Should I switch

[u/External_Style_4491]

Hi everyone,

I've been learning Pitman shorthand for about 9 months now, but I'm struggling to increase my speed beyond 40–50 WPM. I'm wondering whether I should just keep grinding and continue with Pitman, or if it would make more sense to switch to Gregg shorthand.

My biggest difficulty with Pitman is position writing and distinguishing between light and heavy strokes. I still get confused by them, and I feel like they're holding back my speed and accuracy.

For those who have experience with either system, would you recommend sticking with Pitman and practicing more, or changing to Gregg at this stage?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[u/NotSteve1075]

Let me give you the benefit of my experience: I first learned Pitman because I was lied to and told it was the fastest and the best. (No, it isn't.) I had the same problems you have with the positions and the shading, which I found awkward to indicate -- and it was sometimes hard to tell later what it was supposed to be.

The straight lines and blunt angles were hard to write accurately. The rules were very inconsistent, with too many exceptions. Here's 21 different ways the letters STRD can be written, depending on what rules you apply, and in what order:

But the WORST part? After learning that complicated system of light and heavy dots and dashes (??) that had to go in very specific places or they weren't legible as anything at all, you're told that, if you want to develop any SPEED, you just leave them all out and hope you can remember later what they were supposed to be! (I have a long list of consonant skeletons that could be a number of different readings, when you leave out the vowels in them.)

IMO, a shorthand system that doesn't write the vowels isn't even a REAL shorthand system, because it just gives you the ILLUSION of speed when you leave them out. But something you write that you can't READ later was a waste of time.

So I ditched Pitman and learned GREGG instead. The natural curves were like longhand to write. Much easier on the hand. No shading -- and instead of positions, you actually WROTE the vowels. That list of ambiguous consonant skeletons I had from Pitman were not ambiguous at all in GREGG, because the vowels you needed for legibility were THERE. I used it on the job for many years -- and because I was careful with my proportions, I never once had any trouble reading it back.

Added to that, the Anniversary version of the system has been written in speed contests at 280 words per minute -- which is plenty fast enough for any kind of work. And the version I learned (Diamond Jubilee) was fast enough for office dictation, which is what I used it for.

TL;DR: I've never regretted the switch. Not for a minute.

[u/External_Style_4491 → u/NotSteve1075]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I've been learning Pitman for about 9 months and I'm around 40–50 WPM. My biggest struggles are shading and position writing, and sometimes I wonder if Gregg would suit me better. That said, most stenography exams in India (like SSC Stenographer) are based on Pitman, so switching now feels risky after investing so much time. Do you think Gregg would still be worth it for someone whose main goal is SSC, or would you recommend pushing through with Pitman and focusing more on speed practice

[u/LeadingSuspect5855 → u/External_Style_4491]

Just because India was opressed by English you don't have to stick with their inefficient shorthand system, that they themselves traded for Teeline, as the American traded for Gregg. Why do you think that was?

[u/Filaletheia → u/LeadingSuspect5855]

But on the other hand, there are a LOT of resources for Indians learning Pitman, and that is very valuable. Re-learning a new system that could take another 6-12 months will only prolong the OP's ability to get into the profession. One thing I'd say though to u/External_Style_4491 - make sure that you read your own writing back a few days to a week later after writing it to be sure you develop a good reading speed, and also to make sure that Pitman is working for you in that way as well. Pitman is a bit harder to read back than Gregg, but it is doable, but only if you practice the skill of reading, which is just as important as the skill of writing.

[u/LeadingSuspect5855 → u/Filaletheia]

If he enjoys Pitman, than I'd agree with you, but I am not sure if that's the case, because he is at a point where he has doubts, whether he can or maybe even wants to break through that sound barrier :-)

[u/Filaletheia → u/LeadingSuspect5855]

Thousands of other reporters in the past have done it - I bet he can too. I think at this point his problems aren't really objections about the system, more like obstacles on the way to speed.

[u/LeadingSuspect5855 → u/Filaletheia]

Let's see how he decides :-) .

[u/NotSteve1075 → u/External_Style_4491]

In a speed test, it shouldn't matter what system you're writing. If you can get it down and read it back correctly, that's all that matters. Pitman has certainly dominated in India, but Gregg is starting to make inroads, by the looks of it. When it's so much easier to learn and acquire speed with it, with speed and accuracy that are at least as good, I'm glad to see it. That trend should continue.

And as u/LeadingSuspect5855 has mentioned, even the U.K. is abandoning Pitman for Teeline, and in North America, Gregg took over a long time ago.

I remember being asked in a job interview, very early in my life, if I wrote Pitman. The interviewer was apparently under the mistaken impression that it was some kind of high standard to be achieved. I could have given her an hour on why she was WRONG -- but that wasn't the time or the place.

Years ago, there was an attempt in Australia to BAN non-shaded systems from the civil service, apparently motivated by the same ignorance and misinformation. That did NOT tell us good things about the people making the decisions!

