The object in view, in composing this system of short-hand, was to overcome some difficulties, which had been encountered in attempting to learn one of the systems which were then in use; and the end in view has been completely gained, for it is not only easily written, but the author can read that which was done many years ago, as readily as that which was written but a few days ago.
It is now made public for the first time, in the hopes that it will be extensively useful; and this ex pectation is encouraged by the full approbation which it has met with from several persons to whom it has been communicated, and who now use it in daily practice.
The characters arc shown in Plate DXII. Fig. I.
There is only one dot employed to express the vowels, and that is the round one which marks the period in common reading, and it denotes the different long sounds of the vowels, by a diversity in its posi tion. A clot on a line with the top of a short hand character represents the long sound of a as in shape, one between the top and middle of the character sounds e long, as in here ; one at the middle sounds z or y long, as in sigh or by, one between the middle and bottom sounds o long, as in bone; and a clot on a hue with the bottom of the character sounds a long, as in cube, or u broad as in full. See Plate DXII. Fig. 3, § 1. The vowels of horizontal letters are thus expressed. See Plate DXII. Fig. 3, g 2.
Some of the dipthongs have the same sound as some of the long vowels, and these are to be ex pressed by the corresponding long vowels. Such as have a compound sound are to be represented by the vowel which is most prevalent in the pronunciation of the dipthong. A dot in the place of i may also stand for by. K is used instead of g and e hard, and s for c soft and z.
It might be supposed that any of these dots, not being correctly placed in their proper situations, might occasion mistakes in the reading, but no diffi culty of this kind is found in practice, as no material error of this sort happens to the expert writer, and when any mistake does occur, the sense of the passage directs the reading. A dot in the cavity of a letter expresses son, sion, ae. See Plate DXII, Fig. 3, § 4. Where there is no cavity either in a single letter, or in the characters combined to form a word, the ter minations son, sion, tion, &c., may be written if need
ful. But words ending in ation, ession, ition or ution have these terminations expressed by two dots being put in the place of a, e, i, o, or u. See Plate DXII, Fig. 3, § 5.
Every thing might be written, by the characters, which have already been exhibited; but the additional ones, which are subjoined, greatly shorten, and facili tate writing, and they may easily be acquired and re membered.—See Plate DXII, Fig. 2.
For examples of the following directions see Plate DXII. Fig. 3. § 6. A stroke above a word signifies over, a stroke under a word, implies a repetition of it, and for every repetition of it an additional stroke may be drawn under it; an oblique stroke through a word expresses opposition; the short-hand character for m under another character, stands for dom or ment; the short-hand character for 1 under another short hand character means full, and when written by itself, below the line of the other words, it signifies also full, e; the short-hand character for p, written below the line, below another short hand character, signifies ship, or shape, or shop; a dot before the short-hand character for b means before, and one after signifies behind, and one both before and after, means before and behind, or before and after, g; a clot by itself, as a character, stands for a, awe, 0, oh, owe. No pointing is made use of but by the comma, as the period mark is otherwise employed, and for the same reason a period is shown in this system of short-hand, by leav ing space, two or ti.rce times as large as you have be tween the words, and without any point.
Though there is a character in this short-hand for the letter r, yet when immediately following a con sonant, it may be more easily formed, by drawing a ray from G,e side of the consonant, and in cases where this cannot be conveniently clone, as in horizontal characters, and the characters for an inverted touch with the pen, at the end of the character, will be sufficient. When the character for t follows an r, expressed by a ray from a consonant, it should be formed by drawing the pen upwards in a diagonal di rection from the ray. In making the character for enter, inter, Ste. begin with the lower part, and draw the pen upwards, and in the same manner, the cha racter standing for serve, service, Sec. is to be formed.