Dutton Speedwords


Dutton Speedwords, transcribed in Speedwords as Dutton Motez, is an international auxiliary language as well as an abbreviated writing system using the English alphabet for all the languages of the world. It was devised by Reginald J. G. Dutton who initially ran a shorthand college promoting Dutton Shorthand, then offered a mail order self-education course in Speedwords while still supporting the Dutton Shorthand. The business was continued by his daughter Elizabeth after his death.

Requirements for communication

Any transcription, note taking or correspondence system must fulfill six requirements :
Ideally, these requirements should not be wholly biased toward English but consider European, Asian and Middle East languages.
The system of Speedwords created over 50 years by Dutton addresses all these requirements. Other systems have copied the solutions devised by Dutton without greatly improving his approach. One major advantage of Dutton's Speedwords is that it is readily available to everyone. Its current competitors either require pre-payment for materials before revealing the full details of their system, or, have system that is a subset of the words necessary for a complete system.

Objectives of Speedwords

Over time, three objectives were claimed by Dutton for Speedwords:
Initially, Dutton proposed Speedwords as an International Auxiliary Language to encourage people to communicate internationally. Dutton wanted to provide a system so that a sender could use which did not require them to learn the language used by the recipient before establishing communication. Speedwords achieves this by relying on a deliberately small vocabulary. For international communication, the writer and reader are different, so, it is important that communication is unambiguous.
Then Dutton promoted Speedwords for high-speed writing. This used ideas and experience based on Dutton Shorthand. Dutton developed this stenographic method between 1919 and 1926. This approach also assumed that the writer and reader were different.
Up to this time, Speedwords avoided synonyms. Synonyms are variants of the same English word and treated them as equivalent. There are two possibilities:. The same Speedword covers several different English words note writing and note reading. This approach assumed that the writer and reader were mostly the same person. Dutton encouraged this group of users to adopt some personal conventions to adapt it to their personal needs. The widely available "Teach Yourself Dutton Speedwords" was focused on the note taking and note making objective although Dutton still claimed it could also be used to fulfill the other objectives.
See below for how these objectives were used to construct Speedwords.

Usage

There are three possible uses: writing, speaking including dictation, and, note taking

Writing

This was the original use intended by Dutton. Speedwords would allow peoples with different national languages to communicate using Speedwords as the medium. This would be accomplished because it had a compact vocabulary and rigid meanings to avoid ambiguity. All versions of Speedwords were customised for writing and minimising the number of letters that had to be written.

Speaking including dictation

Criticisms in 1935-6 of the predecessor of Speedwords were focused on the difficulty in pronouncing strings of consonants. Speedwords overcame this deficiency.

Note taking

"Teach Yourself Dutton Speedwords" adapted Speedwords to note taking. It modified the standard Speedwords from written correspondence without any time pressure to allow taking notes at high speed.

Competitors to Speedwords

There are three competitors to Speedwords. They are shorthand as simplified letterforms, shorthand as picture symbols, and, shorthand using non-stenographic systems.
Simplified letterforms are also called stenographic shorthand systems. One type of letterform geometric is based on circles, parts of circles, and straight lines placed strictly horizontally, vertically or diagonally. The most popular example is Pitman shorthand released 1837, and many lesser-known systems such as Boyd's syllabic shorthand originally published 1903, as well as predecessor systems such as Duployan Shorthand. These use symbols which do not represent letters, but rather sounds so the words are written more or less as they are spoken. Contrasted with geometric are script shorthands that are oriented around the movement of the hand when writing. The original is Gabelsberger shorthand which began in Germany and spread through Europe. Script-geometric, or semi-script, shorthands are a hybrid of geometric systems and the script systems. The notable example is Gregg shorthand first published in 1888. Other examples include Superwrite, Easyscript, Keyscript, Speedwriting, Quickscript, Breviogrph, Stenoscript ABC, and Teeline.
Picture symbols were proposed by Austrian Charles K. Bliss who created Blissymbolics in 1949 as a universal written language for speakers of any language to learn and communicate. It avoided the problems of constructed quasi-European language like Esperanto, or, natural languages such as English. Blissymbolics was conceived as a purely visual, speech-less language but provided a basic vocabulary that could be spoken.
Non-stenographic systems or alphabetic systems may also supplement the alphabetic characters by using punctuation marks as additional characters, give different meanings when letters are capitalised, or add non-alphabetic symbols. The most popular of these is Esperanto. Dutton contrasted Speedwords with its major rival Esperanto by claiming correctly that Speedwords had a smaller vocabulary and did not require the extensive study that was required to converse or write Esperanto. Another rapid writing system with a similar name, Speedwriting was invented by Emma Dearborn at Simmons College, Columbia University and published in 1925. Her method used letters of the alphabet and some punctuation marks to represent the sounds of English which could be reproduced on the typewriter. Dearborn initially franchised teaching and then sold the rights which passed between various companies who made further changes and marketed it throughout the US and in various languages. Other methods included Personal Shorthand also known as Briefscript, and Keyscript. Forkner Shorthand was promoted as an alternative to Pitman shorthand from 1955–1995 but is no longer taught.
The benchmark for pronunciation is the International Phonetic Alphabet produced by the International Phonetic Association. It is easily printable by hand or keyboard although its conventions are often not used to depict pronunciation in dictionaries and other reference materials.
The major reason that Dutton Speedwords continues to receive attention is its strict alphabetical constraint that allows it to be used on a keyboard, and its breadth of practical application which Dutton embodied in his system.

