I agree. I've got to start working on these new quote briefs -- along with all the other phrasing briefs I'm starting to use. Seems like my job now consists of how many words I can get into one stroke or how few strokes I can use to get the sentence done in. I feel like shouting, "Yes, remembered another one," but somehow I don't think the attorneys would be as excited as I am. LOL

Keep 'em coming, Brenda. You have such great ideas.

LeAnne, I literally laughed out loud at that! I'm sure we've all felt that way. SCORE! But would they appreciate it? Nooooooo! We have to wait until we get back here to crow.

Thanks, you guys. :)

Brenda, while you're on a roll, we need briefs for comma open quote and comma open quote nish cap.

Had to write them down to see what you gave us so far:
PH-FP - open quote
PHAOIFP - "nish cap
WR-RB - close quote
WR-RBGS - ,"
WR-FPLT - ."
STPH-RB - ?"

You have no idea how much I'd love to be able to get all this done in steno instead of editing it all.

Oh, that's a good one, LeAnne. I have another way of addressing that with my said phrases, which doesn't follow Mark's theory (but he got a chuckle out of why I use this method):

EUBS=I said
EUBSZ=I said, "{cap next}

But you're right, we need a stroke to cap after a comma when that "said" phrasing doesn't work. Let me give it some thought!

Well, PH-RBGS seems the most obvious for comma-open quote. Not sure if the vowels can be added without conflict. This may be a conflict for some spelling theories too.

PH-FPZ possibly. You all think about it while I run over to my folks' to feed the cats. :)

" SCORE! "I wanted to say that a few weeks ago when I was hitting "supposed to be" over and over when the inmate used it over and over, LOL! I wanted to yell, "I'm with you, BUB! "

Hey there everyone!
Christine, I love that flash card idea, however, when I went to that website, it said page not found. Is that bc I don't have a Mac or Apple, ya think?

Christine, thanks for the comment about the P-P. Though my percentage is pretty high, it still feels a bit weird. I feel somewhat slowed down when it gets fast and I somehow have to slip a "fast comma" in or a "fast period." I'm finding it hard to "stay on the speaker." But I have to be happy with what I guess is fast progress, and I am amazed at how mentally "painful" or uncomfortable it was trying to do this - relearn comma and period. I don't know if the comma is THE most common stroke in stenodom, but if it's not it's close to it!

THE REASON I DID IT IS TO ERADICATE THE T-RBGS and TP-RBGS and other similar stacks I was getting with the comma, as well as sometimes the period. And for that, it's really working. Those have completely disappeared.

Little quiz for you guys:

The other day I saw a license plate in Texas: SKP 489

What is interesting about that plate number?

I really like Brenda's quote ideas.

Here are how I do some of them:

." *FPLT
close quote *RBGS
comma close quote *RBGSZ
?" STPH*

PH-FP is my "many of which." Not a super-valuable stroke; something else could be found.

Christine, is iFlash available for PC? I only found it for Macintosh.

Mark, PHOFP for many of which, maybe?

The license plate. I get SKP, but 489 has me stumped.

PH-FP is my machine. How do y'all write that?

Is it that SKP 489 could be written in one stroke?

M-N is what I learned for machine.

I use P-F for paragraph, H-F for dash (I know it's more common for hyphen, but I'm weird), L-F for ellipses.

This is why my quotes work so well for me. :)

Mark, what you said about feeling slowed down with your P-P and W-B strokes, even though you're using them a lot, is how I feel with my quotes. I'm just fine with the open and not too bad with open-caps. I get -BSZ in well, but feel like I hesitate closing afterwards. So even though I'm successful remembering to use them, I feel bogged down.

Can't wait for that to go away! Seems to be worse for me with punctuation marks than with actual words.

Barb, that's brilliant!

Mark,
iFlash is only for Macs. Sorry about that. But doesn't everyone have a Mac? Sure wish the court reporting vendors would design software for the Mac. It would be phenomenal!!

Yvette,
I use PRAEF for paragraph, but I like Brenda's stroke; nice and simple.

Barb, great idea on the SAIS/SAIS.

Mark,
I completely understand "mentally painful or uncomfortable." When Megan started your steno theory online, I was auditing the classes most every day and helping her and her friend Bre, whom I had set up at our house in a classroom setting. Once classes started, I was hearing how wonderful the theory was and decided, hey, I should write this way too. Well, 6 months into changing almost everything in my archaic Herman Miller theory to Kislingbury theory, I was asking, "What have I done?" It was too much at once and now I couldn't decide how to write something when it got fast. Between 6 and 9 months was horribly painful, and I was struggling big time. All of a sudden at the 9-month mark, things started clicking. And now, I have no regrets!

My advise for those wanting to change theories is this: change a little at a time and get it down, especially if you've written something a certain way for, say, 28 years, as in my case. Yikes!!

Having gone down that road, I recommend starting here, one at a time:

DZ ending for "ing"
Tucking the G
Tucking the R
Tucking the L for "ly"
Adding the IMP and INT left hand (one at a time)

Mark, thanks so much for the great theory! It really makes reporting more fun and less stressful.

Barb, that's a cool idea. All these new ideas to play around with and see if any of them "stick" today at my depo. The likelihood is pretty darn good the doctor will quote from his chart at least once.

