16. But the art of phrasing teaches us to write many common words in a way in which they are not, and cannot be, written when standing alone. Much more important and useful than the simple phrases just defined are those in which, under the operation of what may be called the laws of phrasing, the grouped words, or a portion of them, take different forms from those they would take if written separately - not only different, but briefer and more facile. Sometimes a phrase consists of a single consonant stem, with two or three simple modifications or appendages - hook, circles, etc. - representing additional words by signs briefer than those ordinarily used. In this way much more is accomplished in economy of movement and economy of time than the mere saving of pen-lifts. Practice has demonstrated that by utilizing in phrases the hooks, the circles, the loops, the lengthening and halving principles, and other abbreviating devices, in a manner unknown to and beyond, though not inconsistent with, the principles of word-formation, numerous common and useful words can, without any loss of speed or legibility, but with a decided gain of both, be written in phrases much more briefly than the separated or isolated word-forms. Thus in phrasing, the elementary principles of phonography are brought into a new service, unforeseen when, for the mere purpose of word-formation, those principles were devised. Phrases of this class "group together by means of stem-signs and the various hooks, circles, loops and other modifications, all the consonants of two or more words, without regard to the form of each individually. In such cases some, or occasionally all, of the words lose their identity or individuality, although as a rule, there is one word-form that stands intact, around which the others gather in a sort of verbal cluster."*

17. Many word-forming principles, now largely used in . phrase-formation, were devised at a time when stenographic phrasing was scarcely recognized as a possibility. Em phatically it is true that the men who in the early years of Pitmanic shorthand arranged the principles of word-formation "builded better than they knew." For instance, when the l and the r hooks were invented as mere factors in the formation or abbreviation of word-outlines, it was little dreamed that later on, as the pressure of reporting needs would push phonetic shorthand to its fullest possibilities, these two hooks would be made useful in phrases to represent respectively the common words will and are. So, too, when the double-lengthing principle was devised for the purpose of giving more facile forms to such words as neither, father, etc., it was not foreseen that this principle would ere long be made useful in phrases for the purpose of representing with admirable brevity the very common expressions there, they are and other. Similar remarks might be made as to the f-v hook, the n hook, the half-lengthing principle and other expedients, familiar to every one who has mastered the principles of word-formation.

*J. E. Munson.

18. For the purpose of contrasting these two methods

of phrasing, we may take the phrase it will have had. By merely joining the ordinary word-forms, we have the phraseform

in which each stroke is a complete representative of a word and signifies the same whether joined to other words or separated; so that the sole gain by phrasing consists in the fact that all of the four words, with no variation from their separate forms, are written without lifting the pen. But when, under well-settled phrasing laws, we express will by the l hook, have by the f-v hook, and had by halving, there results the beautiful, compact

combination

In this last phraseogram no word takes

the form it would take if written separately. The words are blended, rather than joined. Each word is inseparably merged with the others. No one of them as written in the phrase could be taken away from it without marring, or making unmeaning, some of those remaining.

19. A word-blending phrase, then, as distinguished from a simple or word-joining phrase, is one in which some or all of the words are so merged and intertwined as to be incapable of separation without destroying, not only the phrase itself, but the significance of some or all of the forms which, under phrasing laws, the different words have assumed.