#Pitman

[roughridingrednecks]

Pittman in Florida

[unteriors]

Creek Road, Pitman, Pennsylvania.

[fae-iii]

It's that time again! What's your favorite game you played this year?

Choosing favorites is so HARD! Looking over my Switch Year in Review and just now realizing Night in the Woods is a game I played last year, leaving this year kinda bereft of games with stories that really impacted me. So, what did I play?

Kicking off with the Pokemon block, this was my first year playing through Pokemon Colosseum! I liked it a fair amount, but there are some big flaws in it. I liked the double battles and the added challenge of battling opponents with a similar level to you, but it would maybe have been a quality of life change to heal you after battles since money is too infrequent to be spending on too many healing items, so I ended up walking all the way to the nearest healing machine (which was often quite a ways away) after every battle or two.

As someone who plays pokemon mainly for the collecting funny little critters and for which minutiae of pokemon battling is an intimidating ordeal, I've been ever so slowly getting more used to it and I might even enjoy it a bit now! Speaking of battles: Colosseum's creature game is on point! I love the exaggerated way the monsters wiggle around!!! YES!!!!! It almost makes it forgivable how time-wasty each battle can feel. Orre is a really cool place and

I still have the disc sitting in my gamecube and I need to clean up a bit with the post game, I'd really like to purify all the pokemon and tackle Mt. Battle to receive Ho-Oh this year; if I can get around to it.

On the topic of gen 3 pokemon: This year was also time completing Pokemon Emerald! When I initially started playing it a few years ago after buying a used copy, I was into pokemon glitches and oversights and stuff and I tried searching for a save where shiny pokemon appear on an early frame after turning the game on. I did manage to get the intro Zigzagoon to appear shiny, but I got bored of that and thus also lost motivation to keep playing the game until I would get interest in looking again.

That never happened and I decided to cut my losses and finally start playing the game casually- tho I might eventually do some glitches that'll get me access some event pokemon.

It's a cool game; definitely the definitive game compared to Ruby and Sapphire. Though I can't really say it was a necessary revamp with enough in it for me that sets it apart to make it worth it over it's predecessors. Like Colosseum, I still need to go back and complete a few post-game things like finding the Regis and Latias... maybe I also wanna play around with the Battle Fronties, but I don't really care for it honestly.

Uhh, also played gen 1 pokemon games at least 3 more times. I finally unlocked Dodrio tower in pokemon stadium, so that gave me the energy to play pokemon yellow, which is my least favorite of the original gen 1 games. Just not as many cool glitches in the game and the monster sprites compared to R/G/B are just not as expressive and unique (though I have warmed up to them quite a bit since starting to do my own sprites).

Got really stuck in yellow when my save file kept getting deleted and the resolution that I eventually landed on after replacing the battery with higher-quality one's and re-flowing the soldering in the cartridge was that the jury-rigged way that the power cords in the basement where I have the N64 set-up was causing some sort of power flow issue that messed with the cart. The basement now has proper electrical wiring and I haven't had the issue again (also less of a fire hazard)!

I also started playing a copy of pokemon Green!! I guess I just wanted... to see the original sprites in action? Idk, man; gen 1 pokemon is a comfort game to me, I don't need to spice it up particularly for me to enjoy it, lol!

Also played more Pokemon Violet. I'm burnt out on it at the moment, but its fun hunting some shinies as events pop up on occasion and I'm sure I'll probably get super into pokemon again (uhhh, compared to my usual level of being super into pokemon), and fill in some gaps in my collection and more shiny hunting and stuff. Still gotta get the few alpha pokemon I'm missing in PLA... Now that I've been talking about it, I kinda wanna return soon...

OK, before I get to newer games, let's go back to the GameBoy: I bought Catrap/Pitman (The American cart is called Catrap, the Japanese version is called Pitman and is cheaper and that's the one I got, identical games with no dialog, so it just didn't make sense to get the one with the cuter name) and it's a very cute Gameboy puzzle game where you push boxes and bump ghouls. Few unique graphics, but the graphics that are there are very strong and cute!! I haven't gone all the way through and I'm not huge into puzzles, so I can't judge on that merit, but it's a neat little game!

