Work my way backwards?

Hi,

I just found and joined your group today.

Wanting to learn shorthand to write the old fashioned way (no keyboard), without having to wait for so long for my pen to catch up with my thoughts, I first looked at Pitman. My mother had a little old ‘Teach Yourself Pitman’ book and I started on that. Trouble is; Pitman is UGLY. I dare anyone to show me Pitman that looks good.

A quick look on the internet for shorthand and I saw an example of Gregg for the first time  That’s more like it I thought. It’s good looking…….like me. hahaha.

So, I’ve looked around, downloaded stuff, looked around some more and decided that Simplified Gregg would be good for me. I even found 38 pages of a book on the web that has started me off. You may know the book; It talks a lot about how well the store in Reno is doing and Mr Blair’s Polo playing neighbours! I’m fetting a bit frustrated as the pages I’ve got seem to tell me a lot but not about y’s or x’s (I’m guessing there’s no need for X but I cant think how we are going to hide Y’s under the rug!) so I’ll probably have to wait for a book L) I have a book on its way to me from Cali I found on ebay…

GREGG SHORTHAND MANUAL SIMPLIFIED 1949 BY JOHN ROBERT GREGG, LOUISE A. LESLIE & CHARLES E. ZOUBEK.

It seems I could have saved myself a lot of head scratching if I’d found this group first lol.

Now the question:

Given that I plan on making a thorough study of the book and will get used to writing Gregg as it describes (I hope it covers Y’s); will this preclude, make more difficult or impossible ‘adding in’ techniques and shortcuts etc from an earlier Gregg later?

I’m guessing that it wont be too much of a problem and the worst effects would be a mixing up of shortform from earlier Gregg when I remember to use them and Simplified longerhand when I don’t. Will what I produce if this happens still be legible to myself and others? Has anyone else had experience of doing things this way?

(by steve for everyone)