Design of Speedwords

The design of Speedwords has four features:

Principles of Speedwords

In all publications, Dutton describes various principles of Speedwords but there is no consolidated list of principles. They can be summarised as:
While this approach is sound it has both advantages and a few disadvantages discussed below.
Speedwords was meant to be written and spoken, so Dutton provided some guidelines on pronunciation which is included below.

Advantages

In Teach Yourself Dutton Speedwords, Dutton claims at least eight benefits from Speedwords:

Disadvantages

The disadvantages appear to be:
None of these disadvantages prevent its successful use for personal note taking.

Achievements of Dutton

Dutton Speedwords continues to be referred to despite its orphan status because of his achievements:

Evolution of speedwords

It appears that Speedwords developed in five main stages:

Foreign-language versions of Speedwords

In Teach Yourself Dutton Speedwords, Dutton says that "It is intended to publish this Speedwords course in all the major languages of both hemispheres."
This did not occur. It is unclear whether the impediment was problems that equivalents were not suitable in foreign languages, authors of the foreign-language versions of Speedwords were not forthcoming, lack of a publisher, or anomalies and difficulties became apparent when Speedwords was translated, making the English- and foreign-language version no longer in uniform.

Dutton publications

All the Dutton Speedwords booklets published between 1933 and 1951 are out of print. Very few libraries show holdings of copies. Helpful booklets used in preparing this page were the Speedwords dictionary. It consists of 4,000 basic and with derivatives 10,000 English-Speedword and Speedword-English words.
A more accessible version focused on note taking and note making called Dutton Speedwords was published in 1951 in the Teach Yourself series published by English Universities Press as a hardcover. It was reprinted in 1959 and 1962. A revised edition was published in 1971. It was reissued in 1973 as a paperback. The only revisions made in 1971 were in Part 1 of the high-speed vocabulary appendix. Part 2 of the High-Speed appendix which is aimed solely at English speakers was unchanged between the original 1951 and revised 1971 editions. Copies of the 1951 and 1971 editions are relatively easy to find second hand. The 1951 edition and its 1962 reprint are printed on higher quality paper than the updated 1971/1973 edition which has yellowed pages that easily tear. Both editions have misprints. This is an incomplete list:

Third party publications

The references below list some third-party publications and commentaries that are still available. Many other webpages have been lost and are no longer available. These missing webpages included the Dutton Society, the Robert Petry pages when he was promoting Speedwords in approximately 1997, and pages by the New Congress/Der Neue Kongress s.Z. who promised a new revised edition of Dutton's Speedwords. However, there is no record of a library holding the reissued publication by New Congress/Der Neue Kongress s.Z.

Timeline of Speedwords

Dutton was assiduous in developing Speedwords and its predecessor Dutton shorthand. After developing Dutton shorthand, Dutton continued to improve it. But then realising the shortcomings of using shorthand, Dutton develops Dutton Shorthand. Dutton Shorthand was also revised many times. Dutton never gave up refining Speedwords, advocating its merits, and offering it for sale and as a correspondence course.
Below is a selection of publications that Dutton produced over his lifetime.

Shorthand publications

These publications continued to be available in the 1960s and 1970s.

Transition from Shorthand to Speedwords

This publication is described by Dutton in an article to the Royal Society. It uses one letter of the English alphabet which was assigned to a class of meaning, apparently directly inspired by Roget's Thesaurus. There was no pronunciation system and criticisms of this omission resulted in Speedwords.

