some important SHORTHAND RULE

 NOTES ON OUTLINES 

� “being” “doing” “going” Do not use diphones, as the first vowel is deemed to be part of the non-vocalised short form, and therefore only the dot is required against the stroke Ing.

� “coming” “giving” take dot Ing (not the normal stroke Ing for horizontals) to maintain legibility, as the short form does not contain the middle consonant. 

� “into” The stroke En is deemed to be the short form “in” and so that stroke is not vocalised. 

� “tick the” and the short vertical sign for “he” used only in middle or end of a phrase. Write “tick the” at sharpest angle. 

� “on” and “but” are vertical, but are written with a slight right slope when “tick the” is added, to distinguish from “I”. 

� “oneself” omits the hook N. 

� “woman” and “women” are positioned according to the 2nd vowel, to provide distinction between them. 

� “can’t” Such abbreviations for negatives with an apostrophe in longhand are always written as full outlines and fully vocalised, regardless of whether they may be short forms when written separately. 

� Note the phrase “it’s” is vocalised. “it’s” is an abbreviation of “it is” whereas “its” is the possessive of “it” - e.g. “It’s a dog.” “The dog was on its lead.” 

� “those” “no” “own” “go” should always be vocalised in phrases to prevent misreading as: these/any/no/give. 

� Avoid or vocalise “not” “might” “could” “thought” in phrases to prevent misreading as: no/may/can/think. 

� “own” and “young” (not in list), and their derivatives, are the only outlines that are written under the line. 

� These words have identical short form outlines: their/there, as/has, is/his, in/any, two/too.