Stone Optimized Shorthand is a full alphabet replacement shorthand that focuses on reducing and streamlining the strokes as much as possible, focusing that speed on the most commonly used characters in US English.
- Getting Started
- Quick Reference
- The characters
- What is this and why should you use it?
- Features
- Philosophy, Methodology
- Influences
- Data Sources
- Other Related Resources
- Contributors
- Print out the Quick Reference or put in on your phone or favorite screen / device.
- Try writing out the alphabet or a couple of your favorite things. Your name. Favorite food. Some phrases or quotes.
- Find a text you don't know well, try writing that in the script above.
- Try creating some flash cards or some other techniques to help you recall the modifications.
- Read out loud what you have written. Strive to get to full reading speed.
- Try typing your transcriptions into a keyboard by touch typing. Extra points if you use Dvorak.
The letters above are listed in the order you should likely learn them. Optionally you might want to learn the vowel U after the consonant L due to lower frequency.
As a counterpoint, on the Dvorak keyboard vowels are found entirely on one hand and on the home row, and creates a nice alternation in US English. The idea is that it is quite often you alternate vowel / consonant with one or two in each sequence. Given that, one might ascertain that vowels have a 50% (statistically 37.47%; 2.758% represented by the letter U) likely hood of being written and thus by learning the 5 vowels, you are covering half of your learning to write in this format.
Although many of the glyphs are intended to represent their normal script counterpart (although in a ultra minimal sense most of the time) there are some deviations. These are important to highlight because their construction is a bit different and requires a bit of special attention.
Iis taken from Teeline and Ford and I have not though of a better representation yet.- Letters
RandNare based on their lowercase counter parts. Sis a partial of an elongated and offset version I use in my own hand writing.Dis an alternative taken from Teeline optimized for speed.Gis influenced from the Cyrillic alphabet'sPorП(Pis anRsound typically). This is to create visual distinction and the extra angle is warranted because of the lower frequency and the ability to draw the glyph from left-to-right in a continuous stroke.Zis taken from the Cyrillic alphabet for the same letter. You might think of this as the number3in a single stroke. This doesn't have a strong left-to-right stroke and curves back to the left. However, due to the low frequency the speed optimization is reduced in favor of clarity. Additionally, this was chosen because aZcan also appear to be similar to a number2or7or a capitalRand I usually hatch them (with a dash at the centerline) for clarity anyways. As with the number7.
Stone Optimized Shorthand aims to be a faster to write full alphabet replacement for US English. The goal is to create a shorthand that is as fast as possible to write (with out any other alterations). This is because characters were developed with an understanding of character frequency in US English and the most common glyphs are created with a single fast stroke (some with a curve or a single angle). Wherever possible characters are constructed to represent the characters they replace, however the emphasis is in the simplicity and pull of the stroke.
This project could be compared to Ford Simplified Shorthand (and takes influence from) where the emphasis is on creating similar reading characters and perhaps obfuscation. However, the most commonly used glyphs can be high in complexity as compared to Stone Optimized Shorthand. Although Stone Optimized Shorthand may also provide obfusicitation, this is a by product rather than a feature.
This project could also be compared to the basic characters from Teeline Shorthand. Teeline Shorthand is also cited as a major influence (and you will recognize many similar glyphs between the two). Stone Optimized Shorthand differs because it focused on character frequency and optimizing these characters first.
- no case sensitivity (but could be added)
- generated by character use frequency in US English
- materials focused on learning frequency, similar to Dvorak keyboard layout teaching techniques
- high frequency doubled letters are optimized for writing doubles
- letters are optimized as a single stroke (with the exception of x, which is also optimized for fast left-to-right movement)
- glyphs are optimized for writing left-to-right and starting as a single stroke from the left side pulled to the right in most cases (except horizontal glyphs)
Stone Optimized Shorthand was developed in 2020 out of James Stone's rekindled interest in simple to use short hand systems and reuse of a paper (analog) journal as a way to keep notes as well as develop writing artifacts outside of the computer. He previously had experimented with basic speedwords (creating abbreviations for common words with single and double character replacements).
