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 alphabetical shorthand system besides Keyscript 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 naturally have an advantage over symbol systems for ease of reading, also,
because symbols may be harder to decipher and distinguish between 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 some strokes.
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.