Talk:Pitman shorthand

Grammalogues

I'm only familiar with New Era shorthand and haven't come across the term grammalogue. However, the following sentence from the article is confusing.

"In shorthand, frequently or commonly occurring words are represented in a single outline which are termed as Grammalogues and the shorthand outlines that represent the grammalogues are called logograms."

It seems to be saying that the outline is termed Grammalogue and then that the shorthand outlines that represent grammalogues are called logograms. Can anyone clarify what the writer originally intended? It's not clear whether the outline is the grammalogue or the logogram. Adrian Robson 08:55, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I think what's meant is that the words that are abbreviated are grammalog(ue)s, whereas the outlines used to represent them are logogram(me)s. --Siva 19:46, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Abugida

I would describe this script as an Abugida and not an Abjad. In an Abjad, the vowel symbols are optional, as in Hebrew or Arabic.   Andreas   ^(T) 20:06, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

The fact that vowels are indicated by dots and dashes (rather than tails and flourishes) suggested to me that Pitman's Shorthand is an abjad like Arabic and Hebrew, both of which also use dots and dashes to indicate vowels. For your information, the vowel signs are optional; the position of the stroke with respect to the baseline usually carries sufficient information about the main vowel of a word or phrase, and hence you will find that advanced users of Pitman's Shorthand generally do away with the vowel signs unless they are absolutely necessary. (Beginners, on the other hand, are usually encouraged to keep them.) --Siva 23:13, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Something of a borderline case. But the shapes of the vowel diacritics is irrelevant here. Thai isn't an alphabet just because it can be written in a form that looks like Latin; Pitman isn't an abjad just because the vowels look Hebrew. And when the vowel diacritics drop out, they are preserved through modification of the consonant - another characteristic of an abugida. But the fact that only one vowel is specified, and that incompletely, does reduce the role of vowels considerably, so Pitman shifts toward the abjad side of things just as Arabic and Hebrew, which indicate some vowels, have shifted toward the abugida side. kwami 23:43, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the big argument against abugida is that Pitman consonants don't have an inherent vowel (like the Brahmic scripts), and the alterations for vowel sounds are not mandatory - you can omit vowel marks if you want, and marking by position can only be used for word initial vowels. The difference between an abjad and an abugida is that even though the vowel signs are subordinate to consonants in both, abugidas still consistently and mandatorially incorporate the vowel features, whether by mark (Brahmic, Ge'ez) or orientation (Canadian syllabics), while abjads drop vowels all over the place. By that litmus, Pitman truly is abjadi, and I think you will be hard pressed to find any English shorthand that is an abugida. Contrast with the Tironian notae, which seem to be fairly abugidaic (is that even a word?). VI_WS ^talk 08:50, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

$ineedofpitmanshorthandbook$

I read that on the article (second paragraf):

One characteristic feature of Pitman shorthand is that [voiced] sounds (such as /p/ and /b/ or /t/ and /d/)...

I think /p/ and /t/ are voiceless. /b/ and /d/ are surely voiced. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.13.203.241 (talk) 04:04, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Pitman Shorthand vs. Pitman's Shorthand

In the UK, the system is known exclusively as Pitman's Shorthand, not Pitman Shorthand. The titles of the (UK editions of the) main reference works refer to Pitman's Shorthand: Pitman's Shorthand Instructor; Pitman's Shorthand Dictionary; A Commentary on Pitman's Shorthand.

The preface of the Instructor states explicitly that the system is known as Pitman's Shorthand (Pitman's Shorthand Instructor New Era Edition, preface, page v) and is similarly described in the preceding Centenary Edition of the Instructor, and before that the Twentieth Century Edition of the Instructor (c.1900). (Before that, the original name of the system, Phonography, was more common.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stenog (talk • contribs) 10:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Postvocalic R

Footnote 2 suggests that postvocalic R is consistently represented in Pitman's shorthand because "British English" (not a useful term as there were, as now, many regional varieties in Britain) was universally rhotic in the nineteenth century. A more likely reason is that Isaac Pitman was a native of the Bath area, whose local dialect is still rhotic to this day. Independent evidence that Pitman's own pronunciation underpinned the theory comes from the representation of the vowel in the words "bath", "dance" &c., which in editions prior to the Centenary Edition were represented by a first-place ""light"" dot (as is used in the word "cat"), pronunciation typical of many regions of Britain, including the South West, but significantly "excluding" the South East, where "dance" and "bath' &c are characteristically pronounced with the long "ah" (first place ""heavy"" dot). The South Eastern pronunciation became the model from Centenary onwards: specifically Murray's New English Dictionary is cited as the model in the Centenary edition. That the R was retained in outlines, despite the switch to South Eastern pronunciation early in the twentieth century, is open to speculation: the changes to established outlines would be very extensive; the R serves a useful distinguishing function; the R provides a way to represent the vowels of "bird", "court", "hurt" &c., even though they are not rhotic in the Standard pronunciation. Stenog (talk) 11:49, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Pitman's 2000 vs. New Era

From the current article:

'Pitman New Era (1922–1975) had the most developed set of rules and abbreviation lists.
Pitman 2000 (1975–present) introduced some simplifications and drastically reduced the
list of abbreviations to reduce the memory-load..The later versions dropped certain
symbols and introduced other simplifications to earlier versions.'

If I go to the trouble to get some references together, as I suppose will be necessary, I think I can substantiate the point that although Pitman 2000 is a simplified version of New Era, it was not intended to replace New Era, and the purpose was not to "improve" New Era. Some outlines are longer, and some joins between strokes are allowed that New Era discourages as being not so easy to form, or less reliable under the stress of speed. But, office workers generally do not need the speed.

There is such a thing as pre-New Era versions. However, a quick check yields that there is a POCKET DICTIONARY NEW ERA – Pitman New Era Shorthand, Publisher Addison Wesley Longman Limited. And this, was first published 1975, reprinted 1985, 86, 87, 88, 90, 92, 93, 96, 97. It is, to my knowledge, still in normal print.DanLanglois (talk) 02:43, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Both Gregg and Pitman are featural

The "Writing" section says "Unlike Gregg it is also partly featural, in that pairs of consonsant phonemes distinguished only by voice are notated with strokes differing only in thickness." This seems to contradict the article for featural writing system and Gregg shorthand. Featural writing systems represent the sounds in some way rather than being arbitrary; this is true of both Gregg and Pitman, for Gregg has longer lines corresponding to voiced/unvoiced.

Could anyone check the source? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Awelotta (talk • contribs) 14:27, 10 December 2020 (UTC)