Speedwords publications

Speedwords vocabulary

Dutton variously suggests the Speedwords vocabulary is:
Speedwords was taught as a correspondence course by both Dutton and his daughter in the pre and post-war period. Their course was supported by an extensive array of booklets that he had developed. Many of the booklets are listed in the timeline section. The option of enrolling in a course offered directly by Dutton's organisation or third parties is no longer available.
Several system such as Forkner shorthand emphasised replacing some longhand writing with shortcuts as soon as they begin studying the system. Many systems also claimed it was possible to achieve dictation rates above 50 words per minute. These all have learning times of a year or more.
Learning Dutton Speedwords takes around a week to a fortnight. In TYDS Dutton cites his records which show that learning the takes between 20 and 24 hours with 30 hours being the maximum. Dutton agrees that individual Speedwords can be substituted one or two at a time. However, Dutton believes that the entire Speedwords system can be learnt quickly and therefore it is not necessary to learn it piecemeal.
Some websites provide summaries of Speedwords. Some websites provide illustrations or highlights of the method. They are not recommended because they either mis-state Dutton or are incomplete. The chief characteristic of Dutton Speedwords is its detail and the extensive guidelines Dutton provides in his booklets.

Resources for learning

A few lucky people may be able to read some of the Speedwords booklets Dutton published between 1940–1951. The booklets promote the other booklets which were available but do not explain their interrelationship. So this is a brief description on how to use them. Essentially there are four interrelated booklets. All four are required. They are: The "textbook". The "companion". It provides additional exercises and the answers to exercises in the textbook. The "supplement". It provides further exercises with answers to enhance learning through additional practice The bi-lingual vocabulary. This is an alphabetic list of Speedwords with their English equivalent, as well as an English-to-Speedwords lookup list. The vocabulary contains an introductory commentary by Dutton which is valuable for understanding and using the dictionary. Depending upon when they were published, they may be called "Dutton Speedwords, "Dutton Double Speedwords", "Duttom Youth Speedwords" or "Dutton World Speeedwords". They were published at different times with different titles and contain minor differences. There is usually more than one edition of each. Later editions are the most complete and up-to-date. They usually contain an explanation of any changes made in the latest edition.
The most common authoritative source is "Teach Yourself Dutton Speedwords". It is focused on note taking. It contains eight lessons, an appendix and a dictionary with about 1,00 speedwords.

International versus English/domestic use of Speedwords

One important factor that can affect learning is whether communication is between speakers of Indo-European languages. Learning Speedwords is affected by background. It is oriented to the English language in its vocabulary and sentence construction. Dutton claims that memorisation will be slower for non-Indo-European language speakers, they will be able to extend their vocabulary as easily once the vocabulary is mastered. This means the learner must always be conscious of whether Dutton is describing Speedwords to be used in international communication or the English only use.
The English-only use makes concessions that are counterproductive to international communication. Those concessions can be summarised as:
Consequently, the learner of Speedwords needs to be aware that some of the extensions they make and use, may inhibit rather than facilitate international communication.

Lexicon

The principle behind the choice of word roots of Dutton Speedwords is the maxim that frequently used words should be shorter than seldom-used words in order to speed up communication. There are 493 one-, two- and three-letter roots. The 46 most frequent English words are equated with 27 one-letter Speedword roots also called parent words in the Teach Yourself Dutton Speedwords book:
Some two- and three-letter words are
The few hundred roots are combined through the use of affixes to expand vocabulary. For example: the affix -a indicates an unfavorable connotation to the root-word; thus, bixy = kill, bixya = murder. Some compounds appear fanciful, or at least not immediately transparent, such as ky + luf to mean "picnic". Grammatical features include the use of single letters to indicate tense; the letter r indicates future tense and y indicates past. Thus, j sa = I know, j ysa = I knew, j r sa = I will know. Nouns and verbs have the same form as do adverbs and adjectives. Compounds follow a headnoun-modifier sequence, as in ca + dor = bedroom.

Phonology and orthography

Dutton orthography is irregular. It is combined with phonology below.

Stress

Stress is on the first syllable, except that the opposite suffix -o is always stressed, and the verbal prefixes u- and y- are never stressed.

