[jdewald]

I thought that at first as well (about the potential confusion), but then recalled that most of the "possible" alternatives aren't real English words:

"bah" is really only a sort of exclamation and the sound of a sheep, not something you'd really have appear in an interview.

As you pointed out, "awa(h)", "ga(h)", "sla(h)" and "sta(h)" aren't English words [1] that you'd confuse in context so "away", "gay", "slay" and "stay" are the only possibility for them. The "y" really is not necessary.

I really want to learn Gregg now...

1 "gah" like "bah" ends up being an exclamation, and "slaw" as a food... but I can't think of a case where it would be confused with "slay" in context.

EDIT: Clarification on gah, awa, etc

[mkd1964]

The 'a' sound in "Slaw" is a bit tricky. it rhymes somewhat with the 'o' sound in 'ostrich', 'ought' or 'taught', which are written with the symbol for an 'o'. Oddly though, the word "Father" is written with an 'a'. If it's really necessary to distinguish between these sounds, Gregg Shorthand does allow for diacritical marks over vowels, but they are rarely used, since the meaning is usually clear from the context (and they slow you down).

It may help to realize that John Robert Gregg was Irish - so imagine his somewhat British pronunciation of vowels. Since Gregg shorthand is written phonetically, the words "father" and "farther" are written pretty much the same . That becomes a bit confusing to an American speaker of English.

I taught myself shorthand in high school. I love foreign languages and found it fascinating. A "Secret Language" like someone said above.

But I agree with one of the other posters, if you do not use it often, you will find it very difficult to do well. The basics of Gregg shorthand are incredibly simple, but it is another thing entirely to master - to be able to write quickly and accurately takes practice. Still, it is not impossible and you use it quite readily only knowing the basics. Unfortunately it has become a lost art except to a very few.

It would be quite an undertaking to write OCR software for Gregg shorthand because the writer has a lot of freedom to construct abbreviations on the spot or join several small words together when convenient (rather like native Germans can come up with compound words you won't find in a dictionary). The other problem would be clarity. While Gregg Shorthand doesn't have rules like Pittman for placing certain strokes on or above a line, proportion is quite important because several letters share common shapes ("n and "m", "p and b", "t and d", "f and v" are all quite similar but vary in length or height).

So the writer would have to be consistent in their proportions and the software would need to be able to learn the writer's style.

[vacri]

"only possibility for them" is not "the letter 'y' is silent", which the over-downmodded OP is complaining about. That it's not necessary for shorthand is not the same as being a silent letter.

For example, the vietnamese "chicken noodle soup" is spelled phở gà. It's pronounced something like fur gah. Every native English speaker I've heard (including me) that has seen that term written tries it out first as foe gah. If what the article was saying is true and the letter 'y' was irrelevant in such words, that first attempt would at least sometimes be foe gay - and I've never heard it that way at all.

Regarding 'sla', it's probably not going to be mistaken in context, but 'sla' is also a three-letter acronym that is moderately common - Service Level Agreement.