Yes! Brenda knows my foibles all too well!! I am a wide-key-a-phobe. I am not hopeless, but really close. ;)

Thanks, Michelle!
Jill, funny! There are wide-key-ophobes out there. I like to say, steno is like yoga - different people master different "moves," and anyone can learn any of them if they set their mind to it.

Yes, Boot Camp works well for operating steno software on the Mac. It's great to have both platforms in one computer.

Just started chapter 3 today in Little Britches.

My favorite brief of yours today was criteria (KRA for those looking for a great one-stroke for that.) Sometimes briefs just really stick instantly, and this is one of those for me. Also, infrastructure (FRUK). I had a case that was Infrastructure Services, blah, blah, blah and was so glad to have that brief -- THANKS, MARK!!

Mark, I see S-Z for {K}.....can I ask what that is for? Just nosey, lol.
Rho

Welcome, Christine!!

KR-PB criterion
TPAOPB phenomenon
TPAO*PB phenomena
SK*F consecutive
SK*FL consecutively
SK-PBS consequence

Hello, I've been lurking here and taking notes. Time to speak up. The past two weeks I have been converting my comma to W-B. It is difficult! A year or so ago I changed the period to P-P, and that was much easier. I almost gave up on the comma last week but pushed forward, and this week it is becoming a little more automatic. I agree that the hardest is getting it down in a series.

A couple questions. I bought the Magnum Steno book last year and didn't receive any kind of CAT dictionary or briefs. Should I have? Am I still eligible for that?

Also, will you be doing any more seminars past July? From August on there aren't any listed? What are your plans for that?

Back to more note-taking!

Mark,
Thanks for adding those briefs. I had made up one for criterion of KRAON (purposeful stack), but I notice now it would be a conflict with "croon." I will make an adjustment. And I really like the others as well. I will add them to my iFlash file. THANKS!!

Lisa, yes, you are entitled to the Magnum Steno Briefs dictionary. Just e-mail me at rtexcellence@aol.com and I'll send it to you. :)

Christine, glad you like the briefs!

Expecting the book you recommended to arrive any day in the mail; ordered it few days back.

Plan to have a box of Kleenex handy. But then, that may just be an emotional female response. David Faber is one spectacular human being!!

I will keep it short, cuz I know this is steno stuff.

The name of the book I recommend as my best read in a decade is titled "Because of Romek" by David Faber. It is a TRUE story of his life as a young boy captured by the Nazis and his survival through numerous concentrations camps. I was privileged to hear him speak at Calvary Chapel Murrieta as a guest speaker for the high school chapel. He tours the country telling his story of survival so that others would know the truth about the Holocast, a promise he made to his mother after he watched her die..

If he is ever in your area, I highly recommend taking the time to hear him retell this amazing story.

Wow, that book sounds really good. I just watched The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Awww, what a horrible thing the Holocast was.

Jaimie,
Unimaginable, actually!

There are 23% of Americans that don't believe it happened...sad.

77% of statistics are outdated or made up

I actually asked David Faber what his response is to those who say to him "It never happened." He stated. "I tell them to go to the United States Memorial Museum in New York."

I like that.

Hey, Christine,
I just ordered the book through Amazon, and I didn't realize until the end, but it said second edition. So is there really two parts?
Thanks for the referral! :) I can't wait til it gets here.

Hey Christine,
I just ordered the book through Amazon, and I didn't realize until the end, but it said second edition. So is there really two parts?
Thanks for the referral! :) I can't wait til it gets here.

Jaimie,
Wow, I'm glad to hear you ordered it. Yes, the book is "Because of Romek, a Holocaust Survivor's Memoir, 2nd Edition." To my understanding, there aren't two parts, just a different edition. This book is actually required reading in many schools and colleges across the country. Let me know what your thoughts are after you read it. I couldn't put it down and actually finished it in several days. I wouldn't consider myself an avid reader, so this was unusual for me. Certainly speaks to the intrigue of the book.

