ROPE

AMDG

# Part 1: an introduction to ROPE

Visit the ROPE GitHub page to download the ROPE spreadsheet, Anki decks, dictionary, and readme:

https://github.com/kburchfiel/rope

For videos I’ve made about Plover, along with videos about typing in general, visit my YouTube playlist at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYtyZPMUWeI_4i4pc0peBPGMfSV7C5Nxw

Welcome to ROPE (Remembering Outlines in Plover more Easily), my system for learning and remembering Plover outlines! ROPE is now in version 3.0.

ROPE has two main components: a single-word deck and a phrase deck. The single-word deck includes 4,201 common words; both original and added-in outlines for these words; and over 2,700 mnemonic stories to help you remember these outlines. Thanks to the roughly 3,250 added-in outlines, you can write the top 1,000 root words (by frequency) in the single-word deck in 1 stroke and 4 keypresses or less, and all of the other words in 1 stroke and 5 keypresses or less.

The phrase deck includes 1,079 common phrases. The original and added-in outlines allow you to write all of these phrases in only one stroke. This deck also includes about 625 stories to help you remember these outlines.

ROPE's two Anki decks allow you to use the power of spaced repetition to commit these outlines to memory, while ROPE's spreadsheet gives you an easy way to look up (and edit) outlines and stories. ROPE's spreadsheet also includes an incomplete list of command and punctuation strokes.

Putting these materials together has been a labor of love, and I hope that these learning tools will make your Plover learning journey both easier and more enjoyable.

—Kenneth Burchfiel

The ROPE metaphor

Picture a mountain that is 4,201 feet (or meters) tall. We’ll call this Mount Outline. Mount Outline is pretty steep, and has one foot (or meter) for every outline in ROPE.

To climb Mount Outline, you could learn each outline by trial and error, and hope that you will write each one enough times to enter it into your memory. However, with this strategy, you may find yourself slipping down the mountain quite often, as it’s easy to forget outlines if you don’t write them often enough.

That’s where ROPE comes in! ROPE is a “rope” that is meant to help you climb Mount Outline in a more efficient manner.

Happy studying!

# Part 2: ROPE's Single-Word Deck

ROPE's single-word deck can help you learn and recall Plover outlines for about 4,200 common English words. It does this in two ways: first, it relies on Anki's spaced repetition system to help you solidify the outlines in your memory. Second, it includes mnemonic "stories" to help you remember a sizable chunk of the outlines. These stories, around 2,800 in total as of 1/18/2020, serve to connect the outlines to their corresponding word by featuring words that are similar to the components of the outlines.

The single-word deck also includes many added-in outlines (around 3,270 as of 1/18/2020) that serve as alternatives to the outlines in the standard Plover dictionary. They're meant to let you write words in fewer keypresses and/or strokes, but are completely optional, and standard outlines for every word are provided when available. By using these added-in outlines (along with pre-existing outlines), you can write all of the top 4,000 English words (by frequency, according to one frequency list) in just one stroke, and in 5 keypresses or less. In addition, you'll be able to to write the top 1,000 English words in 4 keypresses or less.

If you'd like to try using ROPE to learn and practice outlines, clone these materials and save them to your computer. (If you don't have Anki on your computer, download it for free from the website.) The Anki file and the Excel document have much of the same material; Anki is just a flashcard program that lets you keep track of your learning, and the Excel file is useful to have as a reference. (However, there is not a corresponding flashcard set for the command strokes listed in the ROPE spreadsheet.) Once you've gone through the Learn Plover! exercises, you can start using Anki to learn new outlines, even if you're very new to Plover.

This system is meant to be super-customizable, so you can add in or change stories, outlines, and words however you please.

Finally, as noted above, I plan to continue to update ROPE over time. For instance, I will probably change some outlines as needed and add in extra stories. These updates will be transmitted to the GitHub page (https://github.com/kburchfiel/rope).

Disclaimer with regard to the added-in outlines:

I am a Plover enthusiast, but I am not a professional stenotypist, and I am still working on building my speed. Although I think my outline additions will help me boost my speed, I don't have any proof that these outlines will be faster than the original outlines also listed; in fact, they may end up being slower. Therefore, use these new outlines at your own risk! (This applies to all outline additions in ROPE, not just to my single-word outline additions.)

