Bonis Shorthand
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Over the summer of 2016, I had some time on my hands—perhaps too much time. So, one August morning I thought it might be interesting to learn how to write in shorthand, the method of rapid writing used for dictation that often relies on symbols and phonetic abbreviations. Once an essential skill for secretaries, police officers, and journalists alike, its use has declined markedly since the advent of digital recording devices. Well, I began researching the subject, imagining how neat it would be to return to school equipped with a new technique for taking notes in class; not only could I write down important points from a lecture, but I could record literally everything my teacher said! Plus, my writing would be obfuscated such that only I could read it.
I quickly discovered that there exist different types of shorthand, each with their own trade-offs. Among these are Gregg, Pitman, and Teeline, but they all have one thing in common: they're not something you can pick up in an afternoon. In fact, they can take years of practice to master. I began by trying to learn Teeline (reportedly the easiest of the three), but became frustrated when realizing that it would take me the rest of the summer to become competent. So, I sought out an even simpler alternative.
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Ford Improved Shorthand
As I was searching for an easier method, I discovered Ford Improved Shorthand, a modified version of Teeline invented in 2012 by Michael Ford, who claimed the average learner could learn his alphabetic technique in just fifteen minutes! Now, that was just the kind of shorthand I was after. Granted, I knew this system wouldn't be as fast as the others, but, since it doesn't omit vowels, would be easier to read months or even years later. Still, I was dissatisfied with a number of the characters, which I deemed less efficient than was possible. So, I decided to improve upon Ford's method with my own: Bonis Shorthand.
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The Bonis Shorthand Alphabet
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The image below features my design for the Bonis Shortland alphabet. I sought to further simplify Ford's characters without losing too much distinctiveness, which would cause needless confusion. One of my principal innovations is having most letters be the reverse of others (as if they'd been reflected across an axis). That way, they're even easier to memorize and ultimately master. For example, Ford's A and V as well as B and D are reversed, but so are my C and S, E and H, J and R, K and Y, M and W, N and U, P and Q, and X and Z. That's ten combinations of reversed characters compared to only two. In doing so, I modified a number of Ford's designs. For instance, I disliked his simplification for the letter H because it looked precisely like a lowercase L. So, I changed H into the reflection of E and turned L into, well, L. Also, the letter I, which looked too much like K, simply became its lowercase tittle (the dot). N turned into a skinnier M, U, a skinnier W, Q became less flamboyant, R and S changed completely, Y became the reverse of K, and X and Z were re-designed with opposing diagonal dashes.
Hopefully, it is apparent that I thought carefully and intelligently about these changes. For example, my new characters for X, Y, and Z can all be easily derived from their standard forms in the English alphabet. For X, simply the forward slash is missing. For Y, the right arm is gone, so to speak. For Z, I removed the top and bottom, leaving only the backslash transversal. Lastly, I've considered adding some more symbols (not included below) for common combinations of letters, like an 'O' for the, '+' for and, and '—' (em dash) for the present participle ending -ing. The last one, however, might be confused with T. Overall, I think my characters improve upon Ford's Improved Shorthand and, therefore, are preferable to learn.
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Bonis Shorthand Practice
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Upon creating the alphabet, I figured I'd practice it by responding to a three-part movie series on Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel. Bearing in mind that I hadn't yet invented the symbols for the, and, and -ing, this is what Bonis Shortland looks like in action. An English alphabet translation is below. (Please excuse the surrounding red scribbles; I didn't think this paper would end up on my website!)
I did not provide a translation for the three lines at the bottom of the page. See if you can figure it out!
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Paragraph in Bonis Shorthand
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Below is a longer example that I completed at a later date. I think the writing looks pretty neat and sufficiently obfuscated to the untrained eye. I actually tested this on some peers at school; several of them could make out words with letters that loosesly resembled those in standard English text, but were perplexed by words containing symbols that looked foreign. Unfortunately, when testing out my shorthand in class, I found I was unable to take notes faster than with traditional letters. In fact, I think it required even more time because I had to constantly recall the new shapes, preventing me from writing as smoothly and effortlessly as I had hoped. I attribute this, however, to having not practiced enough over the summer. It takes a while to re-learn the way you've been writing since—well—you could write! Likewise, I found my notes took longer to review because each word had to be processed individually.
Lastly, Bonis Shorthand required more room on the page: I needed nearly double the space to accommodate the same text (compared with regular writing). Still, this may only be due to a lack of practice. All in all, there were problems when I tried out my method in school, but my friends seemed genuinely impressed. These days, I use it only for writing my signature, which I'll admit looks unorthodox. Perhaps I'll return to this project someday to make a real attempt at mastery. But, it's all here—maybe you could beat me to it!
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