REALTIME WRITING

(GETTING RID OF SOME PESKY CONFLICTS THE EASY WAY)

Use a Conflict Distinction Stroke

Phoenix Theory uses R-R as our conflict distinction stroke because: (1) It’s stroked with the two strongest, most dexterous fingers; (2) It’s directly under those fingers when in home position and requires the least amount of finger travel; and (3) It creates no conflicts. However, you can designate any unused key combination as your conflict distinction stroke. (If you would like to use R-R but are presently using it as a brief for railroad, try R-RD or R*R as a new brief for railroad.)

What is a conflict distinction stroke used for?

Homonyms: Do you sometimes have difficulty recalling instantly exactly how you decided to distinguish a particular homonym (AE vowel, asterisk, spelling)? These conventional methods of distinguishing homonyms are available to writers of Phoenix Theory, but the 3,000-plus homonyms in our translation dictionary are also programmed so that the less-frequently-used homonym or the one with the least-common spelling can also be distinguished simply by writing the sound, followed immediately by the conflict-distinction (CD) stroke: E.g., bread = PWRED; bred = PWR*ED or PWRED/R-R.

Advantages: (1) Beginners can immediately distinguish homonyms successfully, incorporating the alternative stroking for high-frequency homonyms gradually into their writing; (2) If a homonym hasn’t been encountered previously (e.g., dock/doc, mack/Mac, new/gnu, serial/cereal, axle/axel), and the conventional distinction is unknown, you can rely on correct translation by following the stroke for the sound of the word with the CD stroke; (3) If you’re in the process of stroking a word before realizing it’s a homonym requiring distinction, you can immediately follow it with the CD stroke and receive correct realtime translation without having to delete and restroke; (4) An excellent resource tool is created. Phoenix writers can stroke a word for realtime translation, followed by the CD stroke, and confirm whether there are other words which sound the same. For example, you heard pencil but it doesn’t make sense in context? Stroke pencil followed by R-R and discover the word pensile; stroke pencil followed by R-R/R-R and find the third sound-alike, pencel. If appetite doesn’t make sense in context, stroke AP/TAOEUT/R-R and discover the word apatite. If calendar doesn’t seem to fit, stroke calendar followed by R-R and discover the sound-alike calender.

Distinguishing hyphenated phrases: Simplify stroking for common, hyphenated phrases, and distinguish them as hyphenated phrases rather than individual words, by including the conflict-distinction stroke in your dictionary entry: black-and-blue, two-by-four, out-and-out, cock-and-bull, cash-and-carry, etc.

Distinguish proper names: Is it "Central City area," or "central city area," Carr or car, Byrd or bird, Lake Pleasant or "Isn’t the lake pleasant?" Include the CD stroke in your dictionary entries for proper names which could create conflicts.

Distinguish abbreviations: foot = TPAOT; ft. = TPAOT/R-R; inch = EUFRPB; in. = EUFRPB/R-R, etc.

Unforeseen problems: You just created a beautiful shortcut for First Interstate Bank and now the witness is shortening it to First Interstate? Continue to use your handy brief but make a quick dictionary entry for First Interstate as your new brief followed by the CD stroke. You got tired of stroking out pediatrician and shortened it to PED/PED, and now the attorney is using the terms ped and peds? The CD stroke can provide a quick fix. A CD stroke can resolve some very sticky situations.

Omit Vowels

Phoenix Theory uses a unique Vowel-Omission Principle (patent pending) to eliminate spelling dependency and to automatically eliminate the vast majority of conflicts in word boundaries, with no need for a bunch of complicated, confusing rules.

Let’s see how writers of any theory can

• Get rid of some high-frequency conflicts;
• Write numerous compound words without having to execute a delete-space stroke to avoid conflicts; and
• Eliminate the need for hundreds of dictionary entries, just by omitting the vowel from strokes for word endings.

Use your imagination! There are dozens of additional compound word endings where you can: (1) Eliminate conflicts; (2) Avoid having to use a delete-space stroke; and (3) Avoid unnecessary, multiple dictionary entries—just by omitting a vowel from a word ending.

For an interesting comparison of theories and their conflict resolution mechanisms, see Sound vs. Spelling by clicking on its link on the left.

ELIMINATING MORE CONFLICTS

In English, the most-frequently-used ending sound is ee. There are also many one-syllable words (e.g., be, free, key, lee, me, knee, see, tee, tree,) and word beginnings (e.g., be-, de-, fe-, re-, pre-) pronounced ee. This use of identical sounds for words, word beginnings, and word endings can create a nightmare of potential conflicts when writing shorthand and result in some interesting—embarrassing?—mistranslations. A personal favorite is "Was the note renewed?" mistranslating as "Was the notary nude?"

Stroking ee sound endings as AE (plus preceding consonant when appropriate) will:

• Avoid potential conflicts;
• Eliminate the need to artificially double consonants;
• Reduce the number of strokes per word. (Conflict-free inflected endings: plural AEZ; past tense AED; -ing ending AEG.)
• Decrease the number of keys per stroke.
• Reduce need for "whole word" dictionary entries. (E.g., dictionary entries AE = < y; RAE = < ry; HRAE = < ly eliminate need for "whole word" entries for guilty, party, sentry, likely, boldly, etc.)
• Eliminate memorizing (1) multiple strokes for the ending ee sound, (2) rules for when each must be used; (3) rules for when consonants must be doubled. Reduced need for memorization means increased confidence, comfort, speed.

Note: If you presently use AE and AES or AEZ for the apostrophe and apostrophe-plus-s, respectively, incorporate an asterisk into your strokes for the apostrophe. It’s easy fingering, and the benefits of using AE for the ending ee sound far outweigh any inconvenience in adding the asterisk to the stroke for the apostrophe.

Examples: