Preface

In adapting to English the Méthode Sténographie Duployé I have endeavoured to retain the admirable simplicity which characterizes both its principles and outlines.

Duployan Shorthand being in such a general use upon the Continent, an adaption of it to English, such, that every sound common to the two languages is represented by the same sign, will at once commend itself to those engaged in commercial correspondence. To a student, the Duployan system offers a unique advantage since it puts within his reach reading matter stenographically represented and therefore with true sound values, in at least ten languages, inter alia, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Turkish, etc.

The system has a large and varied literature and also several newspapers and journals. It has met with remarkable success as an educational factor in elementary schools, which is owing in part, to the fact that it is not burdensome to the memory, as it does not call into its service any of the multitude of bewildering devices such as thickening, lengthening, raising above the line, etc., to add new sounds, or disconnected vowels or worse still the discarding of vowels. In this system every sound is represented so clearly that the transcribing, and even fluent reading of it, is an easy matter.

In the first part a system is offered that will enable any one of average intelligence to write from three to four times as fast as in longhand. I have endeavoured to place within the reach of “the many” a system that, to use a popular phrase, supplies a long felt want, that is to say, a system written and learnt with ease, and, most important of all, capable of being read with ease.

In shorthand examinations the marks for transcription are on an average five times as many as are given for the shorthand. If then for the sake of legibility some little advantage in speed has been sacrificed this will be more than atoned for by the ease with which the pupil will read his notes.

In the second and third part there is explained, for those whose goal is the reporters table, a complete system of abbreviated shorthand.

Part II deals with all common prefixes and suffixes abbreviated forms of common words, together with a novel and simple method of representing the auxiliary verbs. Part III, in a few pages expounds our completed system.

I take this opportunity of expressing my thanks to the Rev. D.H. Thompson [Stonyhurst] for the help he has given me in framing this adaptation. If it meets with any success it will be owing to my collaborateur’s suggestions. November 4th, 1901. C. B.