Handywrite Shorthand

Shorthand is any system of abbreviated writing.

Assuming your are already familiar with Handywrite handwriting, which offers a short and sweet (but not abbreviated) writing system, you can write even faster by systematically abbreviating common words and phrases. Of course you could learn one of the many alphabetic shorthand systems and write in abbreviated longhand, but why start with an inherently slow form of handwriting and then try to write fast? Better to start with something that is already fast and go from there.

What to abbreviate? The most common words, prefixes, suffixes, and phrases.

About 40 words make up about 40% of all the words you write and the 100 most frequent words make up about 50%, so learning a few abbreviations for the most common words would give you a big bang for the effort. If you have to stop writing to think of an abbreviation, then you're better off just writing out the word.

Here are 100 abbreviations selected from the 300 most common words listed in their order of frequency. Only use an abbreviation is if you feel learning and remembering it is easier than writing it out in full.

the	of	and	a, an
in	is	you	that
he	for	was	are
as	with	they	at
be	this	from	have
one	had	not	but
what	all	when	we
can	your	you're	which
said	will	about	how
out	she	many	some
would	into	time	could
first	been	now	people
over	did	down	only
find	use	long	very
after	words	just	where
before	good	new	our
used	think	around	another
come	become	because	things
different	again	number	great
small	every	found	between
should	Mr.	under	along
next	while	below	something
often	house	hadn't	form
without	sometimes	being	however
thing	example	using	answer

Note that a short upward line can be used for the "au" sound in "out." Also place dots, dashes, and commas used as punctuation close to the preceding word and further away when used to represent words (the, of, in, some).

Prefixes

Prefixes may be written separately from the root word that should then be written below or through the prefix.

pre-	de-	inter-	in-	com-
re-	over-	be-	out-	fore-
trans-	counter-	after-	an-	sub-

Suffixes

Suffixes may be written separately from the root word also, and should be written under or through it.

-ment	-ly	-ness	-er	-ed or
-est	-ing	-ological	-tion, -sion	-able
-ant -ent	-ten, -tin, -ton	-ship	-al	-ful

Common Phrases

Some phrases occur frequently enough that you might want to use abbreviations for them.

are not, aren't	are you	as many
as soon as	be able	cannot
could be	could have, could've	could not
did not, didn't	do not	had not
have been	have had	have not, haven't
have you	I am, I'm	I have, I've
in which	is not, isn't	it is, it's
of course	of which	one of
should be	should have	should not
some of	that are	that have
that is, that's	that will	they are
they could	they will	this is
this will	we are, we're	we could
we have, we've	we should	we will
will be	will have	with which
would have	you have, you've	you will, you'll

Suggestions

Don't try to convert from longhand to Handywrite in one go. Just start to write a few of the most common words in Handywrite, and add more as you feel the need for speed. This will make learning Handywrite relatively painless and provide an immediate payoff.

You will have to practice if you do not want to write words the long way.

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