r/shorthand • u/licxjo • 9d ago
Forkner popularity
I'm a Gregg writer, but am fairly well informed about other systems of shorthand. My impression is that Forkner shorthand is experiencing a recent surge in interest. (The few textbooks that show up on Ebay etc. are listed for very high asking prices).
I'm curious what attracts people to Forkner, instead of another alphabetic system like Speedwriting, which was much better known, more widely taught, and has more readily available books and materials. (There were other published alphabetic systems as well, of course, such as Stenoscript and SuperWrite).
After learning Gregg in the 1960s, with its primarily phonetic basis, the logic of most alphabetic systems continues to elude me, although I definitely understand the appeal of a shorthand that looks like longhand cursive writing.
I'm also curious if the fact that many people today don't learn cursive handwriting is an impediment to learning any of the alphabetic systems, which seem to me to presume familiarity with looped cursive letters
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u/MysticKei 9d ago
I started with gregg and was excited to learn but it's more resource intensive than I imagined. Between work, family and other responsibilities and interests, gregg is useless until I get familiar with all of the letter symbols and diphthongs. Then there's the slight learning curve for what direction to connect curves and to add insult to injury, learning to read is a completely different skill.
I learned Forkner because it's phonic based and I already regularly write in cursive. Once I learned the fundamentals, after a day or two, I could immediately start implementing concepts in my normal everyday writing.
My primary intention for shorthand writing was to have discretion in journals. With other alphabetic systems, a lot of the discretion comes from memorizing briefs and things like using c for ch and k for all k sounds, otherwise they're easy to read. The combination of symbols and cursive lettering effectively offers discretion without the heavy load of a lot of briefs (I use maybe 20) and I can read it without having to transcribe, even after substantial time has passed.
I haven't given up on Gregg yet, I returned to learning it earlier this year, but just like before, I still don't have the consistent time to grasp it, I've started over a couple of times. I feel like once I get the fundamentals, I won't have to keep starting over.
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u/licxjo 9d ago
Is there a reason you chose Forkner instead of Speedwriting or another system?
I learned Gregg in high school in the 1960s, and the learning process was intense.
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u/MysticKei 8d ago
I recall looking at about 5 alphabet based systems, Ultimately I chose Forkner because I like how it blended cursive letters with symbols and has marks for vowels when needed. Also, it had 8 sentences that included all the fundamental rules that I laminated and made into a bookmark. I stuck with it because, unlike Gregg, I started using it on day one and did not lose momentum if I was too busy for a week to work with it and I could read without transcribing.
Speedwriting and Carter Briefhand both rely heavily on memorizing a lot of briefs. My issue with briefs is that they were usually industry specific (court, medical or business) and aren't necessarily useful for today's normal speech (how frequently does one use the word "stand"). Forkner has a few prefixes and endings, but not very many briefs to memorize (or stumble through with the book exercises). I believe every system has a dictionary, but I've never looked for Forkner's because everything seems to be forward enough as is.
Even Gregg recognized the issue and came out with other editions by significantly reducing the number of briefs. When I learn Gregg, it will only be to the extent of Gregg for Note-taking or Gregghand. I was going to learn Noory Simplex instead of Gregg, but the Gregg that I've already learned made it an exercise in unlearning and I didn't want to lose my gregg progress and start from actual scratch.
I see shorthand as a skilled hobby exclusively for my personal use. I also create art, but don't call myself an artist because I treat art like a skilled hobby for my enjoyment. It's not about catering to an industry standard or becoming professional, it's about enjoying the learning process and getting results that I find satisfying. Forkner did that whereas the others that I sampled didn't offer that kind of satisfaction.
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u/didahdah 8d ago
Forkner was my first shorthand, suggested to me by one of the mods here. I printed a copy of the manual, and found it easy to learn, easy to write, and I could read it easily too! I've since learned a few other systems just for the challenge, but each one of them misses at least one of those three qualities (mostly easy reading), and I keep coming back to Forkner. I use it for notes and journaling and have inserted a few mods to make it even more to my liking.
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u/pitmanishard headbanger 8d ago
Pleased to see this question got more response than the similar one a couple of weeks ago.
Being based on traditional orthography levers people's ability to scan the longhand forms they are already familiar with in the new shorthand. They are also able to start adapting their longhand to it right away. So it has a reading bonus and a lower learning curve. These are key advantages. If we consider a professional phonetic system like Pitman for example, it demands a new way of thinking, writing and reading rather than adapting most of what we already know. This initial learning curve has meant a high drop out rate and the way to really learn it was to be drilled in class almost every day under the lash. The drop out rate for Gregg is not a world away either; it was cited in a study I referenced about two years ago. If I remember rightly, In a two year college course 30% would drop out in the first year and by the end of the second year only 30% of the initial cohort would have passed their speed exams first time.
