Stenography Thread

So pretty much every year I make an attempt to learn stenography. It's both a special interest of mine and a "This would be a really useful skill" thing. The problem is that I live off feedback, and so within a month my desire drops off because Nobody Cares Nai hits in full force. So I'm trying to make a thread for accountability, because I actually care what Kintsugi thinks, and also because ya'll are generally good at leaving encouraging feedback for someone learning a new skill.

(For those of you going "but what the devil is stenography, Nai" please click the thing. For those of you considering joining me in the pit, please also click the thing.)

(Please join me in the pit, I'd love to have more people doing this with me because it increases the amount of thing I can talk about.)

Today's goal: Get keyboard labelled (I don't even have an NKRO, sigh, I'm arpeggiating everything), get re-familiar with the general letters.

 

wow... i just looked at the site and i'm so confused. like, i have a feeling that, if i was doing steno, it would make me go slower, not faster. so, well, how do you make steno make sense in your head, really?

 

It takes practice but it's basically phonetic, once you internalize shit like "the -PB combination is a finishing N." So for "cat" you key KAT all at once.

 

how is "the -PB combination is a finishing N" phonetic, though?

 

That's what I meant by "it's phonetic once you internalize it." As in, you have to internalize those things and it's phonetic afterwards.

 

hmmm... it still seems kinda confusing to me but i can kinda wrap my mind around that. i guess the idea is that "PB" doesn't necessarily mean "P" and "B" together, even if it consists of pressing those two keys. that the symbols mean something different than their normal meanings in steno.

 

It's based on the frequency of the sounds and how often they occur together - you will basically never see a word that ends in -pb in English, so that combination was assigned to another letter entirely.

The only one that regularly trips me up is PH-, which is a starting M, rather than a starting F, which I am eternally pissed the tpuck off about.

 

ah, i see. that makes sense.

and yeah, i can definitely see why that one would piss you the tpuck off. :D

 

The arrangement in general is really thought out and logical, eg the s is outside the t because you usually type "st" as the beginning of a word. (The only exception I can think of in common english is tsunami, which, of course, is a loanword.)

But the PH/M thing, yeah. eum peusd t tpuk of aul t taoeupl.

#I'm pretty sure OF does off #because of by itself is briefed as just F #imagine if that sentence wasn't mostly monosyllables

 

what does that mean?

 

" I'm pissed the fuck off all the time."

 

i wouldn't have guessed. well, i had a feeling "tpuk" was "fuck" but everything else eluded me.

 

I was able to get most of it but "t taoeupl" threw me

 

just wait until I inevitably try to type qwerty without turning my steno software off. that's a clusterfuck.

@oph all vowel keys (ao eu) = long i sound, -PL = m. I think. I'm pretty sure this got into my longterms correctly.

(I am waiting for my keyboard labels to dry)

 

let's go, motherfuckers

 

Okay, went through the single key letters and the vowels, running about 45 wpm for each. Not nearly my qwerty speed, obviously, but I feel that's good enough to be getting on with. Speed comes with time and improved muscle memory. My main problems are oriented around the ring fingers, which isn't surprising since I don't typically use them much in my regular typing style comapred to my pinky and pointer fingers.

(my qwerty typing style is self-taught and EXCESSIVELY idiomatic, much like everything else about me. Home row is for losers.)

 

This keyboard actually has better rollover than any of the ones I've used previously, it gets the full SKWR for left-hand J at once. Still doesn't register all the vowels at the same time, sadly, and of course four keys is nothing compared to how complex some strokes can get, but... On the other hand, it's not getting ending J (-PBLG) unless I arppeg in a REALLY awkward way, so that's slightly annoying.

~35WPM for full left-hand combos, only had to look up one of them (TPH for N), ~36 for right hand, had to look up X (-BGS) but that includes the J of Stupid.

On the bright side, I don't really need to key labels as much as I thought I would to try and get back into it? I could do this easily with blank keys, I mostly need the labels to figure out the general outline of the "Board" and then I can work from there.

 

This is probably a good place to put an excerpt from the most awesome transcript ever

COURT REPORTER: You cock sucker get off of her. Get off of her. Get off of her. You cock sucker get off of her.
U.S. MARSHAL ALVAREZ: Get off of her.
COURT REPORTER: I will beat the shit out of you, you motherfucker. You cock sucker. Who the fuck do you think you are?
U.S. MARSHAL ALVAREZ: Get off.
COURT REPORTER: Try it on me, man. I’ll kick you in the fuckin balls.
U.S. MARSHAL ALVAREZ: Get off her.
THE DEFENDANT: I apologize.
COURT REPORTER: You apologize, you piece of shit.
U.S. MARSHAL ALVAREZ: Get off of her.
THE DEFENDANT: They are choking me.
COURT REPORTER: You fuckin put your hands behind your back, you cock sucker.

 

THE DEFENDANT: They are choking me.

(BADLY STIFLED LAUGHTER)

 

IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN

reported to request move to make it to, I'm not sure why I put it in top secret last year