Vowels

Vowels are rather similar to Latin. When a vowel occurs at the end of a morpheme or before another vowel, it is long, otherwise, it is usually short.
Letteraeiouauy-
Long"ah"
"eh"
"ee"
"oh"
"oo"
"ow"
"might"
"sofa"
Short"at"
"get"
"it"
"od"
"put"
"ow"
"might"
"sofa"

Vowel length for the most part not phonemic, but are determined by position. However, there is morphophonemic contrast in a few cases where a root word contrasts with a suffixed word, with suffixes that do not shorten the vowel. For example,
Only au and y are diphthongs. Other sequences of vowels are pronounced in separate syllables, e.g. eis "ice" is. Vowel sequences in roots are ei, eu, oi, oe, ui, ue, ia, io, iu. The sequences ie, uo are found in written contractions, but may not be pronounced that way since all written contractions should be pronounced in full.
"Y" is a consonant in ye "yes" and in y "was, were" only.

Consonants

Consonants are mostly as in the IPA; e.g., s is always voiceless, as in "less", g is always hard, as in "get", and r is trilled, as in Scots and Italian. Exceptions:
Words spelled as a single consonant are usually pronounced as that consonant plus a "very short ee" before a vowel, and as that consonant + schwa otherwise, clearly mirroring Dutton's pronunciation of the e in "the." The suffixes -r and -z are pronounced with a preceding schwa when they follow a consonant.
do not occur in final position. only occurs in final position in an unwritten affix. A nasal occurs in two affixes, but is not written in either. occurs initially in just two words, ye and y; finally it arguably ends the diphthong y. The letter w does not occur in final position, but arguably ends the diphthong au.
Consonant sequences in word-initial position are bl, br, pl, pr, dr, tr, gl, gr, kl, kr, fl, fr, sl, q , sp, st. The only consonant sequence in root-medial position is tt in otto "eight". Consonant sequences in word-final position are nd, nt, ng, lk, rb, rd, rt, rg, rk, rm, rn, st, sk, and x . But aq, though written with final consonant, is pronounced ).

Unwritten consonants and vowels

Some morphemes spelled with a single consonant have an unwritten vowel, and one prefix spelled with a single vowel has an unwritten consonant:
In the versions of Speedwords prior to 1951, h "have/has" is, as if it were written hi; however, in the 1951 Dutton Speedwords Dictionary, we find that pre-1951 hid "hide" has become hi. It is very unlikely Dutton would have kept h and hi as homophones; but we are not told how h is now to be pronounced.
Note: h is used only as an auxiliary verb; "have/has" in the sense of "have/has got" is ha
Some suffixes have an unwritten vowel that only occurs after certain consonants. They are detailed below.

Affixes

As noted above, the prefixes past-tense y- and u- do not take stress, and u- is pronounced with an unwritten engma. Me- and my- also remain unstressed when forming comparatives and superlatives, e.g. mebel "more beautiful", mybel "most beautiful".
Suffixed vowels are long and take an epenthetic when following a vowel. For example, gree "awfully, extremely" is pronounced, mua "too " is and dau "allow, grant" is
The suffixes -n and -st are derived from the speedwords un "negative" and its "professional" and are always pronounced in full and take an epenthetic when following a vowel, e.g. gan "scarcely" is and rist "clerk" is.
The words co "collect, collection" and za "dear, endearment, intimate" may also be used as suffixes; if appended to a word ending in a vowel, they do not shorten that vowel, e.g. lec "correspondence, mail" is and perza "dad, papa" is
Suffixes pronounced as a single consonant after a vowel generally shorten that vowel. The exceptions are -d, -z, -r, which leave the vowel long. Many consonants are pronounced with an unwritten vowel after certain consonants:
In addition, three suffixes have completely different forms after consonants and vowels:
f ~ -y are obviously abstracted from fy "cause, make, reason, render"; the pairs -v ~ -i and -x ~ -o appear to be arbitrary creations.
Also in the pre-1951 version of Speedwords, Dutton gave the apostrophe as a possessive suffix pronounced, e.g. l mant'kap "the boy's head". But in the 1951 Dictionary Dutton list a new root word zy "disease". It is inconceivable that Dutton would have retained the apostrophe homophonous with zy "disease." The apostrophe is retained in "Teach Yourself Dutton Speedwords" but there is no indication how this is to be pronounced.