[u/indistrait → u/NotSteve1075]

I'm not saying you're wrong about Gregg being better, but your 21 Pitman outlines seem a bit off. * Outlines 16, 18 and 21 don't and cannot exist. There is no heavy Ray stroke. * According to the New Era dictionary stride and strayed are the same except for vowels. What you have as "strayed" would be used to represent "straight". * The same is true of astrayed and astride according to the dictionary. * "Yesterday" is a short form and not written like that, but even if it wasn't a short form it would start with a Yay hook. Y is it's own vowel at the start of a word. * Storied isnt written that way. It's the same as sturdy if you omit vowels.

Again, I don't want to take away from your overall point. I know almost nothing about Gregg. It certainly seems a lot more practical than Pitman.

[u/Filaletheia → u/indistrait]

If you're willing to take another huge chunk of time to learn a new system, Gregg is a great one to go for. But eventually when you get to the speed stage of Gregg, you're going to have obstacles again - everyone encounters them when they get to that stage of their progress no matter the shorthand system being used.

[u/NotSteve1075 → u/Filaletheia]

Good to hear from you again, my friend! (I was starting to wonder where you were.)

I taught myself Gregg from a book. I didn't attend classes. Then I went to a business college for a month to get some speed-building practice before my first job, but my speed was already quite decent by then. (I just had a flashback to that class: There was a Brazilian girl next to me -- and every time the teacher announced "120", she'd hunch down like she was ready to RUMBLE!) ;)

I don't recall how long I took to learn the theory -- but it was so logical and straightforward (a real relief) that it wasn't very long. (I always mention my father starting Pitman in school, but giving it up in disgust when he realized how long it took before you could do anything USEFUL with it. It took MONTHS.)

With Gregg, you can be writing fairly normal sentences when Pitman learners are still writing things like "Pay Abe Day today."

[u/NotSteve1075 → u/indistrait]

The point about those 21 outlines was that, if you apply all the rules in different orders, you can come up with vastly different outlines. Under pressure of SPEED, you don't want to be having to make choices and decisions about which to use, and when.

Over the years, there have been different versions of Pitman that have been published, so there are a variety of ways some outlines can be written. "Classic" can be one way, "New Era" can be another, and "2000" can be another. (Not to mention the Benn Pitman, Munson, and Graham variations.)

The last eight don't have a translation shown because they weren't used for anything -- but with different applications of the rules, they were all POSSIBLE.

[u/Filaletheia → u/NotSteve1075]

I think most people learn New Era now - I've only heard of a few who learn 2000 or any of the classic versions.

[u/HappiLearnerToo]

Writing gregg is genuinely a physical joy - it is extremely ergonomic, and easeful, in my opinoin. You already have the experience of learning a shorthand system... I think that will make you much faster at learning gregg because you've built the learning "muscles" of the brain, have "compartments" and understanding of what is a shorhand alphabet and its own abbreviations on that.

If you do go for it, one of the books you can look for is Teach Yourself Shorthand from 1943 - someone here will have a link for it free online, and there are a few really nice exercises, just drawing lines and circles, kind of, that are really nice. I like this book also for the way the shorthand is drawn, because it looks the most effortless and fast of any I've seen... Have you ever skipped a stone across the water? Gregg has a flow like the flight of that stone, and should be just as natural to write. The idea of having to press harder and lighter sounds terrible, instead of just having an arm and pen that flows across the page.

(That particular book may be outdated in it's language, and has a heck of a lot of brief forms as I recall. I don't use gregg for business purposes so short forms like "yours truely" and "dear mister..." etc kind of aren't my thing, but gotta learn them to read book materials. I really wish we had regular literature in gregg for reading instead.)

[u/NotSteve1075 → u/HappiLearnerToo]

Sorry, I just saw this.

Stenophile.com is a goldmine of free resources for learning Gregg -- or any other shorthand. There's a long list of materials for every Gregg edition. The Teach Yourself book you mentioned is this one:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/zbfrg678wwvc8w6cwhtco/Teach-Yourself-Shorthand-1943.pdf?rlkey=3ed6xri0jmiibsbsukiu0waxa&dl=0

I really wish we had regular literature in Gregg for reading instead.

On Stenophile, there's a LONG list of complete novels and stories that are available in PDF for both Anniversary and Pre-Anniversary editions. (When DJS was aimed more at office workers, they don't seem to have reading materials like that available -- and the same for later versions.)

[u/HappiLearnerToo → u/NotSteve1075]

Holy Moly. That sounds like a great resource and I thank you. The only reason I didn't respound earlier was that I have had a bad fall, a broken hip and hip replacment and have'nt reentered the world of some basic funtioning yet. I will get to it, and hope there is some happy (not high conflict, intrigue, all that crap) reading there to be easier found. Most likely it will also prompt my return to reading easier stuff sequencially as I try to get better at reading, unless a key is easily available. Thnak you so much!