Anniversary Functional Method – Questions

In Assignment 2, Exercise 15.   The second word is a-d.   The first word is Ray.   I kept tryng to figure out….. Ray add?  Ray aid ???  Ray I would?  (we had just learned the brief forms for I and would)…. etc etc.   I looked at the Key and the 2nd word is had.   Huh?   Why no dot above the “a”?

There is another word further along in this Reading Exercise that starts with an “h” that doesn’t have the dot above the first letter after the “h”…….  I know we are not supposed to be learning “rules” at this point, but the only mention of an “h” to this point has been that it is signified by a dot and then they go and drop it…. huh ????

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  1. Five words for which the h dot is dropped in Anniversary: had, him, her, how, has, and had. The word "he" is also not written with the dot, but it is a brief form.

    Don't despair — remember that the book was meant to be used in a classroom, so a teacher was right there to tell you these little things, :-). You're doing fine!

  2. I've been looking at shorthand books on Ebay and Amazon. A 1971 Diamond Jubilee Series, 2nd edition, is called "the functional method" on both sites for their listings of this text. I have the book myself but I was wondering why it was called the functional method. Is there a functional method for more than one series? Where does Notehand come in and what's the difference between it and the anniversary series and DJS?

    1. Hi Debbie. There have been 12 or 13 distinct versions of Gregg Shorthand. each version has its own set of brief forms and rules. Notehand is a version that is designed to be very quick and easy to learn (compared to other versions of Gregg).

  3. I'll let Carlos and others give you the complete answer because I'm a beginner.

    But.. yes… the functional method is a different way of learning Gregg shorthand. The "regular" manuals and the "functional method" manuals were all published by Gregg Publishing. Just two different ways of teaching the basics of the system.

    In the "regular" manuals, students learned The Rules as they went along and they started writing shorthand from day One.

    In the "functional method" manuals, students learn the alphabet and some rules but they spend the first 3 – 4 weeks ONLY reading shorthand. No writing. Just reading.

    I'm not sure which versions of Gregg Shorthand have "functional method" manuals, but I do know that these 2 do: Anniversary and Simplified. And you say that you have the functional method manual for DJS, so it does too.

    When I started, Carlos highly recommended learning Anniversary from the Anniversary Functional Method manuals (it's 2 books – Part One and Part Two), so that's what I'm doing.

    But… as I said… I'm a beginner, so I'll let Carlos and others give fuller answers to your questions……

    1. Very good explanation. Publication of the functional method manuals started with Anniversary and ended with S90.

      This post explains the differences between series and this one explains the functional method. Other common questions like those two can be found in the menu above the page.

  4. Another Anni Functional Method question…..

    "over th" can be "th" or brief form "the"
    "under th" can be "th" or brief form "there,their"

    "th" before "r" or "l" can mean "they"

    I came across:

    under th + L which the manual said meant "there will"
    over th + L which the manual said meant "they will"

    so…. my question is this…. it appears that "they" before "R" or "L" is always an over "th"….. is that correct? i.e. it can never be under "th" + L because that means "there will" (brief form under "th" + L)

    I hope that makes sense………

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