Jaimie,
Anyone can view the website for iFlash. It is loopware.com or you can google iFlash. There is a free 14-day trial available. But it is Mac-based so you will need a Mac computer to run it.

Running court reporting software on a Mac allows you the stability of a Mac platform, and then you also have the Mac side for all the other amazing applications. You do need to run it through Boot Camp though, which is achieved by splitting the hard drive into a Mac side and a Windows side.

Any Mac users with questions, feel free to e-mail me at clreporting@mac.com

PA-RBGS is my paragraph....but like Brenda's idea. Barb, I'm going to work on that too! Much easier to 'add' that extra SAIS!

'tell me-'....any ideas on this? I did look in the book.

Just "tell me" or phrasing? I use TLEM for "tell me."

Was interested in either, Brenda, thank you. I was drawing a blank thinking of one for 'just' tell me, I like yours!

actually, just created TL-M for tell me, TLEM for tell them, TLER for tell her, TLIM for tell him. . .. Thank you Brenda!

Oh, those are good, Rho! I use THRU for tell you/through. AI figures it out 95+% of the time, but there's gotta be a better way. THRAO and THRAOU are taken too. I'm open to suggestions on that one!

I just looked in my dictionary and have most of those already (tell them includes -T). TLUS for "tell us" also.

I'd use THR*U for through. I try not to use * in phrases.

I always used TEM for tell me, but it doesn't work for additional phrasing. Going to have to change to TL-.

I learned TEM for "item," so that didn't work for me.

I've used THRU for "through" a lot longer than I have for "tell you," so it's a hard switch. Last spring, I set THR*U in as a conflict too. I think my idea was to see which one I'd end up using it for. Problem is I'm not using it at all. Made it and forgot it.

A-U is 'you' in phrases for us....TLAU, so not a conflict there...yes, added the TLUS too!

ohhhh! hmmm.

Brenda, maybe you could use TL-M for tell me and TLEM for tell them. Or TLAOEM for tell me, so you have the long "e" sound of me.

But "tell me" comes up a LOT more than "tell them," doesn't it? Unless it is a jury trial? I don't know, I have forgotten my good ol' days of real CRg.

Yeah, those are pretty set -- TLEM tell me; TLEMT tell them (I use -MT for them because I came up with it before I found Mark's -FM). It's just the tell you/through problem. TLAU might work.

Right now I have TL-M for telemarket, but it's a pretty rare word. Probably a waste of a nice outline.

T-M is our item, or I probably would have went w/that one, lol...but I really like the TL thing! I saw your TLEM and it just 'sounded' like tell 'em...so took off from there, so all your doing, Brenda!

I would agree that 'tell me' comes up more.....

Ohhhhh....

Love that telemarket outline!

TL-KT for telemarket??

T-M is my testimony. Crazy the different ways we use a few keys!

Jill, you are RIGHT! SKP 489 can be written in one stroke!! LOL

Christine, I know two court reporters who use Boot Camp in the Mac so they use Eclipse on the Mac, and they say it works great.

Oooo, my bad....no one stroke for testimony! LOL! Have to work on that one....TEFT is Mark's, will give that a shot....

Yay! I win the license plate award! LOL

Mark, how do you write "may have?"

And if we attend your seminar in Texas, will we get your dix????

How about THRARBGT for telemarket?

When they're reading documents or just whenever they say something like "this document says...." I do SAEUS/SAEUS, and I have that defined as says, open quotes. Same goes for reads, as follows (SFOLS/SFOLS), said, etc.

Barb, I agree with Brenda! That's a great idea!

Jill,

In my theory, safe = SAEUF and save = SA*EUF. The -V sound always gets the asterisk with the -F.

Therefore,

I have = *EUF (V-sound)
ever = *FR
every = *EFR
may have = PHA*EUF

The seminar I'm giving in June, in Texas, I'm not handing out the CAT dictionary. My Magnum Steno Briefs dictionary comes free with the purchase of the Magnum Steno book. If you already have either my StenoMaster Theory or my Magnum Steno book, you are entitled to a free copy of my digital CAT dictionary, either full dict. or the briefs version (the latter is much more useful).

Day 7 report of P-P/W-B:

99%, 90%

Looks like the comma is proving tougher than the period. I think this is because when a speaker is very fast and mentions a series, it's harder to get all the commas in, but the period is only "every once in a while" at the end of a sentence. Makes sense the comma would be harder when it gets fast.

My outlines for some of what you-all have been discussing:

tell me TEM, get me GEM, give me GIM, can you tell me KUMT, would you tell me WAOUMT

tell you TUL, tells you TULZ, told you TULD

item TUM

testify TEF, testimony TEFT, testimonial TEFLT

omg I can't write these all down fast enough. Great ideas!

And Mark, I see things like that plate all the time. Love that stuff. My neighbors have car decals for the school they attend. The emblem is a cat paw with the school's initials in each toe. It looks like this: TKA!
I haven't got the heart to tell them what I phonetically read it as but crack up each time.

I can picture poor Jill, curled up in a ball in a corner somewhere, wimpering at the thought of having to use the *F stroke! ;)