Trip World is also an impressive looking gameboy game, this time with more graphics. It's prohibitively expensive to get an original copy, so I was happy to grab a copy of the re-released Trip World DX on the Switch for a fraction of the price. I played it in the original monochrome palette and it's a very impressive looking gameboy game! Iirc, it felt a little frustrating to play at parts and it's not very long, but very cool experience.

Finally got around to playing the Super Mario RPG Remake!!!!!! I owned (stole from a cousin) the Nintendo Power guide for it as a kid and it was a seminal piece of reading for me (also after having a dalliance with like half of the game on an emulator a decade ago), so I'm glad to have finally completed the game!! Not big into RPG's (pokemon and probably a dozen other games excepting), so I played on easy, but it was a fun experience; the game's characters and enemies have a lot of character to it in a similar way that gen 1 pokemon has character, imo.

Very happy that Nintendo has decided to make good Zelda games again with Echoes of Wisdom :^). OK, Breath of the Wild and it's sequel just weren't for me and that's OK. There are plenty of good games out there and it's cool that they've curated themselves out of my backlog by being bad :^). I was really worried that Echoes of Wisdom was gonna take a lot of inspiration from them (you, know, ":^)") and I'm glad that it seems only the horrific menu style seems to have been retained and I never had to do any of the cooking or wandering around seeing nothing that interested me.

Echoes were really novel, but there were a lot of redundant ones and it was easy to get caught searching all through the menu for the few unique niche ones needed to solve a puzzle. Idk if I prefer that style over the usual sword gameplay- but I enjoyed it well enough! Story and themes didn't feel like much compared to the best of Zelda games, but it was OK. Ultimately'll leave it to hindsight to see if it ages well in our mind. Right now the view is: it was pretty great and definitely worth a playthrough!

Finally finished playing Luigi's Mansion 3. I really enjoyed solving puzzles throughout the mansion and I rarely felt like they were too obtuse to figure out. Best Luigi's Mansion yet, imo and i hope they free him soon so that maybe we can have a Luigi's Mansion 4 ;-;.

Getting kinda tired of writing and it shows... Super Mario Bros. Wonder is a good game that made me cry for some reason during the Piranha plants on parade segment and I don't know why and I haven't finished the game quite yet, but it's a quality platformer and very good!!!!

I played through I wanna say 3/4's of Deadly Premonition: Origins for Switch before I got a very entertaining, but unfortunately gamebreaking bug where I managed to get forced through a wall to skip a boss in the section of the game where you play as Emily and not the usual main character, York. The game just never changed me back to him and unfortunately Women cannot open file cabinets and a critical piece of evidence is in one and I cannot continue.

It was a very technically flawed, but pretty... fun in a janky ps2 game kinda definition of fun way. The story is goofy and engaging and takes a lot of inspiration from Twin Peaks and a few things don't age well from the 00's that are maybe forgivable because of the developer's more recent works and then maybe slightly less forgivable because of the developers even more recent works...

Maybe I'll start over from the beginning to experience it all myself sometime, but otherwise I know how it ends from watching the Two Best Friends Play let's play years ago, so I'm not in a big hurry. I consider "irreparably soft-locked" as a kind of complete.

Cavern of Dreams was really good!!!!!! Augh, I think I wrote about it elsewhere in slightly more depth, but it's a very good playground platformer with graphics that are inspired by N64 games and I'm a big fan and I wish I had more to say, but it's just really solid and just the right length and you'd have to play it yourself or listen to a more competent reviewer to really understand!!

Right now, I'm playing through Iconoclasts. I'm liking it! I'll probably have more to say next year or whenever I feel like writing about it... next year.

I think that's everything. Woof, that was actually quite a bit now that I've written it all down, and yet I still hunger to play video games more next year!

