Chapter 22: Theory principles wrap-up

Intro

This page serves as a reference for all the miscellaneous theory principles that only apply to a few words. It’s not important to explicitly memorize the content on this page, as it is very likely these situations will arise in everyday writing.

When you do find odd entries via the lookup tool, first consult this page. If you cannot find an explanation, free to contact me on Discord (@aerbg) or start a discussion on GitHub (login required). It may be that I have not yet documented the oddity here or that the entry itself may be incorrect.

Acronyms

For capitalized acronyms, Lapwing treats these as regular words for the most part. Write the first stroke with the asterisk and the number key, but continue the rest of the acronym with regular theory rules. It is generally okay to break steno order. Usually writing an acronym involves spelling the letters it is made up of. For short acronyms, it can also be faster to fingerspell.

• AWOL #A*EU/WOL
• LAN #HRA*PB
• PDF #P*FD

Contractions

Contractions are written like regular words, but with the asterisk key.

Some common contractions:

Some contractions that are based off of common words that are briefed in Lapwing are written a bit less intuitively:

-RB for “-rb” vs “-sh”

Sometimes it can be ambiguous whether -RB represents “-rb” or “-sh” as in the following pair of words:

• cash
• carb

In these cases, “-sh” gets precedence and the word with “-rb” is instead asterisked.

Disambiguating “ou” with OU

Lapwing is somewhat strict in using OU only phonetically. However, for cases where where existing outlines with OU do not exist, it is generally okay to use this chord for disambiguation.

• TPOUR four
  • TPOR is already “for^”
• SOUL soul
  • SOEL is already “sole”
• PHOURPB mourn*
  • PHORPB is already “morn”

* Not in the Lapwing dictionary

Tricky “ou” words

In some accents, the words “tour” and “mourn” would be written like TOR and PHORPB. However, since these two outlines already exist as other words, Lapwing uses AOUR instead. The reasoning for this is that this pronunciation of “tour” is more standard in a North American accent.

• PHAOURPB mourn
• TAOUR tour

W for glides

For some words, using W for a glide might be closer phonetically:

• EBG/WEU/TEU equity
• EBGS/TEUPBG/WEURB extinguish
• EUPB/TAOU/WEU/TEUF intuitive
• AOU/PWEUBG/WEU/TEU ubiquity

“-graph” words

“-graph”

Write the first part as if it is its own standalone word and then use TKPWRAF to write the “-graph” part separately:

• AU/TOE/TKPWRAF autograph
• PAEUR/KWRA/TKPWRAF paragraph
• PHEUPL/KWROE/TKPWRAF mimeograph
• TE/HRE/TKPWRAF telegraph

“-graphy”

Write the “-graph” part separately and then use the KWREU suffix to add the “-y”:

• SKWRAOE/KWRO/TKPWRAF/KWREU geography
• OR/THO/TKPWRAF/KWREU orthography
• STE/TPHO/TKPWRAF/KWREU stenography
• SREUD/KWRO/TKPWRAF/KWREU videography

Alternative “-graphy” outline

TKPWRAEF can be used as a shorter stroke for “-graphy”:

• SKWRAOE/KWRO/TKPWRAEF geography
• OR/THO/TKPWRAEF orthography
• STE/TPHO/TKPWRAEF stenography
• SREUD/KWRO/TKPWRAEF videography

This alternative outline uses e-folding.

“-grapher”

Write the “-graph” part separately and then use the *ER suffix to add the “-er”:

• KAR/TO/TKPWRAF/*ER cartographer
• KHOR/KWRO/TKPWRAF/*ER choreographer
• HREBG/SEU/KO/TKPWRAF/*ER lexicographer
• OEGS/KWRO/TKPWRAF/*ER oceanographer

Alternative “-grapher” outline

Instead of TKPWRAF/*ER, you can also use TKPWRAFR:

• KAR/TO/TKPWRAFR cartographer
• KHOR/KWRO/TKPWRAFR choreographer
• HREBG/SEU/KO/TKPWRAFR lexicographer
• OEGS/KWRO/TKPWRAFR oceanographer

This uses a briefing technique where -FR can represent the “fer” sound.

“-graphic”

Write the “-graph” part separately and then use the KWREUBG suffix to add the “-ic”:

• *ET/TPHOE/TKPWRAF/KWREUBG ethnographic
• HO/HRO/TKPWRA*F/KWREUBG holographic
• EUPB/TPOE/TKPWRAF/KWREUBG infographic
• PEUBG/TO/TKPWRAF/KWREUBG pictographic

Alternative “-graphic” outline

Instead of TKPWRAF/KWREUBG, you can also use TKPWRAFBG:

• *ET/TPHOE/TKPWRAFBG ethnographic
• HO/HRO/TKPWRAFBG holographic
• EUPB/TPOE/TKPWRAFBG infographic
• PEUBG/TO/TKPWRAFBG pictographic

This alternative outline employs dropping the unstressed “i” in “graphic”.

“-ology” words

These are written using regular syllabic splitting:

• ARBG/KWRO/HRO/SKWREU archaeology
• A/STRO/HRO/SKWREU astrology
• AOE/KO/HRO/SKWREU ecology
• OR/TPHEU/THO/HRO/SKWREU ornithology

Alternative “-ology” chord

Instead of writing the O/HRO/SKWREU cluster, you can instead use the OLG chord.

• ARBG/KWROLG archaeology
• A/STROLG astrology
• AOE/KOLG ecology
• OR/TPHEU/THOLG ornithology

This is simply just a briefing pattern. These outlines are much shorter than the write-outs and are highly recommended.

