Chapter 8: Vowels continued

Useful links

• Single syllable AOE words drill
• Single syllable AOEU words drill
• Single syllable AU words drill
• Single syllable AE words drill
• Single syllable AO words drill
• Chapter 8 test

Intro

Vowels are reportedly the most difficult part of learning steno. Part of this is due to the fact that vowels are pronounced differently in different dialects of English. Unfortunately, I grew up learning General American English. This is the accent that Lapwing is based on.

If you speak a different accent, you may have to subvocalize with an American accent (sorry).

I’m making an effort to include IPA with the hopes that they will be useful for some. However, I must make the disclaimer that I have never taken a formal linguistics course nor am I an enthusiast. I apologize for any errors that may be present in this page—do reach out to me if you have corrections!

What is a conflict?

Since steno is a primarily phonetic system, homophones can be tricky to deal with. For example, the words “pair” and “pear” are pronounced exactly the same, but it is not possible to assign them both to PAEUR. We would call this an example of a conflict; two words conflict with the same outline. In Lapwing theory, spelling is the primary way to resolve conflicts. This particular example of “pair” and “pear” is covered later in this chapter.

AOE

• AOE is the long e sound as in “beet”
  • /i/
• AOER is the sound as in “peer”
  • /ɪər/

Examples

• peel PAOEL
• teal TAOEL
• here HAOER
• seer SAOER

Mnemonics

Feel free to come up with your own or even suggest some!

1. If the notion of long vowels and short vowels (as described in the previous chapter) is familiar, you can think of transforming the E key into a long e by combining it with the two keys on the other side
   • Long e = E + (vowel keys on other hand)

Section practice

Single syllable AOE words drill

AOEU

• AOEU is the long i sound as in “ice”
  • /aɪ/
• AOEUR is the sound as in “ire”
  • /aɪər/

Examples

• light HRAOEUT
• tile TAOEUL
• liar HRAOEUR
• tire TAOEUR

Mnemonics

Feel free to come up with your own or even suggest some!

1. If the notion of long vowel and short vowels (as described in the previous chapter) is familiar, you can think of transforming the “i” chord into a long i by combining it with the two keys on the other side
   • Long i = EU + (vowel keys on other hand)

Section practice

Single syllable AOEU words drill

AU

In chapter 5, the short vowel rules suggest that words like “bought” and “caught” would use the O key.

Short vowel rule #1: short vowel sounds and schwa spelled with a single letter use the key/chord that matches the spelling.

Short vowel rule #2: Short vowel sounds spelled with multiple letters use the key/chord that matches the sound.

However, “bought” and “caught” are homophones with “bot” and “cot” (at least with the accent Lapwing assumes). Therefore, we instead give an exception to the short o sound with regard to the two rules above.

The short o sound is only written with O if it is spelled with a single “o”. Any other spellings of the short o sound are written with AU.

So while “bot” and “cot” are written as PWOT and KOT, respectively, “bought” and “caught” are written like so:

• bought PWAUT
• caught KAUT

Minor conflicts

Words spelled with “au” are given A*UL when there is a conflict:

• call KAUL
• caul KA*UL
• hall HAUL
• haul HA*UL

Words spelled with “awl” are also given A*UL when there is a conflict:

• all AUL
• awl A*UL
• ball PWAUL
• bawl PWA*UL

There aren’t very many of these conflicts to warrant a practice drill, but it is important to keep this in mind when you encounter unexpected output in everyday writing. This is also one area where it is completely safe to change the logic and remap words in your own personal dictionary.

Section practice

Single syllable AU words drill

AE for AEU

Take a look at the following words:

• pair
• pear

The PAEUR outline cannot be assigned to both of these words. This is where AE comes into play. It is a secondary chord that can represent the same vowel as AEU when there is conflict.

In these conflicts involving the long a sound, one word will use AEU. This is the word with higher priority. The other word will use AE; this is the word with lower priority. Spelling is used to determine the priority to assign to a word.

Highest priority: “ai” or “ei” spellings

Words spelled with “ai” or “ei” get the highest priority, and are always written using AEU:

• AEUT eight
• TPAEUR fair
• PHAEUPB main
• PAEUR pair

Medium priority: “a_e” spellings

These words receive medium priority. Use AE for these words if there is a conflict with a word in the above category.