P.S: Don't assume anything I say in the mnemonic stories (for both added-in and original outlines) to be true! There's a ton of made-up information, but it's all there to help you learn the outlines for these words. In addition, mentions of products or companies in stories does not constitute endorsement of those products and services.

Source for the original frequency list and frequency stats:

The words in ROPE's single-word deck and their corresponding frequency statistics come from the New General Service List Website (http://www.newgeneralservicelist.org/ ) (Browne, C., Culligan, B., and Phillips, J). The "NGSL Stats & Frequencies to 34K" list was the main source of words and is available at http://www.newgeneralservicelist.org/s/NGSL-101-with-SFI.xlsx .

Citations for the NGSL, which also contributed material for this list:

Browne, C., Culligan, B. & Phillips, J. (2013). The New General Service List. Retrieved from http://www.newgeneralservicelist.org. Citation for the NAWL, which some of the words in this list belong to:

Browne, C., Culligan, B. & Phillips, J. (2013). The New Academic Word List. Retrieved from http://www.newgeneralservicelist.org.

**How ROPE can help you save keypresses:

The added-in outlines in ROPE's single-word deck usually let you write common words with fewer keypresses and strokes than you could with the outlines that already exist in the Plover dictionary. See the table below (copied and pasted from the ROPE spreadsheet) for more details:

Average keypresses per root word in ROPE as of 2/1/2020:

(Note: "root words" refers to those words that have their own frequency data included in the NGSL data. Words that lacked this data are considered "derivative words," even though some are not derivatives of other words. The frequency ranking for root words consists of an integer, whereas the frequency ranking of non-root words ends in a decimal value.)

(The totals below are rounded to the nearest thousandth.)

(This set of words does not include a couple of R-rated words in the NGSL top 4000. Also, there may be some errors in the count.)

Root words 1 to 100 (by frequency):

ROPE: 2.610

Original outlines: 3.680

Regular typing (e.g. QWERTY/Dvorak; includes extra keypresses for capital letters but not for the space bar): 3.540

Root words 1 to 500:

ROPE: 3.268

Original outlines: 4.804

Regular typing: 4.966

Words 1 to 1000:

ROPE: 3.502

Original outlines: 5.244

Regular typing: 5.599

Words 1 to 2000:

ROPE: 3.953

Original outlines: 5.724

Regular typing: 6.153

Words 1 to 4000:

ROPE: 4.301

Original outlines: 6.390

Regular typing: 6.624

All words in ROPE:

ROPE: 4.288

Original outlines: 6.349

Regular typing: 6.593

Number of 2+-stroke outlines per root words in ROPE:

Words 1 to 100 (by frequency):

ROPE: 0

Original outlines: 0

Words 1 to 1000:

ROPE: 0

Original outlines: 39

Words 1 to 2000:

ROPE: 0

Original outlines: 189

Words 1 to 4000:

ROPE: 0

Original outlines: 854

All words in ROPE:

ROPE: 0

Original outlines: 873

1.1. How did you choose which words to include in the single-word deck?

The roughly 4,200 words in this list came from the New General Service List website (by Browne, C., Culligan, B., and Phillips, J) (http://www.newgeneralservicelist.org/ ). Specifically, the list includes the 2,801 words in the New General Service List; many of the supplemental words in the NGSL document (such as months, days of the week, and numbers); common derivatives of the NGSL words, such as "am" and "are" for the root word "be"; and other words that were ranked in the top 4,000 by SFI (standard frequency index) in the "NGSL Stats & Frequencies to 34K" document, minus 2 curse words (f*** and s***)* (see http://www.newgeneralservicelist.org/s/NGSL-101-with-SFI.xlsx ). So essentially, ROPE includes almost all of the top 4,000 words in English (according to one frequency list), along with important supplemental and derivative words.

I should point out that this is mostly a list of root words, and many derivative words aren't included.

