Clickable dictation at various speeds is available at the bottom of this page. The transcript of the dictation appears here as well.
This month, like last, and for many months to come, we start a new book. This book as it says in the note to teachers: ""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 2
Dear Madam: Our administration department clerk just came across an abstract of the civil case in which you are plaintiff and the American Exchange Corporation is defendant. I am afraid we are suing a bankrupt company that is bound to disappoint you by defaulting in payment should our testimony bring in a verdict in our favor. However, we admire your complete confidence in the argument we have built up for this litigation.
In accordance with our usual practice, we will speak nothing but the truth when we take the stand. Your husband and the doctor have agreed to take our advice in this respect. There is little disagreement here that our evidence has sufficient strength and quality to show you were not at fault. We think the jury should declare the defendant negligent and cast their vote in our favor.
I have taken the occasion to inspect in a thorough manner the various facts in this case and it seems obvious that the defendant’s evidence is, comparatively speaking, altogether too weak. They will put emphasis on the excuse that you did not look behind you and conclude you were hit through your negligence in exercising care. My conclusion is that they are deceiving themselves if they believe they got their proof for this argument from an authoritative source. Mr. Williams regards their evidence as unsatisfactory and conspicuously scarce. He says they are aware that they have a weak foundation for this complaint and will either attempt to push plans for a pacific negotiation out of court or try their skill at confusing you on the stand by loud questioning.
While we have a wonderful chance of winning in court, nevertheless we should not make the mistake of giving light consideration to an opportunity to get together out of court. In the latter case, you would appoint an attorney from this organization to represent you before proceeding with the specific particulars but your presence and OK would be required to make the deal official. It would be poor business not to give their offer the attention it deserves, especially if they have anything significant to report. Even if their terms are not satisfactory, we should at least thank them and express our regrets, adding whatever remarks we find necessary. However, let us wait till we hear something from the defendant.
Our messenger, strangely enough, has succeeded in getting word from Mrs. Brown that she will oblige us by acting as witness in our behalf. Mrs. Brown, wife of the famous banker, was the young woman passenger in the car that was unavoidably forced to the curb. She is entitled to a reply, but with so many things to do I have been unable to write. Yours truly,
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