And sorry to all the Magnum Steno members for breaking out on a different subject here, although I think it is a VERY important one. I would love to continue the thread on this topic, buy maybe to be courteous to all those who are getting notifications every time there is a posting, we could continue via e-mail. My e-mail is clreporting@mac.com

I do have a steno question:
Does anyone have one-stoke steno for uh-huh?
And huh-uh?

uh-huh - AUZ
huh-uh - HUZ

with A extensions:
A Uh-huh. AUFRPBLGTS
A Huh-uh. HUFRPBLGTS

There is a What I'm Reading Now group on CSRnation that might be a good place to continue this subject. http://www.csrnation.com/group/whatimreadingnow

Brenda,
Thanks for both suggestions!
HUZ is had you seen for me so I'll have to modify it.

How do you do the plural for huh-uh? Do you do HUSZ?

Trying to think if I even hear it! I would do it that way, though, yes, -SZ.

How about adding the A, HAUZ? It would follow the AUZ.

Yes, that would work.
I hear the plural in the admonition. "Don't answer with uh-huhs or huh-uhs, as the reporter..."
Thanks!

That makes sense, so I went to check my ASCIIs in SearchMaster. There are some, but not many. I looked at my more recent files, since I changed to the one-stroke brief. I found U/HUS and HU/US. Looked in my dictionary, thinking surely I'd defined them with -SZ. Nope! So either I'm doing it the old way or coming back with -S. I'll have to fix that!

Glad you like them, Virginia. I spent all of school and 20 yrs of working writing U/HU and HU/U. Never occurred to me to try something different! Good for you that you were at least looking.

Brenda,
Will have to work on these. They always come fast and half the time I interpose them. Thanks for the ideas!! I think I like AUZ for uh-huh, AUSZ for uh-huhs and HAUZ for huh-uh and HAUSZ for uh-huhs :)

Christine,

I recently made one-strokers for those as follows:

uh-huh 4-U
uh-huhs 4-UZ

huh-uh 4*U
huh-uhs 4*UZ

As a last resort the number bar is a great conflict-breaker!

Day 9 on P-P/W-B

P-P 99%, W-B 96%.

Still feel slightly slowed down by the comma, but improvement slowly continues.

I am now recommending repeating a video on Magnum Steno Club until one can write it to 95% accuracy (if transcribed).

The idea is this: When we get beat up by a fast lawyer and/or witness, we overcome it by spending enough time on the case that we LEARN to do it.

Same thing can happen with these videos. If you repeat them, eventually you can write them at 95% accuracy.

If you are just too far away from 95%, then repeat them till you might be say 93% or something.

That assumes you have time. But the payoff will be big!

Hi there!
Okay, thanks Christine about the book. Also, just for the FYI I use HUP for uh-huh and H*UP for Huh-uh.
Hope everyone is going great.
Also, I just had one quick question, I can't seem to locate in the Magnum Steno book a brief for I don't really recall and I really don't recall. Also for "at some point in time". One more thing, if a witness responds with yes, sir, does anyone have a brief for that being on the same stroke as the answer bar?
Thanks everyone!

YEFRPBLGTS - A Yes
YEOFRPBLGTS - A Yes, sir
YAOFRPBLGTS - A Yep
YAUFRPBLGTS - A Yeah

Same with no:
NO{A} - A No.
NOE{A} - A No, sir
NAO{A} - A Nope

Jaime,

I don't have briefs for I don't really recall or I really don't recall.

I have a "general" guide for briefs/phrases: do a Google search for the word/phrase: if it gets 20 million hits or more, it really should be a brief. The "I really don't recall" and "I don't really recall" are relatively rare: Less than 50,000 hits on Google.

But if you, in your work, are getting it fairly often, how about....

YORL I don't recall
YORLD I really don't recall (seems a natural saying)
Y*ORLD I don't really recall (seems an unnatural saying)

Throwing in a -D can do some nice things in steno.

Kathryn, I love the asterisk idea for interruption. I'm going to think about incorporating that!

Mark,
Thanks for your uh-huh and huh-uh suggestions.

