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We continue with the review book: ""The ten letters in this booklet contain all the brief forms and other contractions in Gregg Shorthand as well as 400 of the most common words employing analogical word beginnings and word endings.
"Because of their high shorthand content value, these letters may be used again and again as repetition practice until students can write them at a rapid rate of speed."
This was published during the height of the Anniversary edition of Gregg. The memory load of this version of Gregg was heavy. There were hundreds of brief forms, tons of special forms, the abbreviating principle was applied to more words than you can shake a stick at, and then there were scores of word beginning and word endings, both joined and disjoined. Some of you may find the vocabularly a bit rich but it's well worth that repetion practice mentioned above. Hang in there!
Remember, the dictation pieces must be a minimum of three minutes to be a valid test. Anything under three minutes is therefore not acceptable for testing purposes. Keep in mind that before Diamond Jubilee Gregg, all shorthand tests were five minutes. If you go back far enough, tests were ten minutes or longer.
Gregg Shorthand Review Letters, The Gregg Publishing Company, 1940, Letter 7
Mr. McIntyre: I have just received notification by telegraphic communication from our Texas office that a shipload of domestic cotton, to be used in the manufacture of chemicals, is on its way to you. Because of the radical drop in cotton prices due to the present political situation, this cotton will be sold at dramatically reduced rates.
Therefore, if you have not already telegraphed our favorite list of enterprises to give them priority in the placing of orders, please do so now because of the liability of a shortage of stock. Tell them that, in conformity with our usual custom in these transactions, we will fill trial orders for cotton and hold a supply in reserve until they can experiment with it.
In the past, our policy has been more or less elastic in determining how long we could reserve stock, but this period should be much shorter. Also, in order not to cause any animosity among our customers, we should observe some uniformity in our restrictions. If we shorten the period to 10 days for all and explain that it is a physical impossibility for us to extend the time, I am inclined to believe we will encounter no difficulty in our dealings with those who wish to make reservations.
Our local branch manager has been rather pessimistic at meetings about the unsuspected drop in cotton prices. He feels it will be detrimental to our reconstruction and will lead to another era of distress unless the decline in prices is suppressed. Contrary to his opinion, however, I feel optimistic about the change and had the audacity to suggest that we not speculate now with a policy of retrenchment. Let us formulate a new buying policy that will be more to our interests and will result in an accumulation of profits by the end of the year. Counteracting the down trend by buying, thereby circumventing a financial calamity, is sound business psychology. I am taking the responsibility, therefore, of buying without interruption.
This year’s profits are now running parallel to those of last year; but with our centralization program now complete, and our controller giving the budget close supervision, we are bound to finish ahead. Enclosed are some statistics pertaining to your office, which I had tabulated for you.
I am also enclosing the insurance receipt for the shipload of cotton, protecting it against any fatality. I shall be interested in learning from you how the sale of this shipment progresses.—L Collins
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