Learn to Write 25% of All Words Using Single Letters in 10 Minutes
Have you ever considered how many times we write words like "the" and "this"? Believe it or not, 25% of a typical English text is used by forms of just 10 words like these. When you stop to think about it, although these common words may be fairly short to begin with, they could be much shorter.
Now, I'm not suggesting that I'd like to pick up some great literature, sit down in a comfy chair, and open my book to find many of the words compressed into little symbols so the typist could save some keystrokes. I like the English language as it is. But I also write a lot of notes, and I don't care much about their aesthetic qualities. I just want to be able to write them efficiently and read them later.
That's where some simple shorthand comes in. The system I use is called Dutton Speedwords. (For the impatient, here's my cheat sheet.) If you so desire, it can actually be used as a complete International Auxiliary Language, but those of us less ambitious can benefit greatly from a much shorter and more informal study.
The only section you have to read to accomplish what I suggest in the title is "The First 10 Words." But there's a lot more to Speedwords, so I recommend checking out the rest if the first part interests you. It gets slightly more technical (but not difficult), so for those of you who are a little bit rusty on grammar terms, I've added links in possibly confusing places.