• AET ate (AEUT is already “eight”)
• TPAER fare (TPAEUR is already “fair”)
• TAEUR tare (“tair” is not a word)
• PHAEPB mane (PHAEUPB is already “main”)

Lowest priority: “ea” spellings

These words get lowest priority. If there is a conflict with any of the two categories above, use AE.

• TAER tear (TAEUR is already “tare”)
• PAER pear (PAEUR is already “pair”)
• SWAEUR swear (“swair” and “sware” are not words)

NOTE: remember that AE is only used to resolve conflicts. Try not to associate this chord with any specific spelling or sound.

Flowchart Summary

Here’s a flowchart to summarize the above:

AE for AOE

In addition to the AEU vowel, AE can also represent the AOE vowel when there are conflicts. Again, certain spellings are assigned to higher priority, while lower priority spellings use AE.

Highest priority: “ee” spellings

All words spelled with “ee” use AOE

• TPAOET feet
• PAOE pee
• SAOED seed
• TAOE tee

Medium priority: “ie” spellings

• PAOES piece

Lowest priority: “ea” spellings

• TPAET feat (TPAOET is already “feet”)
• PAE pea (PAOE is already “pee”)
• PAES peace (PAOES is already “piece”)
• TAE tea (TAOE is already “tee”)

Flowchart Summary

Here’s a flowchart to summarize the above:

Other uses of AE for disambiguating

AE can also be used for “ea” spellings that conflict with short vowels.

• lead HRAED (HRED is already “led”)
• bread PWRAED (PWRED is already “bred”)

AE 3-way conflicts

You may wonder about, or even encounter a few 3-way conflicts. For example, “pair”, “pare”, and “pear”. There really aren’t that many of these so Lapwing doesn’t actually provide any rules on how to deal with these.

By default the Lapwing dictionary assigns PAER to “pear” and PA*EUR to “pare”. The reason for this is that “pear” is much more common and is considered higher priority than “pare”. You are, of course, free to disagree with this logic and change things around! It is really up to you how you want to deal with these conflicts.

NOTE: considering priority based on how common words are is generally used as a last resort where the rules are fuzzy or nonexistent (like in this example). You will not see this in any concrete Lapwing rules.

Section practice

Single syllable AE words drill

AO

This chord has two uses:

1. Words spelled with “oo”, regardless of their pronunciation
   • wood WAOD
   • hood HAOD
   • blood PWHRAOD
   • tool TAOL
2. Words spelled with “oa” to resolve conflicts
   • oar AOR (OR is already “or”)
   • soar SAOR (SOR is already “sore”)
   • boar PWAOR (PWOR is already “bore”)
   • road RAOD (ROED is already “rode”)

NOTE: you may be tempted to write “boat” as PWAOT, but this is incorrect. The word “boat” should be written as PWOET, first and foremost (since there are no homophones with “boat”). Therefore, PWAOT is actually the word “boot”.

Section practice

Single syllable AO words drill

Chapter 8 test

This chapter’s test consists of all the vowel drills (including chapter 7 material). Make sure your settings are configured as such:

• Limit word count: 45
• Start from word: 1
• Repetitions: 3
• Sort: random
• Show hint for every word: unchecked
• Hide hint on last repetition: unchecked
• Show hint on misstroke: checked

Click here to access the chapter 8 test

Recommended completion goal

This is only a suggestion if you are unsure of when to move on to the next chapter; it is not a strict requirement!

Aim for 5–20 WPM with 90% accuracy.

You may use the test material as practice!

Chapter briefs

This section is completely optional, but recommended. If you prefer to learn these all at once, they will be covered in chapter 16.

NOTE: remember that these are briefs; the explanations are not applicable to any arbitrary word.

Practice sentences

1. When are the people here?
2. This is why we fight.
3. There are no moose!
4. Will you sleep now?
5. I have had it with you!

Answers

1. KPA*/WH/R/-T/P/HAOER/KW-PL
2. KPA*/TH/S/KWH/WAOE/TPAOEUT/TP-PL
3. KPA*/THR/-R/TPHO/PHAOS/TP-BG
4. KPA*/HR/U/SHRAOEP/TPHOU/KW-PL
5. KPA*/EU/SR/H/T/W/U/TP-BG

Extra briefs