Talk:Eclectic shorthand

''While most later responses to Pitman shorthand aimed for greater simplicity and an elimination of such characteristics as shading and positional writing (cf Gregg shorthand), Cross took his system in the opposite direction. Noting that English spelling is able to express all its many vowel sounds using only five vowel symbols, Cross adopted a five-position system for expressing vowels in his system (Pitman uses three).''

Yes, but English spelling uses only five vowel letters, but combines them to represent the 30 or so vowels that exist in English.

From there he went on to apply the five positions to consonant symbols as well, and to eliminate perpendicular strokes to make the writing more cursive.

No he didn't. Gregg is a cursive system. And "Eclectic" means taking a bit from here and a bit from there. Cross borrowed half his system from Gregg including folowing Greggs strokes and the m, n and men/min signs (a short stroke, a long stroke and an even longer stroke (are identical). Gregg had dispensed with position writing, but there was always the possibility of reintroducing it.

Curiously for a symbol system, the writing is based on English spelling rather than phonetics — there are symbols for q and c, for instance, and a wh symbol which is different from w (or h).

English spelling is also based on phonetics (pronunciation). Having five positions, short and long i are written through the line short e pairs with double ee (wheras in Pitman's New Era, e (second position) is paired with ei Sound of letter a.

There is no exact opposition of English spelling and the International Phonetic alphabet.

A large number of tricks are employed to make writing more compact Every shorthand system uses a large number of tricks.

shading a vowel at the beginning of the stroke denotes that it is preceded by an h Really? Not in the book I read. Shading is only used to indicate r and only r. Unless Cross had an earlier system I haven't read.

shading the whole stroke denotes a diphthong only if it is a vowel sign. Pitman was a phonetician: Cross was not. What Cross calls a diphthong is a digraph (vowel spelled with two letters). ee is not a diphthong, but Cross includes it as a diphthong

while shading the end of the stroke denotes a following r. The rule is: shading the beginning of a stroke denotes r is the previous letter, shading the end of a stroke denotes an r as the next letter.

An l can be indicated by making the outline of the preceding letter smaller, applies only to the four surface characters: h, l g and p. (h is a circle, l is an ellipse, p is def in Gregg like and upside down U g is the same as Gregg's pend/gent like a U.

and a following w by deepening the curve of the preceding stroke. This is only for qu as in (quite.

''All in all, the system contains far more rules than any other widespread system of English shorthand, and the resulting notes are incredibly concise. However, the amount of practice required to make use of all these techniques without hesitation while taking dictation was undoubtedly quite burdensome. In addition, the heavy use of shading, common in nineteenth century systems when ink pens were the normal instrument of writing and the notion of thin and thick strokes was familiar to those accustomed to the copperplate script of the time, became difficult and counterintuitive in the 20th century.'' Pitman's relies heavily on thick and thin strokes throughout. The system is still in use today. You can do think and thin strokes with a lead pencil or a ball point pen.

In sum, the system's complexity and the great investment of time that would have been needed to master it were most likely the causes for its downfall. more likely the tape recorder and sound files. What downfall? The books are reprinted and shorthand enthusiasts are learning it.''

An interesting experiment used by Cross was to use paper with slightly curved lines for note-taking, on the assertion that as the hand could move more naturally in an arc across the page than in a straight line; this would improve speed. Intresting. also to push sales of special shorthand pads. Cross sold fountain pens with gold nibs as well. It was not so much a downfall than that the Pitman's had a dynasty with members of the family in the USA and Great Britain as well as Australia, and had a large number of schools and their own publishing house. 91.220.150.15 (talk) 10:00, 23 December 2010 (UTC)