When you're writing Pitman, you write the lines first, and then add all the consonants at the end, in the same way you might dot an i or cross a T after finishing a word.

To write the word "corbomite", you first string together the sounds for C, R, B, M and T.

Then you add the vowel sounds to the right places. For this one, depending on your pronunciation, you need an "aw", an "o" and an "ie". So we put the "aw" (heavy dash, first position) after the "C", the "o" (light dash, first position) after the "B", and the "ie" (heavy dash, third position) after the M. Here's the result - "caw-r-bo-r-mie-t".

HOWEVER... If you try to read it back, you might notice a problem. Vowels can go either before or after a consonant, so that final dot is ambiguous. Is it an "ie" (heavy dot, third position) after the M, or is it an "ah" (heavy dot, first position) before the T?

To avoid this kind of ambiguity, there's a rule about the placement of vowels. Whenever there's a choice about whether a vowel goes before or after a consonant (that is, whenever a vowel comes after one consonant and before another), it always goes after the first consonant if it's a first or second place vowel, and it always goes before if it's a third place vowel.

So "corbomite" is written "caw-r-bo-r-m-iet

A consonant can have one vowel symbol before or after or both. You can't put more than one vowel symbol on either side, and if one consonant stroke has a vowel after it, the consonant stroke after it can't have a vowel before it. For double vowels, diphthongs, etc, you use the special symbols.

Words are usually separated. As in the phrase:

"the corbomite is encased in carbonite".

The dashes are usually written perpendicular to line. When they're next to a a curve, they're perpendicular to the part of the curve they're next to, meaning that the dashes which attach to an "R" will have a different angle in the first, second, and third positions. However, this isn't true of the wedges that are used for dipthongs. The direction of the wedge determines what sound it is, so it never change direction.

Leftover sounds

Pitman represents most common vowel sounds, but there are a few that didn't make the final cut. One is the "er" sound that occurs as the first vowel in "first". This is usually written as an "e" (light dot, second position). If it's written with a "u" in English, you can use a "u" dash instead. Checking my trusty Pitman dictionary, the word "fir" is written with an "e" dot, but "fur" is written with a "u" dash. But there's no right or wrong. Whatever works for you is fine.

Another leftover sound is the "schwa", like the "o" in brother, or the "e" in "vowel". Again, this is usually written as an "e" dot - although sometimes you can just leave it out completely.

Rules for joining consonants

Most of the consonants join together quite well, and in pretty much the way you'd expect. Look at the word "did", which has two straight lines in a row. The length of the line makes it clear that it's two consonants, not one.

Some words (not many), go further than that. Here's "doodad", a powerful, towering assertion of the Pitmanic "D".

A few shapes don't fit together that well. Try to write the words "shell", or "leash", for example. If you follow the rules, and draw the letters at nice, 45-degree angles, you'll end up with two shapes that look like lemons. This may cause you some frustration. .

But most of the time, the Pitman shapes don't exactly follow 45-degree angles.Shapes that go upwards to the right are usually flattened out a bit. It helps reduce their vertical footprint, and makes them easier to tell apart when they're written quickly. And the downwards Sh is usually straightened a bit in the other direction, towards the vertical.

That fixes the problem for "shell". "Leash" is harder - you can try flattening the lines in different directions, but the results are still ugly. The easiest solution is to write the "Sh" sound in the other direction, right to left, from the bottom up.

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Another joining that can be problematic is is the letter "Y', which has a backwards hook. That's fine if it's at the beginning of the word, but what if you're writing the name of the Galactic Emperor, "Booyoo"? After the "B", the Y does a weird backwards curve, right through the B.

Ugly ugly ugly. Booyoo will be offended, and you may soon taste the wrath of his Reptiliard Shock Troops.

The fix here is to abbreviate the hook, so it slides back along the end of the B, like this:

In real life, the Y symbol almost never occurs in the middle of a word. There are certainly English words which have a letter Y in the middle, as in the phrase "Raymond the Toymaker slays the boys." But in each of these words, the Pitman version is a vowel or diphthong, not a "Y" stroke. Later on, though, there will be other hooked symbols, and these attach using the same principle.

But these are unusual cases. Usually, 99% of the time, the letters will join together in a fairly orderly way.

Punctuation

You can use punctuation when you write Pitman; however, because some of the symbols could be confused with sounds, punctuation needs to be modified. Here are the modified marks. The dash has angled ticks at each end. The hyphen is written as a small double line. The period (or full stop) is written as a cross. The question mark and exclamation mark are written with a cross at the bottom. Parentheses can be confused with F and Sh, so they're written with a line through them. Pitman isn't normally indented, so the double vertical line stands for "new paragraph".

There are no uppercase or lowercase versions of the Pitman characters, so capitalization is shown by a double line under the word to be capitalized. So the correct way to write "Booyoo" is actually like this.

"The Reptilioid shock troops are leaving! They're returning to space! Booyoo's terrible wrath is appeased! The Earth is saved!"

And that's how careful writing helps prevent intergalactic war, my friends.

Next... A few tips before you start writing