[mangiamopizza]

Attilio's Pizza

Visited Attilio's Pizza in Pitman, New Jersey. Cute little downtown area which is also home to The Broadway Theatre of Pitman. Enjoyed the pizza here. I like that they offer Coke in the classic glass bottle. The town was originally a Methodist summer retreat and known as Pitman Grove. A random statue of Saint Francis of Assisi was in the corner of the pizzeria.

[lesterspiffany]

Is this the Legion of Substitute Substitute Heroes?

[firedragon1321]

Self Plug Time! (Catrap Fanfiction)

"Anterograde amnesia- The loss of the ability to create new memories. While long-term memories of the past remain, people with anterograde amnesia are unable to create new memories."

I just remembered I wrote this ficlet about Catrap, a video game from 1990. It is the only fic on Ao3 in the fandom that is actually about the game (and also the first in the fandom). It's called "Anterograde". From the author's notes-

"So the idea of this fic is that this is based on a game that used passwords (so an old one). Every time the game turns off, the main character- Catboy- forgets what happened the last play-through. When the password is entered, he sometimes remembers things again- and sometimes not clearly or at all. His memory is essentially tied to the password, hence I came up with this idea."

It's here if you wanna read it.

Because this is literally the only fic for Catrap- the readmore contains some reference art. This includes the Japanese cover of the game (the English cover is shit quality), detail art of Catboy and Catgirl (yes those are their names) and some gameplay. The game is called Pitman in Japan.

[yannosh51-blog-blog]

L'actu Retro(Gaming) #3 : Jet paco, Pitman 2, Dead space, Goldorak , Mighty street fighter, Celeste

Votre nouveau rendez vous sur les nouveautés retro et gaming en Français, c’est ici !! Les liens : Jet paco : (more…) “”

[packpack-killkill]

Short-eared Dog | Renata Leite Pitman

[comradeprozac]

I know now the span of my life. God help me!

-Johnathan Harker

[roughridingrednecks]

Pitman

[chuckbbirdsjunk]

[thegikitiki]

L'Elegance Glassware, 1965

Pitman Dreitzer

[snapcracklepop-myjoints]

do u have a reccomendation for what form of shorthand to learn first. deeply interested-- i saw ur reply on that one post and then u seem cool so i just followed u and figured i would ask here

hello !!! thank you for asking !!!!!!!!!! and im so sorry this is so long lol

If you want my biased personal recommendation, I would suggest Pitman New Era. That's what I use, and I think its the best balance of efficiency vs difficulty to learn, and I like that the learning curve is such that, as you learn, you apply more rules that simplify the writing process more (meaning that earlier practice is still legible, if far less efficient). This compared to other forms (like Gregg) where, as you learn, youre just kind of generally suffering and trying to get your brain to memorise things and differentiate very similar looking strokes. I find Pitman also lends itself well to using in conjunction with other "standard" writing styles so you can take notes that are enough in "standard" writing to be skimmable while using enough shorthand to be much faster to write, basically maninmising writeing AND reading speed. [example below]

You can skip to the end for resources for Pitman and shorthand in general if this answer is sufficient :)

If you want a horrifically long, massively autistic answer that breaks down the three most popular/common styles, then thats what the rest of the post is !! It is so fucking long I am so sorry

Horrifically Long Answer:

I'm answering on the assumption that you would be learning for use with english. If you want to learn shorthand for another language there are a variety of options however I am less versed in them :( I'm also assuming you're asking out of personal interest rather than vocational, since certain jobs will recommend or require you learn certain styles of shorthand and it would be best to defer to that.

The most popular methods are Gregg, the various forms of Pitman (this is what I use), and Teeline. Gregg and Pitman are phonemic while Teeline is alphabetical. There are also a huge number of other, less popular forms of shorthand (as well as shorthand systems which are popular in/made for other languages). If you're interested in learning about these, check out the subreddit listed at the end of this post under "resources".

