As we all know, Gregg was created in and for a different time period and a different use than most (all?) of us use it for. Court reporting and secretarial dictation require(d) words, phrases, and a gentlemanly terseness that we can often do better without in our journaling, note-taking, and "modern" shorthand uses. The curtailed punctuation, antiquated brief-forms, and other awkwardalities (*bows*) of the Gregg world often leave our personal writings hindered and blemished with a technical tint of spasmodic mechanicalness. Anyways, that's whut diss here's fer to fix 'nd help 'nd stuff! So share share share and include a brief (or not so brief) explaination for all your own little peculiarities and ideas about "optimizations" and personalizations of Gregg that others may wish to assimilate into their own writing...and lives...and souls...and I'm going to stop before the reading through Nietzsche I'm doing right now takes ahold like an unstoppable train of vain philosophical ramblings and jabs at German "culture" every other paragraph!! lololol...anybody?! I hate to "set down rules"...but it'd be nice if this topic could "keep on the track" and be a sort of clean, streamlined reference we can all go through without being bogged down by personal replies to replies to comments. (And of all people...me saying this!! lol) So please avoid too many replies that're not pertaining to the topic at hand or degrades from its (hopefully) reference-like pur-i-tay! (But feel free to linguistically embellish in any informative or helpful post!)
Some of this was skirted around in topics like the old one about writing numbers from way back in the early days (he he), but I don't think it got nearly enough attention, or a due formality that this can allow it. Anyways, I'll start it off with a modest (and half already shared in prior posts) beginning...hopefully it'll be something that can either help some of you, or at least inspire you to share some of your own gems:
Comma: The lack of a comma in proper shorthand and the awkwardness and possible misreading of the circled comma led me to develop my own. It's simple, two periods stacked against each other in a similar fashion to the "capitalization" stroke.
As you can see...it looks nice, clean, and natural. And it shan't be confused with any stroke, alphabetical or otherwise. Also you'll notice that I included two exclamation points at the end...when I use a single exclamation I use a regular SH period with a vertical line over it...making a hybrid character that, again, is readily recognizable even by those seeing it for the first time without warning (using just one for me is rare anyways...because it's either worth two, or it's just too tepid and not worth saying as it's probably not sincere...that's what I say...!! (maybe that one wasn't worth saying)) Anyways, when there's two, I just use LH exclamation points...because nobody's going to read it as "ching ching"...unless I'm writing a grocery store drama/romance I suppose...
Just one more...maybe I'll add more later:
Who uses the word "inclose/enclose" all that often? Simple, but eternally more useful for me, is using the N-K brief form to mean "include." One thing nice about this (which I try to incorperate for all my augmentations to Gregg) is that the meanings are similar enough, that even if they didn't realize I meant "include," nobody reading it would stare at it in confusion, as the traditional meaning fits into most any sentance that my meaning would without changing the meaning...only the "letter of the law."
Anyways, remember, this is just personal stuff...and by no means a "new order and law." Take or leave at your leisure! Hopefully this will prove a fruitful discussion...and hopefully this fruity, affected manner of writing won't manifest itself in my speech when I stand up from the keyboard : )...homey.