Irregularities to avoid homophones

The only examples specifically given by Dutton are:
  1. "away" as an opposite of directional a "to" is ao as *ax would be homophonous with ax "ask."
  2. The agent suffix -r is written as the full word and pronounced with an epenthetic , when it would otherwise create a homophone with an existing word. For example, "maker" is maer to avoid confusion with mar "marry, marriage" (In "Dutton Double-Speed Words Companion to Text-Book", Dutton also gives jeer "judge" to avoid confusion with jur "law, legal"; in the 1951 Dictionary, however, "judge" is given as just
Following 2 above, we may reasonably assume that if adding -b, -c, -g, -k, -l, -m, -n, -p, -s or -t, then the full word from which these are derived would have been written and pronounced with an epenthetic , thus *noib "noticeable" to avoid confusion with nob "celebrated, honour, note, repute".
Following 1 above, we may reasonably assume that this would always be the case if by adding -x a homophone would have been created. We may also assume that the same would apply to the -v ~ -i pair, i.e. if by adding -v we had a homophone, we must add -i instead; the same well have applied to the -f ~ y pair, i.e. if by adding -f we had a homophone, we must add -y

Compound words

When two roots form a compound, the unwritten affix is placed after the first root. When three roots form a compound, the unwritten affix is placed after the first root. Either affix takes an epenthetic after a consonant. Examples:

Morphology and syntax

Root words may function as adjectives, nouns, verb or adverbs. In "Dutton Speedwords Dictionary" we read:
"The English language, like most other natural languages, is inconsistent in having separate words for the adjective 'hot' and the noun 'heat' whereas the same word 'cold' can function as either a noun or an adjective according to its context. What applies to 'cold' can logically apply also to 'hot'; consequently the Speedword he denotes either 'heat' or 'hot', according to circumstance....
"Just as there is no distinction in English between the noun 'cold' and the adjective 'cold', so there is none between the adjective 'fast' and the adverb 'fast'. What applies to the adjective 'fast' can logically apply also to other qualifiers, and consequently, there is no necessity to differentiate between, say, 'beautiful' and 'beautifully'. This means that, in international correspondence, the Speedword bel can convey not only 'beauty' and 'beautiful'... but 'beautifully' as well...
"Verbs and nouns are similarly interchangeable, for in the same way that each of the English words 'work', 'answer' and 'praise' can function either as a verb or noun according to its environment, so can any other word have a dual role. In English the noun form of the verb 'fail' is 'failure', and of 'pay' 'payment'; but in everyday expressions such as 'without fail' and 'in his pay' the unnecessary distinction has been eliminated... the Soeedword policy is to cut the Gordian knot and make pa mean either 'pay' or 'payment', pre either 'prepare' or 'preparation', kok 'cook' or 'cookery', men 'remember' to 'memory', and so on throughout."
There are, however, grammatical affixes pertinent to particular parts of speech.

Verb affixes

The present tense is unmarked, e.g. j spe "I speak".
The past is marked by the unstressed prefix y-, e.g. j yspe "I spoke".
Two verbs are irregular:
The unmarked form also serves as the infinitive, e.g.sh am spe "she loves to speak"
There are two participles:
Only one irregular verb: the present participle of the auxiliary h is hu
Note: Dutton is quite clear that the prefix u forms a participle, i.e. a verbal adjective, e.g. u uspe tem 'a speaking clock', l ura on "the working man." Indeed, he devotes five paragraphs to hammer this point home.
Dutton devotes six paragraphs to hammer home the difference between the English gerund and the present participle. He is adamant that forms prefixed with u- may be used only as a present participle. In Speedwords the gerund must be expressed by the same form as the infinitive, i.e. the unmarked verb, e.g. g amt spe "they like speaking", gi ko & go "their coming and going"
Furthermore

Noun affixes

The plural, where necessary, is shown by the suffix -z, e.g. femz "women". Dutton is emphatic that if it is clear from context that the noun must be plural, the ending -z is not used, e.g. ud fem "many women"; cz on
In the pre-1951 version pf Speedwords, the possessive of nouns is, and written with an apostrophe, e.g. l fem' ryg "the woman's house"; but in 1951, Dutton introduced a new root word zy meaning "disease". It is very unlikely that Dutton would have retained the apostrophe with the same sound. But we do not know what he subsequently did.