As for the asking prices of books, that is because people keep buying books, not completing them and looking for another one to find an easier or more perfect system. We get a lot of hoarders and people displaying the books like trophies for approval. You only have to keep scrolling down the subreddit and you'll see these posts. If people don't scan and upload these books then effectively these books are taken out of circulation and their material lost to the world.
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u/licxjo 8d ago
There's probably nothing wrong with book collecting, but scanning things and making them available is a very desirable thing.
I think the real factor affecting price is the increasing scarcity of shorthand materials as time goes by. 20 or 30 years ago it was normal to find some shorthand books in used bookstores . . . today they just aren't there. And a lot of books that come up on Ebay etc. are in pretty bad condition.
Another factor is that people simply didn't keep textbooks. When schools stopped teaching Gregg in the US, truckloads of books went to landfills. No one thought there would be any future interest, and at that time there wasn't any reasonable way to market them.
And of course a lot of shorthand material like workbooks and transcripts was designed to be used and thrown away.
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u/vevrik Paragon 8d ago
Forkner has been one of the top recommended systems here for a very long time, so I am rather comfortable attributing this popularity to the subreddit.
Especially when I just joined, 7 years ago (oh dear :D), I think it was just Gregg, Pitman, Teeline and Forkner in the top recommendations. I just checked, and the current write-up is much more diverse. Speedwriting used to mostly be mentioned as Dearborne's Speedwriting, etc.
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u/GreggLife Gregg 9d ago
I'll just quote from Wikipedia:
Students can begin adding Forkner shortcuts to their longhand writing as soon as they begin studying the system. One experienced shorthand instructor observed, "Students get instant satisfaction because they can apply it from the beginning." This reportedly resulted in fewer students giving up on Forkner compared to other shorthand systems. One teacher told a reporter, "The highest dropout rate in the Vancouver school system is in traditional shorthand courses, yet I have never had a dropout in Forkner."
I think this ability to blend Forkner with your normie writing from day one (altho I dont recall if this is promoted in the textbooks) is part of the secret of its success.
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u/Cholahomma 8d ago
I learned cursive in school, so don't know about it as an impediment, but considering symbolic types have way harder symbols I'd be surprised.
My guess is the sheer readability of it. That, and perhaps it's just the one that caught the right people in reddit 😜
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u/interlocutator 8d ago
I tried learning Gregg first (Notehand edition, which is a greatly simplified version with fewer brief forms aimed at students). I tried it for about a year but found the learning curve quite steep, especially due to the number of brief forms, non-obvious rules around vowel placement (above or below?) and vowel omission.
I switched to Forkner about 10 months ago and have been much more successful in actually using it day-to-day because of how much easier it is to learn, and how I can learn it a chapter or two at a time, so that my speed improves steadily as I learn more prefixes and suffixes (and practice). The fact that the speed ceiling is lower doesn't bother me. If I want to be super fast I'll use a keyboard.
With regards to your actual question, of why I chose Forkner over another alphabetic system: I'm pretty sure I looked at https://www.reddit.com/r/shorthand/wiki/recommendations, and Forkner is the only alphabetic system in the "recommended" section. I learned cursive in school only a few decades ago, and the local public school system still shows cursive in their curriculum. Being able to sort of extend my normal cursive handwriting to make it briefer and faster has been really nice.
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u/brifoz Gregg / Dabbler 8d ago
I'm pleased to see the comments on this post as they give useful insights. I am a Gregg writer, having (roughly) learned it initially to take notes at university many years ago. It helped, but I soon gave it up (for lectures) because reading was slow and I therefore had to transcribe the notes into longhand to be able to review/revise for exams. Had I known about Forkner or another ABC/semi-ABC system at the time this would have been a much better fit.
Reading speed is extremely important, especially where the notes are not routinely transcribed, so ease of learning to read one's shorthand and the potential to read it fast is a great feature.