After revamping/converting my Herman Miller theory to your theory (still a work in progress), one of my last challenges to conquer is my numbers. When I was at 120 WPM, our teacher advised us to write numbers out. Unfortunately, I took her advice. I have not used the number bar since, and, of course, regret it. I don't even have it on my writer. (Remember in San Diego when you were writing on my writer?)

I need a little more time for all the new concepts to sink in before I tackle a new challenge. With Herman Miller, I had over 2,400 conflicts in my dictionary when I converted to your theory. Have resolved most of them, but there's still some hesitation.

Oh, how great it is for those students learning Kislingbury theory from the start!!

I still don't use the number bar and am happy not. Interesting how people feel on the subject. I know someone who learned the number bar and taught herself to write them out and has never looked back.

The only reason I'd like to learn number bar at this point is to use it in macros. I have the LS, so if I learned, I wouldn't learn it the traditional way, but as individual keys.

Hi there! Wow you all are awesome. Thanks for the input. I guess the reason why I wanted to find a brief for I don't really recall and I really don't recall is bc I always hesitate on those words. So briefing it may stop my hesitation. :)
Thanks again!

I use * for really in those phrases. Well, that's an optimistic statement! My dictionary has those "really" phrases with the asterisk. The goal is to use them regularly and readily. I hear, "I can't really remember" and "I don't really know" pretty often in depositions.

Can't find the small word phrases (for a, etc.) in the Magnum book. I think I remember Rhoda referring to the page, but I keep searching and come up empty.

Help??

I'm wanting to start a discussion on small word combos, so it will be easily accessed by us all.

I use quite a few of them, BUT I also have a whole bunch of them that are so easy and I just can't believe I two stroke.

My next BIG bite . . .

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Tami, phrase endings start on page 297 and from there they are broken down into groups for the remainder of the book.

Tami,

Page 405, ~a/~an phrases
Page 400, to~ phrases
Page 434 ~is the phrases
Pages 432-33 ~him ~her ~his phrases
Page 417 ~it phrases
Page 409 ~the phrases

and many more

Tami,

Small word phrases is a HUGE thing, and the ones I listed below are a good START on them. Basically, Tami, THE WHOLE LAST HALF of the Magnum Steno book is PHRASES (all small word, mostly), showing what a huge thing it is.

Thanks, Mark and LeAnne, for taking the time to answer.

I guess I was wrong to think there was just one chapter for the small word phrases (similar to prepositional phrases).

I was looking for the ones you posted earlier, Mark, for Christine. It was soon after you joined. I think I'll just start a discussion above, like I said, and cut and paste your list you posted before on here. It was just too good to get buried on the comment wall.

You know I phrase like CRAZY, but I'm still missing quite a few gems, like "for a," and I'm starting to notice them when I write.

What's great about looking for a certain page was I noticed a few more gems in the book I didn't even know existed.

I have them now flagged to add to the list. :)

Hey Mark,
I just had a quick question. Are you planning on coming out to Sacramento, California anytime soon? I thought I read somewhere that you were coming in October, but now I can't find that anywhere. :) I have some people in my school that I really want to tell them to attend your seminar.

Jaimie,

My calendar is fairly clear at later in the year. I'll see what I can do. Remind me in a week or two and by then my assistant should have given me a date.

Yes, thanks, Barb.

I read your post at my last break, went into court and wrote FAOR (test) and "for a" popped up.

What also happened within the first couple of pages after the break is the word "fire" came up for "for a" stacked. I write AEU for my standing-alone "a."

Another reason to get it in one stroke.

Sounds good. Thanks, Mark! :)

If TEFT is testimony, then how is the word test written? (Let me hazard a guess... T*ES... or... T*EFT).

In Mark's theory, is -F used for -S (or -z) when appropriate?

Mark,

You wrote...

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

I learned -FR = ever and -EFR = every

How necessary is the * to make -V if there are no conflicts (eg. -of)?

Also, can ever be be written -FRB? Or, may have been PHAEU*FB?

Mark,

Looking at the keyboard, SKP489 could be and had many
where SKP- and 4 had 89 many (-PL)

Would I be correct in that?