<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">SignWriting List<div>December 27, 2008</div><div><br></div><div>Hello Sandy and everyone!</div><div><br></div><div>Thanks for your messages, Sandy, about SW Handwriting and Shorthand...</div><div><br></div><div>The description you wrote below, of other Shorthand systems, is exactly what we adhered to, when using our SW Shorthand in the 1980's. I taught groups of people to never lift their pens off the paper, and never use regular plain paper...we used special rolls of paper that I ordered..I still have boxes of rolls of paper in my garage from those days...we never looked at our hands because we were writing at speed while watching someone sign, so if our eyes left the signer, we would lose what was said...so we pulled the roll of paper with one hand, while writing with the other, and we wrote only pieces or portions of what was said and then I taught people how to then transcribe their shorthand notes back into formal SW printing afterwards, since most people could not read their shorthand notes a few months later because it was too shortened for long term understanding...and with the shorthand we wrote at speed of signing...it was amazing and it worked...BUT...</div><div><br></div><div>The point of this discussion is not to teach real Shorthand techniques, but to instead try what Dr. Karen van Hoek suggested years ago...use the symbols that worked in the Shorthand, for a daily cursive writing...and it would take on another name in that case...like</div><div><br></div><div>SignWriting Cursive....</div><div><br></div><div>or something that...</div><div><br></div><div>The only concern I have with the name "SignWriting Cursive" is that it is not really cursive! Cursive seems to be defined, in the English dictionary, to mean handwritten symbols that "connect" to each other...the characters are "joined"....but in SW Cursive they do not necessarily connect to each other...will that be a problem? Can anyone think of a better name? Val ;-)</div><div><br></div><div>----------</div><div><br></div><div>Definition from an English Dictionary:</div><div><br></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; "><div style="margin-right: 1em; margin-top: 0.4em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; "><dic-list><dic bundle-id="com.apple.dictionary.NOAD"><d:entry xmlns:d="http://www.apple.com/DTDs/DictionaryService-1.0.rng" id="cursive" class="entry" style="display: block; margin-top: 0em; margin-right: 0em; margin-left: 0em; margin-bottom: 1em; "><span class="hwGrp"><span d:priority="2" d:dhw="1" class="hw" style="font-size: 150%; "><span apple_mouseover_highlight="1">cur</span><span class="hsb"></span>sive</span><span class="pronGrp"><span d:pr="US" type="US" class="pr" style="font-family: HiraMinPro-W3; "> |ˈkərsiv|</span></span></span><span class="SB" style="display: block; margin-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em; "><span class="prelim"><span d:ps="1" class="ps" style="font-weight: normal; "><span apple_mouseover_highlight="1">adjective</span></span></span><span d:abs="1" class="sense" style="display: block; "><span class="def" style="font-weight: normal; ">written <span apple_mouseover_highlight="1">with</span> the characters joined </span><span d:priority="2" class="ex" style="font-style: italic; "><span class="lbl" style="font-weight: normal; ">: </span>cursive script.</span></span></span><span class="SB" style="display: block; margin-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em; margin-top: 1em; "><span class="prelim"><span d:ps="1" class="ps" style="font-weight: normal; "><span apple_mouseover_highlight="1">noun</span></span></span><span class="sense" style="display: block; "><span class="def" style="font-weight: normal; "><span apple_mouseover_highlight="1">writing</span> <span apple_mouseover_highlight="1">with</span> <span apple_mouseover_highlight="1">such</span> a style.</span></span></span><span d:priority="2" class="drvBlock" style="display: block; margin-top: 1em; text-indent: 0px; "><span class="lbl" style="font-size: 90%; "><span apple_mouseover_highlight="1">DERIVATIVES</span></span><span id="cursive_0" class="subEnt" style="display: block; "><span class="l" style="font-weight: 600; ">cur<span class="hsb"></span>sive<span class="hsb"></span>ly </span><span class="pronGrp"><span type="US_IPA" class="pr" style="font-family: HiraMinPro-W3; ">|ˈkərs1vli|</span></span><span class="ps" style="font-weight: normal; "> adverb</span></span></span><span d:priority="2" class="etymBlock" style="display: block; margin-top: 1em; text-indent: 0px; "><span class="lbl" style="font-size: 90%; ">ORIGIN </span><span class="date" style="font-weight: normal; ">late <span apple_mouseover_highlight="1">18</span>th <span apple_mouseover_highlight="1">cent.</span></span>: from <span class="lang" style="font-weight: normal; ">medieval Latin </span><span class="ff" style="font-weight: 600; font-style: italic; ">cursivus</span>, from <span class="lang" style="font-weight: normal; ">Latin </span><span class="ff" style="font-weight: 600; font-style: italic; ">curs-</span><span class="trans" style="font-weight: 600; font-style: italic; ">‘run,’ </span>from <span apple_mouseover_highlight="1">the</span> verb <span class="ff" style="font-weight: 600; font-style: italic; ">currere</span>.</span></d:entry></dic></dic-list></div></span></div><div>------------</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br><div><div>On Dec 24, 2008, at 2:45 AM, Sandy Fleming wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite"><div>The question arises, though, of whether this is actually shorthand or<br>whether it's actually cursive writing. I use Teeline shorthand, and some<br>of the principles for making it fast are:<br><br> o it can't be written on blank paper because the position of the<br>words with respect to the line on the paper is significant;<br><br> o you only write parts of letters, so that almost every letter is<br>just one stroke;<br><br> o you don't lift the pen between letters, you just write each<br>letter from where the last one ended (hence all the fantastic shapes you<br>get that mystify readers who don't know the system);<br><br> o if you do lift the pen in the middle of a word then that means<br>something different (for example, a pen lift followed by "i" means<br>"ing");<br><br> o you need context to understand what you've written: for example,<br>if you've written the word "tea" by itself, then you might later not<br>know whether that was supposed to be "tea" or "Tuesday";<br><br> o shorthand needs to be transcribed into longhand, because there's<br>no guarantee that you'll still be able to understand what you were<br>talking about when you read it over six months later.<br><br>Pitman shorthand follows similar principles, but takes things to further<br>extremes for extra speed (so it's much more difficult to learn, and<br>harder to read).<br><br>So in deciding whether our writing is shorthand or just cursive writing,<br>I'd suggest trying to answer the following question:<br><br>"If I write a single word on a post-it, will I still be able to read it<br>correctly next year?"<br><br>For Teeline the answer is "No", because if we wrote, say, "tea", then<br>next year we might not be able to remember whether we were reminding<br>ourselves to buy tea or to go back to work next Tuesday: so Teeline is<br>shorthand.<br><br>I think this test could be a guide to how much we can leave out of<br>cursive writing before it turns into shorthand. Cursive writing can be<br>written on blank paper and can be read years later even if it's just a<br>single word; with shorthand this isn't guaranteed: ruled paper must be<br>used and information is sacrificed for speed and must be recreated from<br>the context.<br><br>Sandy Fleming<br><br><br><br><br><br>____________________________________________<br><br>SW-L SignWriting List<br><br>Post Message<br><a href="mailto:SW-L@majordomo.valenciacc.edu">SW-L@majordomo.valenciacc.edu</a><br><br>List Archives and Help<br>http://www.signwriting.org/forums/swlist/<br><br>Change Email Settings<br>http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/sw-l<br><br></div></blockquote></div><br></div></body></html>