Adjective/ Adverb affixes

Word Formative Suffixes

In "Dutton World Speedwords" we are given on page 64, §328, the 'indefinite preposition' iv. But it is clear from Dutton's entry that the affixes -i and -v are not derived from this preposition but rather that the preposition is a backformation from the affixes.
Dutton says : "The prepositions 'at', 'on', 'by', 'under', etc. are sometimes used to convey a somewhat loose idea of association without any definite idea of position, as in 'at the most', 'by the way', 'on business', 'under difficulties', etc. When, therefore, any preposition is not literally applicable, the Speedword 'iv' is used. This Speedword consists of the two association suffixes 'i-' and '-v' and hence appropriately conveys the idea of association without definite sense of place."

Interfixes (not written)

For examples see Compound words in the 'Phonology and orthography' section above.

Potential improvements to Speedwords

There are three potential improvements to Speedwords which would overcoming ambiguities, remove omissions or deficiencies, and overcome confusion. These were discussed.
A major ambiguity is terminological. Dutton uses three terms interchangeably in TYDS. They are 'parent word', 'radical' 'word-root', and 'word family'. At other times he means the indivisible element plus prefix or suffix or the compounds of indivisible elements. By doing so he lacks the ability to distinguish between them. It would be much simpler to reserve the three terms for the indivisible element and then use the term "extension" for the addition of prefix or suffix. "Compound" would retain its existing usage. Even more confusingly he adds another term 'word familities'. It is not clear whether this refers to the ndivisible element plus all its prefixes and suffixes. Dutton also refers to "keywords" meaning the basic or essential stem words to which prefixes and suffixes are added. So, this means there is ambiguity for the learner on what is the basic vocabulary of Speedwords. Some further research is underway to see if this can be clarified.
There is an obvious omission and deficiency. These could have easily been rectified by Dutton using his personal knowledge and included in an expanded TYDS edition.
The major omission is a description of his rationale behind formulating the Speedwords he has chosen. In his opening chapter of all editions of Teach Yourself Dutton Speedwords titled "Dutton Speedwords Analysed" he describes some of the principles he used. For example, using Horn's analysis of frequently used words to determine how much to abbreviate or truncate his Speedword vocabulary, and, drawing on words common to several European languages. But this does not equate to a systematic account of how new technical words and expressions could be added to the Speedword vocabulary. Nor does it show that the existing Speedwords were wisely chosen.
The major deficiencies arise from overcoming confusion caused by apparent inconsistencies in understanding what is meant by particular Speedwords given the variety of Speedword formation methods available. There are four possible areas of confusion. First, deciphering the meaning of a Speedword can produce several possible candidate meanings. There are 20 suffixes. The practice of incorporating a Speedword suffix into the Speedword meakes it difficult to decide whether a Speedword is either a Speedword stem or a Speedword and a suffix. For example, the Speedword 'de' is day, 'deb' is debt but 'debe' is yesterday. The suffix 'e' is an augmentive signalling a comparative increase. So, an untutored interpretation would suggest that 'debe' is a large debt. Dutton's answer to this objection is that they need to be learnt. Second, contractions of frequently used Speedwords actually multiply the vocabulary by creating new Speedwords. For example, 'debe' yesterday is shortened to 'db', and 'jecen' percent is shortened to 'jc'. Again, Dutton's answer to this objection is that they need to be learnt. Third, there are some puzzling inconsistencies. For example, 'La' is great, 'Mla' is greater. 'M' is also used as an abbreviation for 'Mr'. It is unclear whether this is a misprint with the L in lower case and what the 'm' signifies. Finally, Dutton encourages joining Speedwords together as compounds except where they are equivalent to an existing Speedword. This creates new Speedwords which become unrecognisable because they are not in the dictionary, Again, Dutton's answer to this objection is that they need to be learnt. The disadvantage is it increases the vocabulary reducing the benefit from keeping the vocabulary small.
In summary, these shortcomings are resolvable. Ambiguity could be resolved by obtaining a copy of the Speedwords publication which lists the 493 elementary Speedwords but this is unobtainable. It may also contain the rationale for formulating Speedwords. The deficiencies should be addressed differently. Instead of immediately changing some Speedwords, the system of affixes need to be re-examined. The number of prefixes should be reduced. Some overlap for example, 'ze' means send but 'zes' is bring. The diminutive suffix does not convey magnitude. The use of a prefix conceals the Speedword because the first letter cannot be immediately recognised. These proposals would make Speedwords more easily recognisable because the elementary stem would be reliably recognisable. Apparently in the 1980s and 1990s some attempts were made to amend Speedword shortcomings but they are no longer available for inspection and evaluation. Improvements depend upon reading Dutton publications from 1933 and 1951 which may disclose method and rationale.