*These two words can still be written in 5 keypresses using the original Plover outlines. I added in outlines that overwrite these words because (A I do not need to write them in my everyday work, and (B it would be awkward to write one of them by accident. However, the outlines that overwrite these words are not part of either the single-word deck or the phrase deck.

1.2. What is the purpose of the stories and the Anki deck?

I found that while creating a list of outlines for common words was helpful for me, learning the outlines wasn't enough; I actually had to remember them! That's where Anki comes in. Anki has a great spaced repetition algorithm that helps you review cards more efficiently. You review each card more often when you're starting out (or after you got a review wrong), and less often once you're gotten it right multiple times in a row.

I thought I was set once I had my list of outlines and Anki decks. But after I was a couple thousand reviews in, I saw that I could use some extra help in remembering the more tricky and non-intuitive outlines. That's where the 'stories' I've included come in. (See below for more information on those.) These stories, which I wrote in the process of going through the entire deck, have really helped me recall outlines that I haven't had many opportunities to review.

While everyone's experience will vary, I think these outlines, flashcards, and stories can be just as helpful to other Plover learners as they were to me—which is why I'd like to share them with anyone who's interested.

1.3. How should I review these cards in Anki? I'm worried I will forget the cards I studied first by the time I get to the end of the deck.

This is a very important question, and one that took a lot of trial and error for me to answer! ROPE's single-word deck has around 4,200 cards, so if you were to study the cards in linear order (from most frequent to least frequent), you might end up forgetting the first cards you studied by the time you go through the whole deck at least once. Even though Anki uses a spaced repetition feature to guard against forgetting cards, the reality is that if you try to study a lot of new cards each day without making sure you've completed all your reviews, some cards will be forgotten. (This was the case for me, at least.)

Here is the Anki study method that I recommend to help you learn new cards without forgetting older cards in the process. It helps ensure that you have done all needed reviews of cards at or above a certain frequency before moving on to cards of a lower frequency.

1. Click on the deck in Anki.

2. Under "Options" (on the bottom of the Anki screen), sort cards by "show new cards in order added." As long as the original Excel deck on which the Anki deck is based was sorted by word frequency, with the most frequent words on top, this step will help ensure that you learn and review the most frequent words in Anki first.*

(A word of caution for step 2.5, the following step: this action will erase any progress you have already made on cards in ROPE. However, if you know a card well, you should be able to review it fairly quickly, so this should not slow your progress with reviews too much.)

3: Select the ROPE Single-Word deck, then hit “Browse” at the top of the screen. Hit “Enter” to select cards from the Single-Word deck only. Highlight all of the cards using CTRL-A, right-click, and select “Reschedule.” Choose the “Place in review queue with interval between” option, and keep both numbers below at 0. (Note: if you have already reviewed all the cards in the deck, you do not need to choose this option, and in fact it may be best not to.)

What does this step accomplish? When you first launch the deck, all of the cards will be “new” cards, so they would originally not show up in the filtered deck that we are creating below (which will only show due cards). The purpose of this step 2.5 is to tell Anki that all the cards in the deck, including ones you have never studied, are due; that way, they will show up in the filtered deck.

4. Click on "Tools" (near the top left of the Anki screen), and then select "Create Filtered Deck." Make sure that the text in the "Search" row reads "deck:"ROPE 3-0 Single-Word Deck" is:due." (This will tell the program to choose only due cards for this deck.) In the "Limit to" tab, choose "Order added" for how Anki will select the cards. (You can also choose the number of cards to select for your deck. You can choose to study a set number at a time, such as 50 or 100, or you can put “9999” in for the number and limit your reviews by time (e.g. 1 hour). The latter is my preferred method.) Finally, you have the option of using custom steps; for a more thorough review of cards that you miss, mark the custom steps box and then enter “1 10” into that box (if it’s not already listed). Then click "Build" at the bottom.

This filtered deck plays a very important role: it helps you focus your due card reviews on the most frequent words in ROPE. Without this filtered deck, you might have a higher chance of forgetting frequent cards as you review less frequent cards.

