34. It is impossible that all junctions should be equally good; and the writer must be content occasionally with some which are not absolutely unimpeachable - which are merely admissible. A distinguished stenographic author has said: "It is generally better to disjoin than to make phrase-outlines that contain difficult junctions; but occasionally speed is gained and legibility not impaired by including in a phrase, junctions which require a little extra care." (Munson's Phrase-Book, 121.)

35. Besides, the supposed difficulty of a particular junction, as it strikes the writer on the first trial, may not be intrinsic or insurmountable, but may arise simply from want of practice on that particular combination. These difficult but not inadmissible phrases should be treated as the beginner treats certain letters of the alphabet. When he finds any particular consonant stroke more difficult of execution than others, he does not for that reason discard it. He simply recognizes the fact that this particular character calls for a movement which habit has not made easy for his hand or fingers. He accepts the unusual difficulty of the stroke as a reason for giving it an exceptional amount of practice; and thus he finally reaches a point where every alphabetic stroke is made without conscious difficulty or effort. The same remark applies to apparently difficult phrase combinations. There are some phrases which, though difficult at first, become eventually easy by continued practice, or if not absolutely easy, easy enough to be preferable to a pen-lift, particularly if the phrase be a very common one, and one which embraces words closely connected in sense. Though the joinings be imperfect and on first trial somewhat awkward, the phrase may be unambiguous and in practice too useful to be dispensed with.

Don't doubt the power of the hand.

36. We should not too readily doubt the power of the hand to execute apparently difficult stenographic forms and combinations. What the untrained hand can do is no measure of what can be done by a hand whose powers have been developed by practice. For a couple of hundred years preceding the era of Isaac Pitman, the devisers of stenographic alphabets assumed that it was impossible in rapid writing to make distinctions between heavy strokes and light. Until this delusion was exploded, a simple, philosophic alphabet was unattainable. And while the Pitmanic system was in its vigorous childhood, an enlarged circle or hook at the beginning of a shorthand outline, was, on account of its supposed awkwardness and difficulty, excluded for years from the system, though now accepted as a part of every version of Pitmanic shorthand. In phrases, as elsewhere in stenography, hand-training plays an important part. To what point should such training be extended? Until "the hand carries out the mind's intention without requiring any special effort to be directed to the mere mechanical execution." (Munson's Phrase-Book, 122.)

37. When a certain combination which trained writers have approved and adopted seems to the student difficult, it should for that reason be the more practised until it becomes easy. The shorthand student may well follow the example of a brilliant young English stenographer (Mr. George W. Bunbury), who, detailing the methods of practice by which he won a "speed certificate" for writing 250 words a minute for ten consecutive minutes, says:

"After taking down any given matter on the first trial, I proceeded to transcribe or read what I had written, circling each outline or phrase which I had formed badly or which looked shaky. These outlines and phrases I carefully noted in a small book I carried about with me for that purpose; and when an opportunity presented itself, I wrote and rewrote them until I acquired the greatest possible facility in forming them."

38. In this way, junctions which it is desirable to have readily at command, because of their frequency or because of their correspondence with the groupings of ordinary speech, may, though seemingly difficult at first, be made easy by continued practice.