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WELCOME AND
THANK YOU FOR VISITING
Free
resource for Pitman's New Era Shorthand
I wish to keep
New Era alive, and allow it to escape the office, kick its shoes off
and go on holiday – please join me on this journey, which I hope will
bring some fresh air to the task of improving skill and the
attainment of a good reliable speed, as well as providing
encouragement and reading material well away from the business
world. My priority is completing the Theory sections
as quickly as possible. Just like shorthand, I am writing the pages as fast as I can
– thank you for your patience and I sincerely hope you will make a
note to come back again.
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IN PROGRESS: Phrasing and Intersections (pages completed and
proofreading underway). These pages cover everything from the
simplest phrases to advanced options. They are ordered by theory
method rather than being a plain list, so that you will be able
to create endless variations in a logical manner.
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NEXT: Once the
Phrasing pages are published here, I will go straight on to
Numbers.
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Review of Noodler's Flex Pen and Noodler's Nib Creaper Piston-fill
Rollerball
on
Pen &
Pencil Reviews page
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See Recent
Additions page for full list of new pages/revisions/corrections
My aim is to encourage you to persevere with your study/revision of
Pitman's Shorthand. When you first begin to learn, you may feel that
the ability to write shorthand usefully is a distant dream. If you
give these non-productive thoughts an inch, they will take a yard, a
mile even. Replace them with the determination to spend as much time
as you can practising your shorthand, and they will soon be left
behind. Assiduous practice is your personal time machine, bringing
the dream ever nearer.
Nothing here
replaces professional tuition. However, beginners can see whether
they like it and give it a trial run before spending on books or
tuition; the
rusty may be motivated to revive their valuable and hard-won skill,
and seasoned writers may be moved to find their own way of helping
upcoming students. The skills that we possess between us need to be
shared with those who are struggling to learn or improve. Many
people do not have access to the resources they need, or the funds
to buy books, and I hope these pages will be of service to those
hunting for material. Sir Isaac Pitman spent most of his life
perfecting the system, but its success was assured because he made
it available easily and cheaply to the maximum number of people. I
aim to contribute to its continued success in a similar manner,
providing free material additional to that already available.
The Theory
pages are detailed explanations with very many examples, and are
aimed more at revision and improvement than learning from scratch,
as they are not graded as an instruction book would be. There are
many thousands of outlines available on this site, and the
search
page gives a good chance of finding the one you are looking for, as
all outlines here have their text equivalent underneath them.
The Shorthand Reading pages contain short
passages, plus text key, in phrased minimally-vocalised style, plus
text key. I will be revising these to show full vowels. I
intend to provide many more of these once the theory pages are
complete, and I hope they will go some way to providing a fund of
reading material for those who have finished their textbook.
Everything here is for your edification and
hopefully amusement, and there is absolutely nothing for sale and no
commercial interest/adverts whatsoever. I cannot guarantee to never make a
mistake but I do regularly review the written shorthand for
improvements, and correction if necessary. If you see a mistake
in the shorthand, please report it via the Guestbook and it will
receive prompt attention.
I invite you to visit my other website at
www.lucypaintbox.org.uk
which is principally devoted to photo galleries for use as free
artist reference – plants, skies, weather and places in South East
England where I live.
My loyal bear Yellow Teddy is learning a bit of shorthand, and as an
incentive he has been given a page of his own to share his progress.
At the moment he is looking for things that remind him of the
outlines and shapes. He has made a good
start, and is fitting this in with working on his section of the
Lucy Paintbox website.
Beryl, Orpington,
Kent, UK
What is that Teddy up to? Shorthand
wrapping paper?
PS: As a mark of courtesy, good manners, honour and respect
to Sir Isaac Pitman, I prefer to call the system by his name
"Pitman's Shorthand" (note capital S), rather than reduce him to an
adjective in "Pitman shorthand". Pitman shorthand should be reserved
to describe writing systems created for or used by miners, and
Pitmanic sounds far too stressful!
I hope you will:
Eat the hay and leave the sticks! |