5. Now that you have both your ROPE Single-Word deck and your filtered deck set up, here's how you can learn new outlines while still remembering older outlines:

Go to your filtered deck and study the due cards there. You can study until you go through all the cards in that deck (probably not feasible at first!) or limit your study to a certain period of time. I prefer the latter option, as it lets me know in advance how much time I'll be spending on card reviews. (You can rebuild the deck if you go through all the cards before your time limit is up; read on for more details.)

It's that simple! This filtered deck will increase your outline vocabulary while also protecting your recall of older, more frequent words.

Also note that this filtered deck is just a temporary holder for cards from the ROPE Single-Word deck. If you delete the filtered deck, the cards themselves will not be deleted; instead, they will return to the ROPE Single-Word deck.

If you run out of cards in this filtered deck to review, or if you want to reuse the deck for another day, just click on the filtered deck and click "rebuild." This will replenish the deck with a new set of due cards for you to review.

One final note: before exporting your Anki deck (e.g. to back it up), I think you may need to delete any filtered decks and custom study session decks that are based on that original deck. Otherwise, it is possible that the cards in those filtered/custom study session decks won't be backed up along with the cards in the original deck.

*When you add in a group of cards to Anki from a converted Excel spreadsheet at the same time, Anki considers the top rows of that spreadsheet to be the first cards added to the Anki deck. Therefore, in sorting the ROPE Single-Word spreadsheet page by frequency rank, with the most frequent words at the top of the spreadsheet, I ensured that the most frequent due cards would appear in the filtered deck when I selected "Show new cards by order added" in the Anki options.

1.4. Is a dictionary with the ROPE outlines available?

Yes! I have now made public a custom Plover dictionary ("ROPE 3-0 Additions and more") that contains all of the outlines for many additions that ROPE suggests, along with lots of misstroke entries that will make these outlines easier to adopt. The dictionary can be found on the Rope GitHub page.

This dictionary is not perfect; for example, it contains lots of "outdated" added-in outlines that have since been replaced with new additions. In addition, if you don't wish to use all of the added-in outlines in ROPE, I wouldn't necessarily recommend using this dictionary, as it remaps a number of pre-existing outlines to new words. A further issue with this dictionary is that new outlines are continuing to be developed, so any download of this dictionary will become outdated over time. (However, I will continue to upload updates of this dictionary.)

Finally, the version of the default Plover dictionary (main.json) that I use may differ significantly from a more recent version of the main Plover dictionary. This means that the "ROPE 3.0 additions and more" dictionary may interact differently with a newer copy of the main Plover dictionary.

However, if you wish to use all of the new outlines suggested in ROPE, this dictionary may save you a lot of time. And if it causes any trouble, you can always delete it. Note that this dictionary is meant to be used as a supplement to the regular Plover dictionary (main.json), rather than as a replacement. You will need to set it as a higher priority than the regular Plover dictionary for the new outlines to take effect.

2: The stories in ROPE's single-word deck

2.1. What do you mean by 'stories'?

I owe James Heisig, the author of the brilliant Remembering the Kanji and Remembering the Hanzi books, all the credit for the idea of using mnemonic stories to recall information. Heisig wrote those books to help people learn the characters that are found in written Japanese and Chinese. His premise was that in order to remember how to write characters, you need to look at the individual elements of those characters, and then craft a story that connects those elements to the meaning of the character.

The stories in ROPE's single-word deck use a similar concept. Generally, any given story uses one or more words inspired by the letters in the Plover outline to link those letters to the word that the outline produces. The idea is that when you're faced with a word in English whose corresponding outline you are trying to remember, you'll first remember the story for that word, as stories are easier to remember than strings of letters.

The stories generally have one or more words that represent some or all of the letters in the outline. Once you remember those words, you'll be able to transition from the words to the letters in the outline, perhaps aided by characteristics in the original word and/or your understanding of steno theory.

As a disclaimer, these stories do not solve all the work of remembering an outline, but I like to think they get you 80% there or so. That's because this is not a precise system in which each letter always maps to the same word in every story. Depending on their context, any given letter or series of letters in an outline can mean something different from story to story. Also, the words in the story can be based off just one letter in the outline, or off multiple (or all of) the letters in the outline. Finally, the stories generally focus on parts of an outline that will be hard to remember, and may not mention letters that you would know to include anyway.