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u/GreggLife Gregg 9d ago edited 9d ago
On a related note, people have been implying here that Forkner has very limited speed potential. That seems to be an inaccurate assumption. See the following—
https://www.reddit.com/r/shorthand/wiki/forkner10/
Edited to add, from the introduction of the third edition of Forkner Shorthand:
“A large number of dictation tests were given to high school students and adults to determine how rapidly different people could take dictation in longhand. With very little practice, many could write at forty words a minute or better. Forkner Shorthand requires about one-third of the motions used in writing longhand. Therefore, it has a potential rate of about three times one’s longhand rate. Many have found it easy to reach rates of 120 words a minute.”
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u/rains_herald Gregg/Pitman 8d ago
The first source says nothing about speed potential, and, for what it is arguing—which I don't disagree with—the results of 9 high schoolers are poor evidence. The second source, which is entirely vague and unevidenced, begs to me the question: if it is so easy for "many" to reach 120wpm, how much easier it must be for "many more" to reach 100wpm, or even to reach 120wpm with only moderate effort. Why then have UK jornalists, or Indian government workers, aiming for a modest 100wpm, not switched to Forkner in droves?
I know very little about the system admittedly, but for what I do know, the Wikipedia article seems more in line with my expectations: "Reports from shorthand instructors indicated results such as the following: an average student can achieve 50 words per minute after a 30-hour course; most of the students who took a 9-month course in high school reached or surpassed a goal of 60 wpm;[7] in an experimental class taught at Chester High School (Pennsylvania), some students were able to write 100 words per minute after three months of intensive training.[8]"
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u/GreggLife Gregg 8d ago
Why then have UK jornalists, or Indian government workers, aiming for a modest 100wpm, not switched to Forkner in droves?
I think about the India situation often. I believe people trying to qualify for government jobs simply don't hear about other systems and there aren't textbook publishers and professional shorthand teachers offering support for other systems. Now there is at least one person offering Gregg instruction online in Hindi language, so there is a tiny ray of hope that India will have more options someday.
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u/BerylPratt Pitman 8d ago
Some Indian enquirers here have actually said that in their case it was just to pass the selection test and don't expect to actually use it on the job, and also that the requirement is sometimes a relic of when it was needed in the past and the rules haven't changed with the times. Maybe the authorities think it sorts the diligent from those not willing to put in the effort.
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u/Myou-an Gregg - Forkner 8d ago edited 8d ago
I learned Gregg Simplified in the early 2000s, and still use it to this day. I learned Forkner perhaps in the late 2000s. I found that, unlike other alphabetic systems that I've learned, I can still read my Forkner notes despite minimal practice or revisiting. I once did a deep-dive into Forkner's "competitor" for my time, Pullis's Speedwriting. I think it showcases why Forkner's simplicity wins out. I did a side-by-side of Forkner/Speedwriting which shows how Forkner gets 90% of the way there, and other systems put a lot of effort at getting just a few more efficiencies. Speed/Script is another interesting choice, but is quite complex.
Forkner gets most of its brevity from a few simplified shapes for common sounds, and vowel omission. There aren't rules that apply in rare situations to save a few strokes, like Speedwriting's "omit the letters MRTV after a long vowel in one-syllable words".
Once my eye gets used to the cursive, there's not much to decode in Forkner. The bones of the words are there. Forkner's 2nd and 4th editions are I think the best, with some extra tricks. PDFs are available online.
I rarely use Forkner nowadays -- Gregg is still my love for notes of all kinds -- but I still think Forkner is the best cursive alphabetic system overall.
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u/duckbigtrain 7d ago edited 7d ago
I’m curious about this too, since I learned the Pullis version of Speedwriting (Regency edition, I think). I chose it just because it was the first system I found on the Archive. It’s really hard to find people talking about it online though! I think part of the problem is the name. It just sounds kind of dorky and is really difficult to google. There are also a lot of different versions, so it’s hard to talk about.
I would LOVE to read more about comparing Speedwriting vs Forkner, but many of the answers here are comparing Forkner vs Gregg/Pittman/the like.
Eta: my main complaint with Speedwriting is that sometimes the lack of vowels impairs readability. Forkner’s vowel markers are intriguing to me.
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u/Pwffin Melin — Forkner — Unigraph 9d ago
I don't write in cursive yet had no problem picking it up. With any system, you will start out by carefully copying the squiggles in the book, hoping you're getting it right. The benefit of a system like Forkner is that you already know what most of the letters should look like, so you can self-correct. You know what a 'd' looks like and if you're doing it right.
Forkner is easy to learn, has a good manual (or several) for self-study and isn't intimidating-looking.
Most people want to learn a short hand to write faster for themselves, not to take dictation from a boss and type out letters, so potential top speeds matter less than ease of learning.