Forum du petit sténographe

ironsinthefire · Inscrit le: 11 Aoû 2006 Messages: 4

Bonjour! I'm sorry to say that I don't speak French. Tom very kindly sent me some Perrault-Deploye material. I've been studying Cross's Eclectic Shorthand but am coming to the conclusion that the five line-positions and shading are just too awkward at speed. Duploye is the very opposite of Cross.

Have any of you seen Cross's system? I'd be interested to hear what you think about it.

Having read a few of the posts here I gather that Duploye is easy to read and its outlines are not ambiguous. I would be using it for making very full notes in my general reading and would want to refer to the notes years into the future with ease.

Thankyou for reading my post especially as it is not in French!

Merci,
iron...

Duployean · Inscrit le: 21 Mai 2006 Messages: 137

Bonjour Iron,

First of all, welcome to this forum!
Yes indeed, Cross Eclectic is probably the most difficult system to learn, to master and to read. I don't really know if it is efficient - I've never met anyone who could actually take verbatim notes.

Duployé is extremely simple, compared to Cross Eclectic, or even to Pitman. It is light-line, vowel-connected and has pure shorthand rules that bear no exceptions.

It was devised for French but was adapted to English by Sloan, an Englishman, and by Perrault, a French Canadian. Perrault's version is bilingual. The rules you learn for English are also valid for French.

Unfortunately, pen shorthand in Quebec died more than forty years ago so you won't find many people around who can still answer your questions.

Yours.

ironsinthefire · Inscrit le: 11 Aoû 2006 Messages: 4

Bonjour Duployean!

Thanks for your feedback and welcoming me to the forum. I can't wait to get stuck in to Perrault Duploye. I must learn French; I'm only over the Channel in South East England (Hampshire)!

Again thanks!

--iron...

Fanchon · Posté le: Sam 12 Aoû 2006 1:01 pm Sujet du message:

Hello Iron,

Just a few words to welcome you to this forum. Very Happy

Hope you’ll lkeep us up to date with your experience with Perrault Duployé. Wink

All the best,
Fanchon.

ironsinthefire · Inscrit le: 11 Aoû 2006 Messages: 4

Bonjour Fanchon!

Thank you for your welcome. I'm looking forward to sharing my experiences with shorthand!

The other systems that I've got material on are:-

Cross Eclectic
Pocknell
Callendar
Thomas Gurney
Percy Kingsford's Oxford Shorthand

The only one I've got a real handle on is Cross. It's an ingenious system but holding to the line position and shading rules at speed I think will be too great a problem. Until I found out about Duploye I was pretty dissatisfied with the lightline non-position systems I'd encountered. So as you can imagine I'm looking forward to start my Elementary Perrault!

Merci!

--iron...

Duployean · Inscrit le: 21 Mai 2006 Messages: 137

Iron:

May I ask you why you didn't pick up Gregg among all the lightline systems?

Duployé's system is extremely versatile - which can be confusing for beginners. You can find literature for a lot of different versions of the system :

- the original unabbreviated system of Emile Duployé (1867). It was widely advertised in postcard form. Most people learnt it in two hours to be able to cypher their private correspondence.

- at the end of the nineteenth century, the original system was reformed to meet the demands of parlementary and court reporting, so abbreviating rules and shortforms were introduced to be able to record parliamentary debates at 200 w/m. This version is called Metagraphie. Each stenographer had his own rules and set of shortforms, that's why you can find material in Perrault, Canton-Delmas, Estoup, Navarre...

- before World War II, an agreement was reached to teach a single simplified and codified version of Metagraphie. Unfortunatly, it was not until 1950 that "Métagraphie Duployé Codifiée" was officially adopted to be the only Duployé system taught in French schools. It was also agreed between the two official French Institutes that schools in the North should teach Prévost-Delaunay only, while schools in the South should prefer Métagraphie Duployé.

You can understand why Perrault's version is different from our version of the system. The vowel positions and abbreviating rules are totally opposite.
In Perrault's version, all the abbreviating rules are optional. You use whichever rule you want in any sequence which suits you. In Metagraphie, most rules are obligatory. Failing to apply a specific rule results in changing the sounds being symbolized. Fortunately, abbreviating rules in Métagraphie apply in chronological order, so you don't really need to understand what you hear to abbreviate it. Those rules are extremely regular and powerful, most words are reduced to the strict minimum number of syllables.

Feel free to give us your impressions.

Yours.

ironsinthefire · Inscrit le: 11 Aoû 2006 Messages: 4

Hello Duployean,

Thanks for sharing the background information on Duploye. I should've explained; I've HAD material on Gregg, Pitman, and Thomas Natural, but passed this on; Gregg seemed to me overrated, Pitman had too many arbitary symbols and did not handle vowels well to my mind and was horrible to write, Thomas Natural's outlines were just too ungainly. I hasten to add that I've got no proficiency in these systems and have formed these impressions on the basis of previewing them and listening to what others have made of them. From what I could gather to write quickly in Gregg one had to use an awful lot of clumsy abbreviations and lots of phrasing.

So even though initially some systems' theory is easier to learn it gets more complicated in its application further down the line.

I don't mind if theory seems like a lot of work initially if it proves very effective later on; this is why I was drawn to Cross Eclectic. Its theory requires an awful lot of explanation to make it clear BUT once it is clear it hangs together very well in the mind and in its application there are no arbitary symbols, no clumsy abbreviations. It seems pretty elegant . It's not as hard as it looks in terms of theory. I think it's logical and ingenious. But the penmanship is fiddly which is why I'm hesitant to pin all my shorthand hopes on it.

Perrault-Deploye came to my attention through Tom - who shares with me his many thoughts and insights on shorthand regularly via email - He spoke highly of it. I was wandering if it was possible for there to be a shorthand that was lightline and non-position that was also fast, coherent, and legible! I was wandering this after realising that Cross may be a big problem because of position-writing and shading at speed!

When I got the Perrault material and read about how many court-reporters had used it in Canada and when I also realised how few court-reporters used Gregg I had my bias against Gregg reinforced. One of the things I love about Perrault is that he gives so many symbols at the outset to cover so many sounds in the English language. The trouble with some shorthands is that they start off in a too simple way and then have to made very complicated to do the job! Pitman is the obvious example that comes to mind; at the outset he has no inline vowel and then has to introduce and awkward system to facilitate their representation!

Knowing so much of Cross I intend to carry on practising it - better value than Soduku puzzles - just for the pleasure of writing and transcribing BUT a truly excellent lightline system seems to me well worth the work! I never felt Gregg was such a system; his work is truly accessible, his system is a great work-a-day tool, and he was a great populariser of shorthand, but it seems to me Perrault is of a different order altogether.

I hope I've not offended anyone by expressing these sentiments as this is certainly not my intention. I also don't pretend to have a deep and wide knowledge of shorthand history and theory.

I'm looking forward to learning Perrault, and to keep progressing - gently - with Cross. These two systems are polar opposites; it will be interesting to know both of them!

Merci!

--iron...