I mention all this because this mnemonic system is a little "fuzzier" than a system where the mnemonic device takes all the guesswork away. (The advantage of a 'fuzzy' system, in my view, is that it's much more flexible and allows you to create stories in many different ways. It also allows for much shorter and simpler stories with fewer elements in them to remember.)

A more precise mnemonic method to use with Plover was developed by Joshua Pan, and can be found at https://github.com/openstenoproject/plover/wiki/Stenotype-Mnemonics-for-Beginners-(English)

2.2. Different strategies for creating stories

I used a number of different strategies to come up with words that could help me remember the letters in an outline. I found that having multiple strategies made the story-making process easier. If you're trying to create your own story for an outline, feel free to use these strategies as well.

My strategies included:

1. Looking up the outline in Wikipedia and seeing what words the outline stands for or represents. I can then use these things as words in my story.

2. Assigning each key on the steno keyboard a specific word for which it stands (e.g. "octopus" for O, "space shuttle" for S-), and then using those words in your story. (Note that vowel/consonant “specifiers” that you can use for this task are listed below.)

3. Identifying one or more words that appear similar or identical to all or part of the outline itself, and then using those words within my story (note: I find using one word to represent the entire outline to be perhaps the ideal strategy for creating a story, although this is not always possible)

4. Identifying a phrase that appears similar to the outline itself

5. Identifying a word that has one or more syllables that are similar to the outline

6. Identifying other steno outlines that exist within the outline, and using the words to which those outlines map in the story

7. Creating a phrase based off the individual letters in the outline (especially useful if these other strategies aren't proving viable or useful). The words represented by each letter can change from story to story; for instance, S-may stand for "sugar" in one story, but "scout" in another.

Note that these strategies can also be combined to produce multiple words for a story.

When using multiple outlines/letters within an outline to create a story, I recommend trying to use elements that don’t overlap, as this seems to improve recall (at least for me). For example, if you are trying to create a story for the outline TOEFL, it would be more ideal to create a story that uses “appoint” (the word to which the addition of TOEF maps) and LASER (the word used to represent –L) than it would be to create a story that uses “intend” (the word to which TOEL maps) and FRENCH FRIES (the phrase used to represent –F). This is because TOEF and –L do not overlap, whereas TOEL and –F do.

2.3. Vowel and Consonant Specifiers

When the following words are present in a story (and capitalized), they specify that a certain vowel or consonant is present in the outline. (Thanks to Joshua Pan for helping inspire this strategy.) Often, when a vowel specifier is present, it denotes the only vowel present in the outline, but in some cases, other vowels also appear.

(The outlines I use for these words are also listed. Using most of these outlines with an asterisk converts the words to all caps and notes the letter they represent after the word, which is useful when writing stories. For instance, PEUPG maps to "ping pong," but P*EUPG maps to "PING PONG (P-)." In some cases, the outline for the all-caps version of the word is different; these exceptions are noted.)

2.3.1. Vowels:

1. A: APPLE (AURPL)

2. O: OCTOPUS (PROBGT)

3. E: ELEPHANT (TPEF; TPAEF for "ELEPHANT (E)")

4. U: URANIUM (AURPB)

5. EU: EUROPE (KWRURP)

6. AO: BOOT (I use PWA*UT for "BOOT (AO)"; "boot" is PWAOT.

7. AE: ACCIDENT & EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT (TKAERPB for the capitalized version; I didn't create an outline for the undercase version)

8. AU: GOLD (chemical symbol is AU) (AULD, and TKPWO*LD for the capitalized version)

9. OE: DEBT (since a debt is something you OE (owe)) (TKAEB for "debt", TKA*EB for "DEBT (OE)"

10. OU: OKLAHOMA (since OU is a university in Oklahoma) (OBG for "Oklahoma", OEURBG for "OKLAHOMA (OU)"

11. AOE: MOSQUITO (PHEUBG)

12. OEU: OIL (OEUL for "oil": O*EULS for "OIL (OEU)")

13. AEU: CANADA (in honor of the word "eh") (KUPBD)

14. AOU: U-TURN (KWRAURPB)

15. AOEU: ICEBERG (AOEURG)

Also, to represent asterisks, I generally use either "porcupine" (PRAOEUPB) or "star" (STAR for lowercase; STA*UR for "STAR (*)").

