Have you been slugging shoulders and shrugging someone if they talk at the same time as the other parties during testimony? How about a nifty little trick to help you distinguish the SL- words from the SHR- words that doesn’t require an asterisk key or – yikes! – an extra stroke for a one-syllable word?
Steno Wizard suggests using the steno keys SWR- for the beginning of “shr”- sounding words. This resolves the issues of the slug/shrug debacle that occurs at Mach speed in the first 5 minutes. This also resolves the sled/shred, slew/shrew, shrine/centerline, shriek/sleek, and shrink/slink issues . There’s no harm in writing the words shrub, shrubbery, shrewd, shrift, shrill, shrimp, shrank, shrapnel, shroud, or the proper names Shreveport and Shropshire with the SWR- combination either.
Steno Wizard concedes that there’s not many “shr”-sounding words; however, it no doubt is easier to stroke the SWR- keys than using the asterisk key or two-stroking one-stroke words unnecessarily. The additional benefit is your phonetic translation will improve if you tweak your software program so that it identifies that the SWR- keys are always “shr”- words and that the SHR- keys are always “sl”- words.
Bonus brief – “century” can be written SWREU.
If you have a writing issue that you’d like to receive a suggestion or some assistance with, feel free to email the Steno Wizard at stenowizard@gmail.com. Till next time!
