Does anyone have a preferred system of shorthand? I've always wanted to learn shorthand because my thoughts sometimes escape me when I am writing. I haven't taken the step beyond choosing a shorthand system, so if anyone has a preference would you mind sharing?
I'm teaching myself Gregg shorthand. I tried (briefly) Pitman once, but the idea of discerning two characters only by their thickness never sounded too good to me (plus, it ruled out using a pen). The books for Gregg shorthand are now in the public domain, so you can download them for free, as they are hard to find. I'll probably print and bind my copy one of these days.
If you are learning a language other than English, you might want to look into localized shorthand systems. I know that German has its own and that Pitman has been adapted to Spanish, but there are other alternatives.
Having tried Gregg and Pittman, I strongly prefer Gregg, in part because of the ease of finding instructional and reading material in the public domain, all the way to a complete transcription of Alice in Wonderland[1]. More importantly, though, is that Gregg is--in the terms used by the marketers of the system in the early 1900s--written and not drawn. It flows left-to-right at least as easily as the Latin alphabet, and can be adapted to suit whatever slant and curvature you typically write with in longhand. There was simply less of a barrier for entry as far as getting the shape down on paper for me.
Be advised, however, that learning shorthand can take a tremendous amount of time--at least to get "up to speed" at it. The system of strokes, hooks, and loops is not in and of itself difficult to master; it's the profusion of brief forms, detached endings, and so on that take a great deal of time to become fluent at. Having used Gregg every day for the past six months, I can say that I write and read with comfort, more or less--but I'm certainly not reading mine or others' shorthand at the speed at which I can read longhand. And I'm definitely not able to take dictation yet (not that I have need to), any more than I could do so typing on a QWERTY keyboard.
(As quick but hopefully instructive examples, the form "AL" can mean "I will," "allow," "ail," or "ale"; an attached "F" at the end of a form can mean "-ful", "-ify", or simply the sound "f"; there is nothing to distinguish the prefixes "es-" and "ex-" except by what follows them; "pend," "pent," "gend," and "gent" all look precisely the same; and so do "nt" and "nd," "det" and "ted," and "mem," "men," "min," "mim", and a handful of others.)
I've tried out Plover, and my experience with Gregg definitely made it more approachable than I think it would have been otherwise. One of the advantages it has over written shorthand, however, is that it is purely a writing, not a written, system. There is no need to learn to read it.
That said, I find shorthand a joy--and it is vastly more portable than a full QWERTY keyboard.
[1] http://gregg.angelfishy.net/ is a good compendium for English-language Gregg. The "Anniversary Edition" has the most texts. The "Simplified Edition" is a little more manageable in size, but is much more recent and still under copyright in most markets.
Does anyone have a preferred system of shorthand? I've always wanted to learn shorthand because my thoughts sometimes escape me when I am writing. I haven't taken the step beyond choosing a shorthand system, so if anyone has a preference would you mind sharing?
Thank you.