Teeline:

I know much less about Teeline, so I'll go into it less, but basically it is a "spelling-based" shorthand system -- that is, it is based off the standard spelling of words. It replaces latin letters which different forms that are faster to write and can be connected more efficiently, while removing extraneous letters from words. It is simpler to learn, in part because it is spelling-based, and also because it has fewer rules which further consolidate and shorten word forms. Due to this, it is ultimately much slower to write than the other two systems mentioned here (although you can still get up to good speeds !!). Like the other shorthand systems, you can learn to a more basic extent, or learn more advanced theory to maximise its capability and speed. Teeline is very standard for journalism and overall quite popular for professional use, however it is still in copyright and so there are far fewer resources available online. If you are interested in taking classes, however, I would assume those are available.

Teeline TL;DR: alphabetical, simplest to learn but less efficient, popular, still in copyright so fewer resources.

examples of Teeline:

[images sourced from wiki]

Pitman and Gregg: Phonemic Systems and Regional Accents:

As mentioned, Gregg and Pitman are phonemic. If you dont have any practice with phonemic writing systems, you might have luck starting out with shavian just to practice. also because shavian is fun :) (its one of the writing systems in my header !) Im saying this partly because I want more people to learn shavian and partly because I learned Shavian long before I learned Pitman and found that having that practice was helpful. In particular, if you have any accent other than RP, its helpful for figuring out either which vowel sounds and phonetic spellings are relevant to your accent and your pronunciation, or, should you choose to go a "standard" (RP) route, how certain words should be spelled despite how you may pronounce them. Using a "standard" RP approach can be helpful if you want people to more easily be able to read your writing or want to "match" the dictionary, but someone well versed in shorthand should be able to figure it out no matter what, and if its just for your personal use I'd suggest just going by your own regional pronunciations.

Pitman:

Pitman was an early shorthand system developed in the early to mid 1800s. It used to be the most popular shorthand system, however nowadays has been eclipsed in popularity by Teeline and/or Gregg, depending on the country and occupational context. However, it remains popular among enthusiasts and there are significant amount of resources available for learners and practitioners.

The main thing to know with Pitman is that words are built using different strokes for each consonant sound, and symbols attached to these consonants to mark vowels. These consonant sounds are differentiated by shape as well as line thickness. Voiced and unvoiced pairs of consonants (eg., T and D, C and G, S and Z, etc.) are designated using the same strokes, with the voiced consonant of the pair being thicker than the other. This line variation is something which is normally achieved with a pencil, though I mostly use fountain pens to write and so I use flex nibs to achieve the same effect.

Vowels are marked with certain dots or dashes placed along corresponding consonant markings, For increased writing speed, most vowel markings can also be left off in Pitman, and instead where on the line the first stroke begins serves to signal the first vowel.

Pitman uses short forms (also called "logograms" or "grammalogues," depending on the version and book you use) which are abbreviated forms of commonly used words (see picture below for a few examples). Different versions of Pitman have different numbers of grammalogues.

With Pitman, efficiency is increased through a combination of memorising various short forms and implementing rules which simplify strokes. (Examples of these can be seen in the picture below. probably need to click to be able to actually see anything rip) This allows you to have certain "levels" of complexity, where as you learn more complex rules you increase in efficiency, but you can also eschew some of those rules if they are too complex for you without sacrificing legibility to you or proficient practitioners. Probably someone somewhere on reddit has something to say about that but tbh who gives a fuck. You can do whatever you want forever. Its known to be very common for people to come up with their own personal shortcuts and variations in whatever shorthand system they use, and imo sometimes that just means looking at a rule and going "well thats stupid👍" and ignoring it. Pitman can seem really intimidating, however just remember that you can ignore rules for as long as you want until they are less intimidating to learn and apply.

There are 3 "main" versions of Pitman: the original system, Pitman New Era, and Pitman 2000. New Era has the most complex system of rules and abbreviations, while 2000 simplified many of these and got rid of most of the abbreviations. I personally use New Era, in part because I was able to access more resources for this, but largely because I found the increased number of rules and abbreviations to be better in the long run. If you are willing to invest more time and effort into learning a more complicated system, with the tradeoff that it will be faster and easier once you are proficient, you should learn New Era. The main benefit of 2000 is that the rules are simplified. I would say, however, that the downsizing of the list of abbreviations is not a benefit. While it in theory requires you to memorise more individual symbols, in practice these abbreviations are commonly used enough that they can become automatic with very little practice. If you decide to learn 2000, I would suggest taking he time to go through the list of abbreviations from New Era and, if not learning all of them, picking out the ones you think you are likely to use with semi-regularity. If you compile them into a cheat sheet and hand it next to your desk, they should be easy to practice using and become memorised really quickly. I myself dont have every abbreviation memorised, but instead focused on ones i use regularly, and often go through the list again to pick out new ones to learn and add to my lexicon as I think they may be used.

