Keyscript & Gregg
In Keyscript, a word generally contains all its consonants but none of its vowels, although vowels and diphthongs are used in some instances. In contrast, Gregg
outlines contain the vowels as well as the consonants.
Indication in Keyscript, mentioned in the article Keyscript, Easyscript and Teeline, has an enormously important part to play in ease
of reading as well as brevity of writing. Take
the word water. Water is written as we, the e stands for
ter. No other shorthand system besides Keyscript (except, antederivatively, Pitman) uses this type of indication. Indication makes it possible to represent a word using very few letters, but still write the consonantal structure of the whole word, making reading easier. Other alphabetical systems, like Easyscript,
regularly omit letters, sometimes more or less randomly.
Alphabetical
systems, like Keyscript, have an advantage over symbol systems, like Gregg, for ease of reading also,
because symbols may be harder to decipher and look more alike than letters of
the alphabet, viz the writing of different letters in Gregg with the same
stroke but in different lengths. In an
alphabetical system, for example, t is easily distinguishable from d without
different letter length or the Pitman shading (thickening of one
letter).
Is Keyscript ambiguous? When read in context, Keyscript is not
ambiguous. If this were the case, it would defeat the whole purpose of having Keyscript at all. Any shorthand is made not just to be written, but also to be read back. There are so many safeguards built into Keyscript to ensure that words are not ambiguous.
But reading any shorthand tends to be harder after a long time has past. I read back my holiday diary written in Keyscript a few years later and there was one word which I could not read. There is also no reason why someone could not read someone elses Keyscript, as long as he/she knew the theory of Keyscript and could read the handwriting.
