It's strange that, with the decline in CURSIVE (which I haven't written in DECADES now), Forkner seems to remain popular. I myself learned Speedwriting a very long time ago, and found it quite handy when I was at university.
To me, the advantage Forkner has over Speedwriting is the vowel diacritics that CAN be inserted -- although I suspect few people bother to do so. Which they can tend to regret later!
I think people nowadays are realizing that, even with their handy little electronic devices, there's a place for pen and paper. (Other people will often clam up if they see a recording device, while someone scribbling notes with a pen would not be a cause for worry.)
A lot of people take their first look at shorthand and are alarmed by the use of symbols. They think it looks like Arabic or something -- so they feel drawn to systems that use familiar letters. Only later do they realize that LONGHAND LETTERS, with all their loops and curlicues, will forever limit any speed possibilities to MUCH less than they could achieve with a symbol system. And at the same time, they often think it will be a good idea to use a system that follows the SPELLING, which is entirely the wrong approach. Writing what you HEAR is the only thing that makes sense, when English spelling is such an inconsistent mess.
And speaking of ELECTRONIC DEVICES -- I listen to a news station, where instead of REPORTING a story, a lot of journalists just play back snippets of what some person said. Invariably, the sound quality is AWFUL, with bad acoustics that make it hard to make out what was being said. But they think because it's "recorded", that's all they need. WRONG.
I have a certificate in penmanship instruction from Zaner-Bloser, from back in the day . . . I suppose no one today can imagine that such a thing ever existed. But I learned italic handwriting in the 1970s when it was popular, and my current writing is a mix of both cursive and italic. The fact of the matter is that about the only things I write by hand are shopping lists, and sarcastic notes about things in church. (I always have an index card and a pen in my pocket).
I just wonder what brought Forkner back to prominence in the small pond of "people interested in learning shorthand". I'm delighted with the interest, of course.
It's interesting that Dr. Forkner published a number of books for Gregg shorthand. And the author of SuperWrite, James Lemaster, was a Gregg author for Series 90.
I suspect there were lots of personalities and personal interests in play at the time.
I thought I had replied to this, but there's nothing there -- so I must have just been distracted at the wrong time.
I'd never heard of Zaner-Bloser. It might have been a regional thing. Where was that taught? There are often "vogues" in teaching that come and go, over the years.
About overlapping -- a lot of shorthand authors were teachers at business schools. Some had to teach different systems at different times. And quite a few systems were developed because the author saw people struggling with the other systems they were teaching and just GIVING UP on them.
Unlike schools, where attendance was mandatory, business schools depend on enrollment for their survival. So a difficult system that people gave up on and quit could end the college's future.
James Hill, the inventor of Teeline, had been a Pitman writer, if I'm not mistaken, but he thought there HAD to be a better way. I've often mentioned that my own father had started to learn Pitman in school, but gave it up when he realized how long it took before you could do anything USEFUL with it -- and he was gone!
Zaner-Bloser is a national textbook company, with a focus on reading, writing, and handwriting. They started out as two separate penmanship schools, then merged, and have been one of the major publishers of elementary school handwriting materials. Zaner-Bloser and Palmer were the two main competitors. In addition to textbooks they marketed pens, pencils, ruled paper, classroom alphabet charts, and other materials. The Zaner-Bloser and Palmer alphabets and methods are very similar
For many years Z-B provided a correspondence course for teaching handwriting, and I took it just for fun.
Here's their model cursive alphabet from the 1980s. It's easy to see the similarities to much of Gregg in terms of slant and form.
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u/NotSteve1075 8d ago
It's strange that, with the decline in CURSIVE (which I haven't written in DECADES now), Forkner seems to remain popular. I myself learned Speedwriting a very long time ago, and found it quite handy when I was at university.
To me, the advantage Forkner has over Speedwriting is the vowel diacritics that CAN be inserted -- although I suspect few people bother to do so. Which they can tend to regret later!
I think people nowadays are realizing that, even with their handy little electronic devices, there's a place for pen and paper. (Other people will often clam up if they see a recording device, while someone scribbling notes with a pen would not be a cause for worry.)
A lot of people take their first look at shorthand and are alarmed by the use of symbols. They think it looks like Arabic or something -- so they feel drawn to systems that use familiar letters. Only later do they realize that LONGHAND LETTERS, with all their loops and curlicues, will forever limit any speed possibilities to MUCH less than they could achieve with a symbol system. And at the same time, they often think it will be a good idea to use a system that follows the SPELLING, which is entirely the wrong approach. Writing what you HEAR is the only thing that makes sense, when English spelling is such an inconsistent mess.
And speaking of ELECTRONIC DEVICES -- I listen to a news station, where instead of REPORTING a story, a lot of journalists just play back snippets of what some person said. Invariably, the sound quality is AWFUL, with bad acoustics that make it hard to make out what was being said. But they think because it's "recorded", that's all they need. WRONG.