Pitman TL;DR: phonemic, differentiates strokes through line thickness, rules can be applied or discarded as best suits your practice without sacrificing readability. Increased speed and efficiency is achieved through extra short forms for commonly used words, and rules which simplify strokes.

examples of Pitman:

[first image mine, other two images sourced from Long Live Pitman's (website, linked below), and wiki]

Gregg:

Gregg is a very popular form of shorthand which utilises round, smooth strokes with the intent of increasing writing efficiency and legibility.

Where Pitman uses variation in line thickness to differentiate between strokes, Gregg uses line length. Both consonants and vowels are marked with designated strokes (compared to Teeline, which has vowel strokes but tends to omit them where possible, and Pitman, which adds vowel marking to consonant strokes or signals vowels through figure placement), and vowels are largely kept in-line. With Gregg, efficiency is achieved through the use of short forms, prefixes, and suffixes; "phrasing", (wherein certain phrases, such as "I may be," "one of the most," "by the," etc. are combined into a single stroke); as well as through the more efficient way in which strokes are joined together into words.

Left-handed people sometimes write Gregg from right to left.

Like Pitman, there are a number of different versions of Gregg, however Gregg seems to have significantly more versions and significantly less consensus around which version is best or why. I am not the best person to give advice on which one is best or information on the different types, so if you decide to go with Gregg I'd suggest checking out the subreddit or some of the other resources linked below for information on that.

examples of Gregg:

[Images sourced from wiki and gregg-shorthand.com]

Comparisons:

I would say that one of the main things to consider if choosing between Gregg and Pitman is which you think is more intuitive to read and write for you. Which sounds obvious lol but like. as an example. I struggle with spatial awareness and stuff like estimating lengths so for me Gregg is not a good option since it differentiates certain consonants through their length and I would have a hard time writing those consistently or easily reading them. Pitman is easier for me in that regard, as well as since it is more "choppy" (for lack of better word) which makes it much easier for me to recognise certain words without having to break them down, as well as making it easier for me to break them down to read them should I need to. On the other hand, some people find Gregg to be easier since its much "smoother" and flowier to write, which can be much faster and more intuitive for some.

Compared to Pitman, Gregg has significantly fewer rules to learn, making it in theory simpler, however, due to the way it is written, it requires significantly more practice to be able to consistently properly write and tell apart certain letters, words, and phrases. Once you are proficient in this, it is by far more efficient, however Gregg is very difficult to use while you are still figuring it out. Pitman, on the other hand, has significantly more rules, however you can continue to easily use it as you learn these rules and add them into your practice. The downside of this is that once you are fully proficient, it is less efficient than full proficiency Gregg. Essentially, the main difficulty with learning Gregg is telling apart different strokes and writing them so that they can be differentiated, while the main difficulty with Pitman is in learning the rules.

I havent talked much about Teeline because honestly I know far less about it, because it is so much harder to find resources on, and honestly because I'm a bit of an old man and personally prefer the older styles lol. Its popular for a reason, though !

I know it probably sounds like I'm shilling a lot for Pitman, however thats just because its what I use and know the most about, as well as because it is what works best for my unique considerations. Most people would probably be more likely to recommend Gregg (for a number of very good reasons !), however when I was first deciding which shorthand system to learn I saw very few people making the points that were most relevant to me (eg, that pitman can be used AS you learn, whereas Gregg is more of a "its useless until you actually have it down" situation, that Gregg is really difficult if you struggle with differentiating lengths, etc) so I feel the need to mention them

TL;DR: Everything:

Ultimately you should use whatever you think is best for you :) I'd say Teeline is your best bet if you are in journalism, or want something easier. Gregg is best if you want something popular, smoother to write, and extremely fast, and are willing and able to put in significant amounts of consistent work and practice to master it. Pitman is best if you want something you can use as you learn, and that's somewhere in between Teeline and Gregg in terms of difficulty and efficiency. If you wanted, you could probably learn Teeline as well as either Pitman or Gregg, but learning both Pitman and Gregg would be much more difficult.

