Anyone use Pitman shorthand?

kirstiex

Not sure where best to post this request, but I've been asked to make a cake with 'Happy Retirement' written on it in Pitman shorthand.

I know it's a hard-to-come-by skill these days and I've no-one to ask except the recipient of the cake.

If anyone can help or point me in the right direction I would be grateful

Thank you

skintpaul

anything on google translate? OR a pitman user guide..?

skintpaul

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/shorthand.htm

PasturesNew

You should be able to Google it. There are several variations of Pitman shorthand, but they're all similar and would be recognisable as shorthand fit for the purpose of cake decoration.

Roughly speaking Happy is a two stroke wigwam shape, with a small circle at the left hand corner. Retirement is trickier as it involves a shortened (half) symbol, but 3 minutes' practice with paper/pen will get it right.

.... except the intonation parts (small dots/dashes that indicate the vowels/sort of sound). Most writers don't use those though in their own writing.

bouicca21

It's years since I did pitman, but I can just about do the outlines for this. Fortunately proper shorthand writers don't use the vowel signs. Hang on and see if someone more competent comes along, if not I'll have a go. It's going to look weird on a cake though ...

PasturesNew

bouicca21 wrote: »

It's going to look weird on a cake though ...

I thought that too ... might be better expanded a bit into:

Happy Retirement XXXXXX.
With their name at least.

It does need "something else" beyond Happy Retirement.

bouicca21

There's an example for happy here
http://www.long-live-pitmans-shorthand.org.uk/theory-12-hay-aspirate.htm

Happy goes above the line. retirement will go through it I think. It starts with an upward stroke like a backslash (stroke Ray) then a vertical going back down, then a curve to the right (stroke ar), then add a horizontal half curve with a hook at the end.

Examples of stroke Ray and ar here
http://www.long-live-pitmans-shorthand.org.uk/theory-15-R-forms.htm

Oh and these are all thin strokes. A thin vertical is a t sound, a thick one is a d sound. So all the strokes should be the same width.

Still think it will be weird.

The ment curve is difficult to describe (as you will already realise from my attempt above) but see example here, scroll down to 11'
http://www.long-live-pitmans-shorthand.org.uk/theory-20-suffixes-contracted.htm

kirstiex

THanks everyone - I am also going to put Happy Retirement with their name in English on the cake ... in case the shorthand isn't that correct!