The other night a male student approached my student client in organic chemistry class and said, "I was just saying the other day to [insert name] that [insert my student's name] must be in this class, because that typing lady is in there."
THAT
TYPING
LADY
!
*giggle*
I took him to task for that a little bit, and he said, "I'm sorry. I don't know your name." So I introduced myself and we shook hands, and, well....
The TYPING LADY SPEAKS. Hee.
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It was a hoot getting your reactions to the steno suggestions on the screen the other day. I love the "How do you DO that?!" phenomenon that occurs in court and at school. And I remember, even as a freshman in court reporting school, looking at the advanced outlines ("outlines" is what we call them) that the seniors were using. It seemed impossible. And at first it is -- your fingers and your brain just don't want to go there. But eventually, if you have the aptitude -- and I truly do believe it's an "aptitude thing" -- it is doable. The steno keyboard is "magic." Or it could be described as "evil."
Take your pick.
This is what it looks like, though there are no markings on the keys, because it would be of no help to have them there, given the speeds with which we stroke, and given that the keys mean not only what they are, but when used in combination with other keys, are read as other letters. It just has to be memorized.
For the KA KA short form, the original phrase would be written as six strokes on the keyboard, as follows:
KAR
PWOPB (read "BON")
KAR
PWOPB
TKUBL
PWOPBD (read "BOND")
or, to confuse matters worse, I would actually write it like this, in order to avoid any possible word boundary problems. In other words, the word "carbon" written as KAR/PWOBP (or KAR/BON is how it's read) could create a potential conflict, if defined as "carbon" the next time someone said something like, I don't know..... "We had a car bonfire with all the junk cars." Which, you can probably see, would be a mistake if it came out, "We had a carbon fire with all the junk cars." That's just a small example of the kinds of word boundary issues that haunt me in my work every day. So, to try to head those problems off at the pass a little more, and to make things a lot more complicated, I would write:
KARB
KWROPB
KARB
KWROBP (read "YON," and this tells the computer to attach the "-ON" to the word previous, and not the word following)
TKUBL (read "DUBL")
PWOPBD (read "BOND")
So, yeah, now you can see why two strokes, KA KA, would make my life only about 1,000% easier, eh?
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Someone wrote: "I don't see how AORBGS could be across carbon-carbon double bonds. Why wouldn't it be easier to write, A KA KA?"
Well, here is the answer: AORBGS is all written in one stroke, as opposed to typing it letter
by letter. A KA KA would be THREE strokes. It all has to do with the
placement of the letters on the machine. The AORBGS is "easy" to us, and if incorporated into our brains quickly (if it can be, depending on the speed of the matter), it is "easy" for us to read and assimilate.
The RBGS is actually read by us in our brains as a comma, or to make matters more complicated, also as a "rks" sound at the end of a word like "works" which would be written WORBGS. (because there is no final "K" on the machine)
So AOBGS is sort of
like AO, (A-O-comma) all stroked in one movement, like a piano chord. Strokes are time. Time is money, or energy, or something like that. There's no way we could "type" 240 or 270 words a minute, but we CAN steno it for extended periods of time -- like, for a full class period, the length of a two-hour lecture, or a full DAY, even. (Though without appropriate breaks and rest periods, that would kill me. But first, it would lead to repetitive strain and THEN kill me. Even worse than bubbles in my pee.)
Someone else asked how does TPHO*PL become "nomenclature." Here is the answer:
Well, you have to understand the steno keyboard. The TPH written
together is read as an initial "N" (because there is no "N" in the keyboard, don't ask me why -- it just IS) -- the O is in the middle of the
keyboard where the thumbs hit, and the asterisk is in the middle up
top and is hit with the right first finger. The PL together is a final "M". All this is stroked at once,
like a piano chord. That's why it can happen so fast, and that's why
this is a "brief form." Otherwise, nomenclature would be stroked in
FOUR strokes (which we HATE) and would look like this (each line is a stroke on the keyboard):
TPHOEPL
EPB
KLAEU
TAOUR
...believe it or not, though each steno writer writes a little differently, and there are
several more variations of this that could also be possible. To add
confusion, this professor has a British accent, and he pronounces the
word, "num-EN-kla-ture" rather than "NOEM-en-clay-ture" like us cretins Americans -- and the way
things are pronounced make a difference, too, because we write what we hear. Again, it's a speed thing. Hesitation means delay, even if it's just a microsecond's delay, which means mistakes and/or getting behind and missing what comes next.
Remember, we are listening to every word, writing it, reviewing it on the screen to make sure it's coming out correctly, while at the same time the water of words is still flowing -- listen, think of steno outline, write, review, listen, think of steno outline, write, review. It can't even be typed properly, because it's like a knitting pattern where it says the dreaded words, "WHILE AT THE SAME TIME" blah blah blah.
Have I confused you yet?
What about now?
Go get some coffee. Or some chocolate. You deserve it if you've stuck here through this. How about a cute picture of a guy in his new sweater?
No, I didn't knit it. I bought it. I wish I could say I knitted it, though.
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P.S. Today's winners in the Red Scarf Fund drive are:
1. signed MDK2 book + kit for Belinda wrap: David.
2. 2 balls Trekking XXL in color 145 (a delightful orange variegated) + 2 skeins of Koigu KPPPM yarn
Cynthia
Lucky! She won the Handmaiden Cashmere & Silk earlier too.
3. LE Sundara sportweight superwash merino sock yarn - Cherry Blossom +
two 50g skeins superwash sock yarn; 185 yds/skein; colourway "Happy":
Tracey F.
and
4. Ruby's green woven scarf: Susie S.
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