SHORTHAND. 
With respect to the long and short sounds 
of vowels, it is convenient, wdien time will 
allow of it, to express the broad sound of a 
vowel by making its representative dot a 
little larger than in the usual method ot ex- 
pressing the vowels. When two, or more, 
different vowels occur, without any inter- 
vening consonant, they may be distinguish- 
ed by making the first a little thicker 
and stronger, diminishing their respective 
strengths until the last vowel is expressed, 
by being made of the usual thickness. Two 
es, or two os, may be expressed by two 
dots of the same size. In swift writing, we 
know, these minutia cannot always be 
strictly attended to. It is^ nevertheless, 
convenient to have a method so simple and 
useful to resort to, when time will allow ; 
and it is one of the many excellencies pecu- 
liar to this system, that it will admit of these 
orthographical attentions. 
The letter y, at the beginning of words, 
is a consonant ; but at the end of words, or 
when it follows a consonant, it is a vowel, 
and, as such, is represented, in short-hand, 
by a dot in the i’s place, as in the word 
butt, beauty. 
As the horizontal characters may be 
written at the top, or middle, or bottom, 
of the line, the vowel may be sometimes 
indicated by their situation between the pa- 
rallels, as same, at the top ; sin, in the mid- 
dle ; and sun, at the bottom of the line. 
There are few monosyllables, beginning 
with a vowel, that are immediately follow- 
ed with either h or w ; for which reason the 
following rule, peculiar to tliese two letters, 
will seldom occasion any ambiguity, and 
affords a convenient method of express- 
ing a great variety of very common words. 
The letters h and w, having a vowel point 
before them, are to be considered as de- 
noting, by one mark, the two letters, ht, 
vyt, respectively, with the prefixed vowel 
between them ; as in the words hat, hit, hot, 
hut; wat, wet, wit, wot, &c. 
Having said thus much concerning the 
nature and use of the vowel points, we will 
proceed to give some further directions re- 
lative to the form and proportion of the 
short-hand characters ; the various ways of 
joining the curvilineal ones with the greatest 
ease and elegance ; together with some 
rules, designed to obviate a few apparent 
difficulties, which may be supposed to oc- 
cur, more or less, to every learner of short- 
hand. ^ 
1. All the perpendicular and inclined let- 
VOL. VI. 
ters are made to touch, as it were two ima» 
ginary parallel lines, whose distance is sup- 
posed to be adjusted by the length of the 
short-hand t, i It is sometimes necessary, 
in order to preserve a perfect lineality in 
the writing, to make these letters only half 
their usual size ; as in the words /oof, form, 
gold, &c. In a very few instances, where 
lineality cannot be preserved, even by 
thus curtailing the size of the letters, it is 
always best to lift the pen, and write the 
word at twice, taking care to place the de- 
tached parts very near to each other, to 
denote their connection. Instances of this 
kind occur so very seldom in practice, that 
no perceptible difference will be experienced 
in the brevity of writing, while a very mate- 
rial advantage will be gained on the score of 
beauty and legibility ; considerations never 
to be lost sight of by the lovers of useful 
and rational stenography. 
2. The diameter of the horizontal semi- 
circular letters is the short-hand — s; and 
their height is rather more than one-third 
part of the letter | f. 
3. As both the beauty and the brevity of 
short-hand writing depend very much on 
avoiding, as much as possible, the making 
of angles, and on the general uniformity of 
the writing, it is proper in joining such let- 
ters as m and n, m and f, m and p, &c. to- 
gether, to deviate a little from the correct 
form of each letter ; so that they may rea- 
dily and naturally run into each other. The. 
learner will easily discern where it is 
necessary to preserve the precise point of 
concurrence, as in the case of md, hh, &c. 
4. The letter | f is occasionally used for 
th, writing the adjoining letter only half its 
usual size j as in thr, thin, &c. 
5. Except in the foregoing case, a letter 
of half size, when it is made optionally, always 
indicates that the adjoining character is to 
be resolved into two letters. When it is 
requisite to double the letters r or/, and no 
consonant is required to be joined with 
them, they are generally lengthened by a 
greater inclination of the stroke than usual. 
Double t, and double s, when necessary, 
may be made by a little break in the mid- 
dle, which may be done, without taking off 
the pen, by only a very slight movement 
of it from the line it was describing. TJiere 
are one or two cases where it is better en- 
tirely to lift the pen, and make a small 
stroke through the letter, nearly in the 
manner we usually cross the t in long hand. 
I 
