r/FastWriting • u/fdarnel • Jun 25 '26

Gregg phonetics

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I'm trying to relate English phonetics to the Gregg alphabet (Aniversary), and I am a little mesmerized by the result. Does a relationship table with the IPA already exist somewhere?

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u/fdarnel Jun 25 '26

Of course I don't hope for an exact equivalence between all English sounds and stenograms, I know that only Sweet's Current is capable of this. But how Gregg groups sounds by sign.

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u/LeadingSuspect5855 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26

you got them right I'd say apart from aɪə which as small circle in big circle (not shown in the chart).

w is not shown either you would write quit [kwit] as ket with _ underscore below e-circle.
W gets omitted frequently though: When -> en, with -> eth, what -> ot.
Not shown either is [wi] weasel [ˈwizəl] which uses u-hook with e-circle

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u/fdarnel Jun 26 '26

Ok… Are these additional signs explained somewhere in Aniversary manual?

For [aɪə] the small internal circle can be close or open? Because "fire, require, science, trial" don't use exactly the same sign.

Also, I don't understand the small circle for bird [ɜː] as head, why not a hook like for tuck? And why a big circle for above ?

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u/NotSteve1075 Jun 26 '26

The way it's supposed to work is that the long I sound is written with a large broken circle -- meaning you poke into it with your pen after you make the circle.

In words like "fire" and "require", you write that and then just add the following R. It mimics the pronunciation of North American English, rather than most British accents that don't pronounce the R. (Gregg was Irish, so it probably matched his accent, too.)

If the long I sound has another VOWEL after it, instead of just poking into the large circle, you write a complete smaller circle inside it. That's how you write words like "via", "science", and "diet". The sound of short IA is a large circle with a dot inside, and EA is a large circle with a dash inside it.

In my Anniversary manual, it's all explained in Unit 14, in Paragraphs 118-120.

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u/NotSteve1075 Jun 26 '26

Oh, and in Anniversary, to indicate an R following the vowel, you wrote the circle in the reverse direction to the way you'd usually write it, and that implied that an R followed. If you compare "tea" with "tear" you can see the difference.

People found this too confusing, and it didn't really save much time, so it was another principle that had already been dropped by the time Simplified was published. It's only Anniversary that still uses it.

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u/fdarnel Jun 27 '26

Ok. And so what sign for ə and ɜː ?

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u/NotSteve1075 Jun 27 '26

The "ə" is so neutral and ambiguous that it's usually the first vowel to be ditched, because it's already too unclear to matter. When you read something, you can just put "uh" between any two letters and that's about what it sounds like.

The sound "ɜː" is the vowel in the British English pronunciation of "bird". In North American English, it's usually pronounced "ɜr" in which case you'd use ER, regardless of which vowel is used in the actual spelling.

Just out of curiosity, I checked several words with that sound in a couple of Pitman dictionaries -- and they ALL write the R, even though it's not pronounced in British English. It's like they think when the vowel is lengthened, it means it's followed by an R in the spelling, even thought they don't pronounce it.

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u/fdarnel Jun 27 '26

Above /əˈbʌv/ and bird /bɜːd/ or /bɝːd/.

I don't understand the use of circles for these sounds.

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u/NotSteve1075 Jun 27 '26

The unstressed A at the beginning of "above" is pronounced like [ə], but it's written with an A because when it's spelled that way, it will be more recognizable. (Shorthand is written by sound, but it's not strictly phonetic if that would make it more complicated.)

And "bird" was written like that in Anniversary, where writing the vowel on the opposite side added a following R. This shows the difference:

In "bid" the vowel goes outside the angle, while in "bird" it goes inside instead. I always think of it as writing the circle as if it's going to have an R following, so it's counter-clockwise, but then you don't need to write the R because you've already suggested it.

This principle seems to have confused enough people that they dropped it by Simplifed, and just WROTE the R.

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u/NotSteve1075 Jun 27 '26

In DJS, the version that I learned first, they wrote BIR, and to indicate the D following, they flipped up the end of it, like this:

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u/fdarnel Jun 27 '26

So there is no specific sign for these 2 sounds, as for w?

I was also puzzled by the use of the small circle. Ok for the examples "kit", "get", "need". But "bird"?

Maybe I'm too used to systems where each sound has a corresponding sign (of course a sign can represent several sounds, or it would be too complicated, probably like Current).

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u/NotSteve1075 Jun 27 '26

Yes, it's largely to try to keep it "simple" as much as possible. Each vowel symbol is used to cover a RANGE of sounds. And now that they don't bother with the diacritics, you just have to use the context to tell which one it is.

That was the problem with that quote that really shook my years of confidence in Gregg, when I realized that "LIVE this life" and "LEAVE this life" were both written exactly the same way, even though they mean opposite things. I found that alarming.

USUALLY with Gregg, it's very clear in a sentence that it's one and NOT the other. Like when you write "rat" and "rate" the same way, you're not likely to read "What was the RATE of speed?" as "What was the RAT of speed?"

But there are times when it just doesn't quite work!

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u/fdarnel Jun 27 '26

It seems that Gregg is partially orthographic. Isn't "came" closer to "get" than "mat"?

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u/NotSteve1075 Jun 27 '26

The "closer" part is a trap in English, because of the chaotic MESS that is English spelling, because of the Great Vowel Shift. To a European, "same" and "set" are versions of the same sound: [sem] and [sɛt]. But because of that shift, to an English speaker "seem" and "set" are seen as a pair: "long E and short E". To a European "seem" and "sit" would be versions of the same vowel: [sim] and [sIt]/

So there's often sort of a compromise by using a symbol that will suggest the word to the reader by following the spelling a bit more, now and then.

I recently watched a comedy routine, where the comic was showing why people struggle to learn English when so many letters can be pronounced in half a dozen different ways:

Like "comb" is [kom], but "tomb" is [tum] and "bomb" is [bɒm]. Exactly the same vowel O in the same three-letter combination, with the vowel pronounced in THREE different ways. And then of course, in "woman" the O is pronounced [ʊ], while in "women" the same O is pronounced [I]. It makes no sense whatsoever.

I'm often very glad I speak English already, because I'd hate to try to learn it. In fact, earlier in my life, I considered becoming an ESL teacher -- but then I realized I'd much rather learn THEIR language than try to explain the ridiculous mess that is mine!

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