111. (9.) Another form of variation occurs when, in the exercise of what may be called "reporting license," we give to certain shorthand characters or elements a value or signification different in phrases from that assigned them in the writing of isolated words. In such cases, rules, (which are made to facilitate the reporter's work, not to hamper it,) are overruled by the great law of convenience. The practical results thus obtained are in many cases of too great value to be sacrificed in deference to abstract, theoretical consistency. The reporter finds that in exceptional cases it is better that strict rule or principle be violated than that he should continue endlessly to write cumbrous forms, or be deprived of facile phrases because they contravene some of the ordinary principles of word-formation.

112. A fundamental truth in the practice of phrasing - and it can scarcely be too often repeated - is that words naturally and instinctively grouped by the tongue should, if possible, be grouped by the pen. To accomplish this end,

Variation Of Outline

the reporter with cultivated reporting instincts is willing now and then to forego a strict conformity to rule. For instance, he feels it an intolerable detention to break the natural phrase we may be by writing we separately, when the three words may readily be phrased if mr in this particular case can be treated as wmb. True, the effect is that a particular character represents in two different cases two different things, thus violating apparently a fundamental principle of phonographic shorthand, that each stroke or mark should represent one, and only one, sound. But the reporter asks himself, "Does this irregular use of a character to represent exceptionally something which it does not ordinarily or regularly represent, involve in this particular case real danger of misreading? Is it not a fact in this instance, as in others, that, though two readings are in a certain sense possible, only one can 'make sense'?" When he has satisfied himself that a substantial advantage is to be gained by tolerating an ambiguity which is only apparent, because it entails no uncertainty in reading, he boldly prefers contra-normal convenience and speed to normal inconvenience and slowness.