Other:

I take all my notes by hand, generally using a mix of palmer method cursive and pitman shorthand to do so, however, I also have to write a lot of papers, and when I do, I get frustrated at having to type out whole words I normally write in shorthand. This is kind of the curse of shorthand, you get really annoyed having to type out "because". To deal with this, while typing in a word processor, I use an alphabetic shorthand I've come up with over time. I basically input a bunch of auto-replacements into my spellcheck, so that I can have shortcuts for commonly used words set up. so basically i can write: "here, . cnstrctn ` ntnl idntty served to lgtmse the ntn stte" and it will autocorrect to "here, the construction of national identity served to legitimise the nation state". Highly recommend this if you do a lot of writing, especially if a lot of the same topics and words come up a lot. Use whatever shortened versions feel intuitive for you, instead of something you've consciously + intentionally constructed, otherwise youre more likely to forget them or have them get mixed up.

Resources:

stenophile.com has a huge number of shorthand resources linked, particularly for Gregg and Pitman. If you end up choosing either of these I'd suggest starting here to find instruction books.

this website can transliterate into Pitman and Gregg, DEK and Stolze-Schrey (two German shorthand systems), and Sütterlinschrift (a historical German script)(also in my header !)

r/fastwriting is run by a very nice very dedicated man who posts a huge amount of content and resources on various shorthand methods, including lesser known ones. If you decide you want to learn/learn about a different shorthand system, he's the guy to talk to. This subreddit differs from r/shorthand or system-specific subreddits like r/greggshorthand, as those are more discussion-based for learners and practitioners, while r/fastwriting is better for research and being autistic. R/shorthand does have a number of resources listed for more popular shorthand systems, and is a good place to go for advice while learning.

Teeline:

blog with a few free resources

Pitman:

Pitman New Era Instructor and Dictionary. These are what I largely used to learn.

Long Live Pitman's: a website dedicated to Pitman, full of good information for beginning learners.

if you learn Pitman, as mentioned the line variation can be accomplished with a pencil, however if you want to get a bit fancy with it while staying on a budget, Fountain Pen Revolution carries a number of cheap yet reliable fountain pens with flex nibs, such as the FPR Indus or Himalaya. I'd suggest the steel flex rather than the ultra-flex for shorthand unless you have a lighter hand or have practiced with a flex pen before. I've also heard good things about the Noodler's Ahab pen but honestly find its very temperamental, needs tweaking (not ideal if youre a fp beginner) and just not as good. Both FPR and Noodler's pens are made of bioresin and must be kept away from solvents like isopropyl alcohol !!!

Gregg:

Gregg Phrasebook. Short guide to phraseology for Gregg

Gregg-shorthand.com: seems like a good place to start for learning Gregg. Answers some beginner's questions, and provides learning aids and reading material (transliterated into Gregg)

r/greggshorthand

greggshorthand.gibhub.io: a more in depth website with a number of book pdfs and lessons for various forms of Gregg.

[general-sleepy]

Just plain babbling about shorthand

Since reading Dracula might be the first time or one of the first times that people have heard about shorthand, I thought I'd take this thin excuse to infodump. Because I find it fascinating and want to share. (Warning ahead of time, watch out for how many darn times I say "for example" in this post).

For some background, shorthand systems of writing have existed for millennia, but in the English-speaking world, the two most common and well-established systems of shorthand are Pitman and Gregg. Odds are that the Harkers are writing in Pitman. It's the older system (created in 1837) and is to this day more common in England and the Commonwealth. Gregg is more common in America and was introduced in 1888, either only a few years after or a few years before Dracula takes place. There were also numerous other less popular systems floating around at the time.