Ambiguous glide vowels

In some words containing glides represented with KWR or W, the proceeding vowel sound is spelled with two letters. The sound itself is an unstressed schwa (a short vowel), and so the second vowel letter is what determines which key to use.

Here are some examples to illustrate:

• KAF/KWRAT caveat
• KORPB/KWRAL corneal
• HRAOEPB/KWREPBS lenience
• PHA/TREU/HREUPB/KWRAL matrilineal

Another way of thinking about this is that the KWR or the W glide represents the first vowel letter and the second vowel letter is represented by the vowel key in the steno stroke.

“-ual” words

It is very difficult to write the “-ual” sound using regular syllabic splitting rules. For example, to write the word “manual” in a way that the second stroke begins with a consonant is only possible as PHA/TPHAOU. It is possible to finish the word with WAL, but three strokes for such a short word is not very fast indeed. Instead, the WAL stroke on its own can represent the entire “-ual” cluster. Thus, by including the “n” consonant in the first stroke, it is possible to write this word with only two: PHAPB/WAL.

WAL

Another way of thinking of the WAL stroke is that the W key represents the “u”, and the AL represents the “al”.

• AOEBG/WAL equal
• HA/PWEUFP/WAL habitual
• PER/PEFP/WAL perpetual
• AOURB/WAL usual

It can also be used like a suffix:

• KOPB/TRABGT/WAL contractual
• KOPB/TEGT/WAL contextual
• HA/PWEUT/WAL habitual
• SEBGS/WAL sexual

TWAL

You can also use TWAL as the “chwal” cluster like in the following words:

• TPABG/TWAL factual
• HA/PWEU/TWAL habitual
• EUPB/TE/HREBG/TWAL intellectual
• SREUR/TWAL virtual

I prefer using TWAL over WAL (when possible) as it more closely resembles the pronunciation it is supposed to represent.

KWRAOUL

You are also free to come up with your own strokes for dealing with these words. In hindsight, KWRAOUL would be a better fit to some of these words. I am already accustomed to WAL, so I am not about to change these around. That said, if PHA/TPHAOU/WAL or PHA/TPHAOUL make more sense to you, add it to your dictionary!

Doubling consonants with prefixes

With prefix strokes, doubling consonants between two strokes is allowed if it makes sense to do so.

• EUPL/PHOE/PWAOEUL immobile
  • EUPL is the “im-” prefix
• need more examples

There can also be alternative strokes that exist in the dictionary (for example, EUPL/KWROE/PWAOEUL). Use whichever makes the most sense to you, or add your own!

Splitting a sound at “ng”

To split a word at “ng”, use ...PBG/TKPW...

There are also two other alternative splitting methods:

1. ...PB/TKPW...
2. ...PBG/KWR...

Examples

• bingo PWEUPBG/TKPWOE or PWEUPB/TKPWOE or PWEUPBG/KWROE
• tango TAPBG/TKPWOE or TAPB/TKPWOE or TAPBG/KWROE

Prefix outline conflicts

Single stroke briefed prefixes

Here are once again the tables from chapter 12 and 15:

Three way conflict between “by”, “bye”, and “buy”:

Again, feel free to change around these outlines.

Generic way of dealing with multisyllable prefix outlines

Press the asterisk in the last stroke of a multisyllable outline to get the word variant.

Some of these can also be briefed. Feel free to use the look up and discover briefs.

Special conflicts

Another technique for disambiguating between prefixes and words is using alternative vowels. One common case is using AU instead of OE and O. This is sometimes recommended over using the asterisk key as it is much easier to press:

Prefix strokes vs compound words

Sometimes it can be arbitrary to determine whether a word should be written as a compound word rather than a word with a prefix. For example, the Lapwing dictionary by default treats words like “upright” and “downwards” as compound words; they can be only be written as UP/RAO*EUT and TKOUPB/WA*RD/-Z. It is perfectly reasonable to make changes and add extra prefix strokes if desired.

Strokes starting with EU

For words like “illuminate” and “immense”, there are multiple way valid outlines.

Syllabically

First, these words can be written using the same syllabic splitting rules in chapter 15.

• illuminate EU/HRAOU/PHEU/TPHAEUT
• immense EU/PHEPBS

Prefixes

For some words like “illuminate” and “immobilize”, it is natural to use predictions:

• illuminate EUL/HRAOU/PHEU/TPHAEUT
• immobilize EUPL/PHOEBL/KWRAOEUZ

Normally, two consonant chords cannot be doubled across two strokes. In the “immobilize” outline, the -PL and PH chords are next to each other in the first and second strokes. However, since the first stroke EUPL is a prefix, this is allowed.

Incorrect prefixes

For some other words like “immense” and “immune”, using a prefix would not make much sense since the remaining letters would not form a word (“mense” and “mune” are not words). However, words starting with EU are exempt from this rule. Therefore, the following outlines are all valid:

• immense EUPL/KWREPBS or EUPL/PHEPBS
• immune EUPL/KWRAOUPB or EUPL/PHAOUPB

Why

Since EU on its own is the word “I”, I originally had concerns that outlines like EU/HREUFT and EU/SHAOU would cause some issues. Therefore, I opted to make all of these words not adhere to syllabic splitting, and instead force them to be written with prefixes. However, upon closer examination, there are not very many conflicts. Therefore, I’ve added the syllabic splitting outlines, and am keeping the others as fallbacks. Eventually, the incorrect prefixes may be removed.

Words ending in “h”

The asterisk * key is used for words ending in “h”.

• hah HA*
• heh H*E
• meh PH*E

Problematic words

This table contains words that don’t quite follow main theory principles.