SHORTHAAAAAANNDDDD.

Yes the reason Shorthand is blended across the title is because it's exactly how it looks, it runs across the whole day consisting of 4 hours altogether! Making the day seem to drag out forreeveer as my poor brain and head feel as though they are going to explode with the amount of information and exceptions we have to take in. Yes my head is hurting again as I have only just finished a day of shorthand but also as I am writing about it now lol!
There isn't much to say apart from the fact that Shorthand is a way of writing used by Journalists, mainly in court as a faster way of taking notes as preparation for an article that will be written up based on the facts taken. It consists of basic symbols which come from the  original English letters from Victorian times. The alphabet in itself isn't soo hard, as you can see parts of the letter when you write it. The tricky part is joining up the letters and using different sorts of indicators (the smaller form of a letter) or the full vowel to fit into each word without making it read something different. It becomes even more mind bashing when different words or sounds use different symbols which are abbreviated instead of using the long list of letters. For example an exception are the words kind, knowledge or like which all are spelt with a single 'k' letter which looks like this < this can appear confusing as each word means something different, however when reading back the article you will need to use your knowledge to understand which word fits best depending on its context. Each vowel also has 1 or in some circumstances such as the letter i, 2 indicators which are used if one would blend in and not be recognised with another letter. It all sounds so confusing and honestly it is but it is a lot harder to explain when I can't show you the letters to explain it. Today, we also learnt some things which have topped off the idea of shorthand for me at the moment in making me believe I cannot complete it to being able to achieve 40 words a minute let alone 2 a second! I feel as though each 2 hour lesson I take in too much information and end up getting annoyed, confused and frustrated as I am a hard worker and want to be able to learn such a unique skill! The idea of blending words (which is what we learnt today) confuses me more as it gives different sounds such as (ing) and (eng) (unk) and (inc) different symbols to blend the certain sounds together to shorten words even more than the alphabet letters alone. Words such as bang, sang, hang, and gang all have a symbol for the (ang) sound which looks like this ' however at more of an angle. This then allows you to just use the first letter of the word along with the symbol to spell out the word in full. Shorthand takes time and has a lot more rules involved than explained, in my opinion it's as though you are learning a new language all over again and if I am honest I do find it very hard. I suppose practise makes perfect which is why Shorthand should be practised around 30 minutes daily. I will leave an example of the alphabet in shorthand for you to look at but please do not be too confused, if you look closely you will be able to pick up certain letters and recognise where they come from. PS I hope what I have wrote can make some sense as it is very hard to explain.

The alphabet relates in some way weather it is the tail or the part of a letter used in the alphabet that we know. The vowels are the sounds that have indicators as well which are used depending on a word and how each letter is joined up. Oh I know it is all so confusing I will just let you have a look at it and make your own minds up.

Attribution to Sizemore Images