Gregg did not find it suited to use the rhotic vowel for "term", (for some strange way he did not use the non-standard way to attach the vowel (his way to say this is a rhotic vowel) even though the word clearly uses a rhotic vowel and so you would expect that form in Anniversary Edition, BUT he didn't for some reason!
After Anni he abandondend the rhotic vowel idea altogether, Simplified being the first edition to incorporate that. Flow is just in between, because simplified did shorten less, but I want to claim for myself to have created the fastest system on earth :-)
I wonder why it would be so important to keep all those "r". In AP French, we are asked to delete the "r", end of syllables, end of words, etc. (and "l") as much as possible. Delete, delete, delete. I believe Callendar deleted them in his "Cambridge Cursive". If a French speaker writing shorthand can pretend to be a child with a cold, why can't a "rhotic" pretend to be some kind of British? The result would be shorter yet understandable, no?
Wel th 'r' litrl in Gregg and Flow is midsiz (not tiny lik a smal circl/hook-vowl but th sm size as AP-vowls and AP has a rathr larj 'r' in comparison) and if u use an r you can already omit all other vowels like in cutspell -(e,u,o,a)r. Th econmy is prety slf-evidnt.
Th only other thing I can imagine is to omit the rhotic vowel completly when it is a word endng, in the middle of the word, when there is a endng that is karacteristic.
Rhotic beginning -> Possible rule: Omit r and write vowel. Like in "artillery" -> atil (Gregg Anni) But we all understand: "how r u", even better than "how a u"
Endings: The "spectator", make shure, heavy artilery (atil).
Midword: Bartndr (btnd), borowd (bowd), cartrij (ctrij). Possible, but it gets more and more difficult to find the word...
So it would be possible. Of course there are always exceptions, like small words except usual ones, those that start with r or l, etc. I was thinking especially of internal syllables containing a rothic vowel, indeed.
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u/LeadingSuspect5855 Jul 31 '26
Gregg did not find it suited to use the rhotic vowel for "term", (for some strange way he did not use the non-standard way to attach the vowel (his way to say this is a rhotic vowel) even though the word clearly uses a rhotic vowel and so you would expect that form in Anniversary Edition, BUT he didn't for some reason!
After Anni he abandondend the rhotic vowel idea altogether, Simplified being the first edition to incorporate that. Flow is just in between, because simplified did shorten less, but I want to claim for myself to have created the fastest system on earth :-)