This shorthand system was created in 2012 by Ford who was seeking a way to obfuscate his writing in journals and in meetings. Frustrated by the amount of time it took to learn a short hand system, he set out to create one that more closely resembled the regular alphabet. He claims many people can double their writing speed with his system and it can be learned in only 15 minutes.
Though I think the basics could be learned in this time, gaining the faster writing speed requires internalizing the alphabet and practices, so this can be a bit misleading. From my perspective, the biggest benefit in this system is the similarity to the standard alphabet glyphs which means you have very little new to learn. It is in many cases just a slight optimization.
His work is also influenced (and some characters are taken directly) from the characters of Teeline Shorthand (as described on the source site below). Also worth noting there are some legal disclaimers preventing the teaching of this system or inclusion in courses without prior written permission and all rights reserved. Furthermore most of the links on the site below are broken, including a method of contact.
My critique would be that many (from a quick reading on reddit) feel the need to modify this system. My understanding is this stems from the fact while the system is very straight forward and very fast to learn, it can feel (I assume) in efficient in many ways. Additionally the lack of a permissive use license prevents wide reuse, hacking, modification, iteration, teaching, sharing and evolution of such a system.
source: http://www.fordshorthand.com
Teeline Shorthand is a much more extensive shorthand system that expands beyond just the Teeline characters. However, in relationship to this project only the characters should be relevant. Teeline was developed in 1968 by Jame Hill and is a requirement of journalists working in the United Kingdom.
My critique in Teeline writing and reading is the baseline and centerline where there are characters that are ambiguous. For example the H vs the P, G vs. N, or the similarities in OQUVWY.
wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teeline_Shorthand
I have used the top right corner of this article sorted descending by frequency as my guide. I am reproducing it here for posterity or in case the article changes. It is not clear to me in this article the source of the statistics or calculation methodology.
E 11.162%
T 9.356%
A 8.497%
R 7.587%
I 7.546%
O 7.507%
N 6.749%
S 6.327%
H 6.094%
D 4.253%
L 4.025%
U 2.758%
W 2.560%
M 2.406%
F 2.228%
C 2.202%
G 2.015%
Y 1.994%
P 1.929%
B 1.492%
K 1.292%
V 0.978%
J 0.153%
X 0.150%
Q 0.095%
Z 0.077%
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequency
Cited in the wikipedia article on letter frequency is an interesting data set to investigate. This is shown with +/- rank values to show the difference from the data set that I have used from wikipedia. ! denotes a large change in rank.
E 12.49%
T 9.28%
A 8.04%
O 7.64% +2
I 7.57%
N 7.23% +1
S 6.51% +1
R 6.28% -4!
H 5.05%
L 4.07% +1
D 3.82% -1
C 3.34% +4!
U 2.73% -1
M 2.51%
F 2.40%
P 2.14% +3!
G 1.87%
W 1.68% -5!
Y 1.66% -1
B 1.48%
V 1.05% +1
K 0.54% -1
X 0.23% +1
J 0.16% -1
Q 0.12%
Z 0.09%
source: http://norvig.com/mayzner.html
- Note-taking In Ford Improved Shorthand by Abby Starnes https://medium.com/@abbymstarnes/note-taking-in-ford-improved-shorthand-34a2736ff8a9
- Quora: Which letter is the easiest and fastest to write over and over again (by hand)? It can be from any alphabet and written in any style. https://www.quora.com/Which-letter-is-the-easiest-and-fastest-to-write-over-and-over-again-by-hand-It-can-be-from-any-alphabet-and-written-in-any-style
- Which double letters appear most frequently in English text? https://blogs.sas.com/content/iml/2014/10/03/double-letter-bigrams.html
James Stone, 2020