Pitman and Gregg and most other shorthand systems are phonetic. (Teeline is a more modern shorthand system based on a simplified alphabet, which is also quite popular). Simply put, each sound is reduced to one stroke of the pen. In Gregg, for example, the sound "k" (which includes the letter "c) is a medium-sized forward arch, "a" is a large circle, and "ch" is a short, downward diagonal line. So, instead of writing "catch" you just combine the symbols for "k-a-ch." Instead of "become" you just write "b-k-m." (These "words" are known as outlines).

Some shapes represent multiple sounds. For example, a small circle stands for the vowels in "bit," "bet," and "beet." A large circle stands for the vowels in "cap" and "cape." This might sound like it would be confusing rather than simplifying, but it's generally clear from the context.

There are a bunch of other means which allow you to write more quickly. Common words are further shorted into "brief forms." For example, "the" is represented by "th," "after" by "a-f," and "were" by "e-r." Some common endings or beginnings are also abbreviated, so that "sh" at the end of a word can stand in for "-tion" and "f" can mean "for-" or "fore-" at the beginning of a word. Thus, "Permission" is "p-r-m-sh" and "forgive" is "f-g-v." Common phrases can be combined into a single outlines. For example, for "to be" you can write "t-b" instead of "t-u[space]b." "I have not been able" can be "a-v-n-b-a." (The large circle "a" is the brief form for the word "I" in one of the rare quirks of Gregg that isn't basically intuitive).

Pitman Shorthand is very similar to Gregg (or, more accurately, Gregg is similar to Pitman). Other than using different symbols (for example, in Pitman "k" is a short forward line) Pitman differs from Gregg mostly by its use of the thickness of strokes to differentiate sounds. For example, "g" is also a short forward line, with the only difference being that the line for "g" is drawn thicker than "k."

I learned shorthand absolutely because of Dracula, though for convenience I learned Gregg. As of right now, I'm pretty out-of-practice, and honestly I was never particularly fast. (At my best, I probably was on average as fast writing shorthand as cursive longhand; I think faster than printing, though).

If you're at all interested, I really recommend learning some form of shorthand. It's useful in note-taking or when you don't want people to be able to read your writing (if, you know, you're kidnapped by a vampire or trying to write fanfic at work). It's also just a fun hobby and a nifty skill to be able to say you have.

In my opinion, if you want to learn shorthand, Gregg Simplified is a solid option, because the materials are accessible and the system is a good middle-ground between easiness to learn and quickness to write. I taught myself just following along with the Gregg Shorthand Manual Simplified. The book is broken up into 67 short "lessons." I did one or two lessons a week, maybe a few hours of work, and I was "fluent" in less than a year. I also bought a Gregg Simplified Dictionary, but all you need is the Manual.

(Note that the manual is written both assuming you're probably some kind a secretary and in the fifties. So, you'll learn brief forms for super-useful phrases like "dear sir" or "remit." For practice, they have you read and copy these sample letters in shorthand, and it's almost hilarious how almost all the letters to men are about business matters and the letters to women are advertising sales. There is one spectacular letter that's a man writing to a newspaper to cancel his subscription, because he's moved into a house in the suburbs with another man who gets the same paper. I'm legit tempted to go through the manual again just to find that letter.)

Fun fact! The fastest shorthand stenographer ever recorded wrote faster than the fastest typist.

Also fun fact! It's not uncommon for individual people to invent their own brief forms based on words that they use commonly. So, Jonathan might have been writing "c-a-r-p" (or the Pitman equivalent) for "Carpathian" or Mina writing "t-b" for "Whitby" or both of them writing "v-a-m" for vampire. And I'll bet credits to navy beans they had specific brief forms for their favorite trains.

[enchantedbook]

' The Unselfish Mermaid' by Rosie M. M. Pitman, 1898

[abcmuushroom]

Harold Lowe's is because of the infamous "why is everyone running around what do you mean we hit an iceberg no I didn't feel the collision I was busy sleeping" moment, and for the rest of them... um... just look at them