Just how to Write 225 Words each and every minute Having a Pen
A class within the missing technology of shorthand
As a journalist, we start many interviews by supporting my pen and asking, “Have you ever seen one among these?” No body ever has.
It is perhaps maybe not a regular pen, needless to say. It’s a Sky wifi smartpen, a bit of gee-whiz technology from the ongoing business called Livescribe. Fundamentally, the replaces that are smartpen your standard reporter’s tools. The way I always have to start with, it’s an old-fashioned pen for old-fashioned paper, so I can still scribble my notes. The smartpen can be a top-notch recorder that is digital producing a sound file associated with the meeting once we get along. Finally, a camera that is tiny the end associated with pen simultaneously takes images of my records when I write.
All of that info is then drawn together with a microprocessor housed when you look at the barrel for the pen. And since the smartpen is actually some type of computer, it is in a position to sync the picture up of my handwritten records aided by the sound file. Which means i could touch the end associated with the pen any place in my notebook, additionally the pen will immediately replay the sound of whatever had been being stated once I took that note. And as it’s WiFi enabled, the interview that is whole file, records, and all—is immediately uploaded to my Evernote account. It’s a small as promised.
There’s an added function i love to mention. It’s possible, We tell individuals, to have optical character recognition computer computer software to choose the pen. Then copy and paste into your word processor if you write like a normal person, the OCR will automatically convert your handwritten notes into a text file that you can. For many reporters, this is basically the most readily useful function, obviating the painful task of transcribing long interviews. However it does not work though i’m recording this interview with the latest model Sky wifi smartpen, I’m taking notes using a 19th Century technology called Gregg shorthand for me, I explain, because even.
In a lot of respects, Gregg is also more innovative compared to smartpen. And, although no electronic devices or gizmos were included, it absolutely was a tremendously effective and influential technology for almost a century. Now, it’s get to be the key to my workflow on the web age.
Gregg is method of compressing language. You may be the device that does the decoding and encoding. Along with your mind may do it in real-time at extremely, extremely speeds that are high. To comprehend why, you should know only a little about how precisely it really works.
Gregg is actually a much easier and much more efficient system that is writing longhand English. This begins utilizing the letters on their own. The Roman alphabet, which we used to compose English, is a lot more complicated than is strictly required to distinguish one page from another. To print a“b” that is lower-case for instance, calls for a lengthy, downward stroke by having a clockwise cycle during the base. Then, you must select your pen to go to another page, an extraneous action which occupies nearly the maximum amount of time since the writing it self. Cursive (whenever had been the time that is last heard that term?) might seem just a little faster, nonetheless it actually calls for extra shots, brief ligatures at the start and also the end of each and every page. That’s lot of wasted movement, which is why cursive is truly no more than ten percent quicker than printing.
In comparison, Gregg’s “letters” are much easier shapes. Here is the paragraph that is first of article printed in shorthand:
Consonants are generally shallow curves or right lines; vowels are generally loops or small hooks. The Gregg “b”, as an example, is a simple downward stroke of this pen—a very long, forward-leaning curve that faces off to the right, such as a available parenthesis in italics. The Gregg “b” requires just one stroke compared to the four or five that comprise the Roman “b.” Gregg letters also require no ligatures; each letter blends seamlessly into the others if you measure the complexity of writing in the number of strokes. The long, downward curve of a “b” joins the short, horizontal curve of an “r” to form a sort of right-handed fishhook in the combination “b-r”, for instance.
Here, you can view the Gregg page “b,” then “r,” and a mixture of the 2, which will represent “bring” ( more on that abbreviation in a full moment):
In Gregg, the simplification of this kinds of letters reaches its apogee in a procedure called “blending”. The patient shots of several frequently combined page pairs are written with an individual blended swing. The quick, straight, horizontal dash of an “n” and also the long, diagonal, upward swing of the “d” join to be an extended, upward bend that represents “nd”. This not just decreases the sheer number of shots, it eliminates the pause that is momentary to make an angle involving the “n” as well as the “d”. This ease of design—the absence of superfluous strokes—accounts for approximately ten percent associated with the rate of Gregg.
Here’s “n,” “d,” then the “nd” combination:
An additional benefit of Gregg is it is phonetic. Your message “bay”, for instance, is created “b-a”—the easy downward bend of this “b”, completed with all the big, counter-clockwise cycle of an “a”, so your word that is whole three letters in longhand, appears just about like just one sloping form of the Roman “b”. Gregg eschews the parade of quiet letters, just like the “y” in “bay” which make English so very hard to understand as a language that is second.