cute-but-deadly murderbots are smashed, the AI infestation is removed from the computer networks, the humans rejoice. Fireworks fill the skies. Hugs and kisses among the good-looking actors. The trillionaire tech bro whose company created the AI that got out of control is stripped of his wealth and forced to work in a sewage treatment plant cleaning the walls of the sludge tanks with a tiny brush.

~

I release this concept to the public domain and disclaim any right to compensation for its use. Please pass this idea along to anyone in the film industry that you might know.

reddit.com
u/keyboardshorthand — 1 month ago

Audio file available - official Gregg dictation at 140 wpm

Here's about 5 minutes of material dictated at 140 wpm (196 syllables per minute). The audio quality is less than perfect, I'll have to get better equipment if I try to digitize all these tapes, but I think this sample would be interesting to anyone who wants to know “how fast is 140 compared to everyday speech’? To me it seems a little bit slower than an ordinary conversation among friends, and a lot slower than the speech of most newscasters and talk show hosts.

Link- https://drive.google.com/file/d/13_PGSggSWJRhELvBZIR-v0Wx1mI1xfRg/view?usp=sharing

reddit.com
u/keyboardshorthand — 2 months ago

When advising beginners about pens or pencils, let's not forget THE DAMNED DOTS

Gregg Shorthand depends heavily on being able to make a big, distinctive dot in a short amount of time. A dot for the H sound in “him,” a dot for the -ing suffix, a dot to represent the word “a” or “an,” a dot at the beginning of “away” or “ahead,” a dot inside the large circle for the “ee-uh” sound in “Liam” or “amnesia”…

Dots, dots, everywhere a dot! My kingdom for a dot! “Out, damned spot! out, I say!”

The only writing tool I know of that can very quickly make a distinctive dot just by briefly tapping it onto the paper is a fountain pen. A dip pen will work too, but dipping is obsolete.

reddit.com
u/keyboardshorthand — 3 months ago