Not all stories use these vowel specifiers, but feel free to add them to stories when they would be helpful for you. If I keep entering the wrong vowel sound when I'm quizzing myself on outlines, that's an indicator that I need to include one of the vowel specifiers into my story.

When these words are used in stories, they give you more freedom in choosing a word to help you remember the outline. Normally, the word you choose should have a pretty similar vowel sound as the outline, as otherwise you might enter the wrong vowel sound. However, when one of the above words is entered in a story, you know for certain that a word will contain a particular vowel.

That means when choosing words that will connect the outline to its meaning, we can use words that have similar consonant sounds as the outline, but an entirely different main vowel. To make the connection between the outline and the word clearer, I sometimes replaced the vowels in the outline with lowercase vowels, enclosed in parentheses, that match the vowel in the story.

This probably sounds pretty confusing without an example, so here's one:

The story for ROEUR for the word "error" reads:

"If you ask to have your steak grilled R(ae)R (rare), but it comes to you well done and fried in OIL (OEU), then the chef has made two unfortunate errors."

What's going on here? Well, since OIL is present, we know that the word contains OEU. That means that when writing the story, I didn't need to connect "ROEUR" to a word with an "oi" sound; I just needed to find a word that started with R and ended with R, like the outline does. "Rare" seemed like a good choice.

However, ROEUR doesn't really sound like rare, and it might be hard to connect the two in your head. So instead of writing out ROEUR within the story, I wrote R(ae)R, which sounds a lot more like "rare." The "ae" is made lowercase and enclosed in parentheses so that you won't mistake it for actual letters in the outline.

The idea here is that when you're recalling the outline for error, you'll think of R-R from the word "rare," and then OEU from the word "OIL." Putting them together, we get ROEUR.

I probably went into more detail here than was necessary, but I didn't want you to get confused when you see something like R(ae)R in a story.

2.3.2. Consonant Specifiers (thank you Joshua Pan for helping inspire this method):

1. S-: SPACE SHUTTLE (SPULT)

2. T-: TOKYO (TROUBG)

3. K-: KANGAROO (TKPWRAO)

4. P-: PING PONG (PEUPG)

5. W-: WALRUS (WAOUL)

6: H: HONDURAS (HAOPBD)

7: R-: RUSSIA (ROURB)

8: -F: FRENCH FRIES (TPAOEUFS)

9: -R: ROLLER COASTER (ROERBG)

10: -P: PINEAPPLE (PEUPL)

11: -B: BRAZIL (PWREUL)

12: -L: LASER (SUR; HRAEURS for "LASER (-L)")

13: -G: GOAT (TKPWOET)

14: -T: TACOs (though some stories also use "tea" to represent -T) (TROEUBG)

15: -S: SPAIN (SPAEUPB)

16: -D: DALLAS (TKAULS)

17: -Z: ZOO (SAO*; SAO*UP for "ZOO (-Z)") ("pizza" may also be used to represent "Z")

2.4. These stories seem like a lot of extra effort and are kind of silly. Do they really work?

Based on my own experience, I believe they do work. It's a lot easier to remember stories than it is to remember non-intuitive strings of letters. That reflects a central truth about mnemonics: to remember something, you want to convert it into a form that's easier to recall.

However, I'm quite sure that not all of my stories will work for you. Some of them reference things (like Nintendo games) that you may not know anything about. And in the process of studying these outlines, you'll probably think of some far better stories than the ones that I had. In this case, the solution is easy: overwrite my story with your story in the Excel file and Anki deck!

2.5. Why only ~2800 stories? Why not a story for every word?

There are a number of reasons why a word may not have a story attached to it:

1. In general, I only included stories when they would make a substantial contribution towards my recall of an outline. That's why there's no story for STOP for the word "stop." It simply wouldn't be necessary!

2. Quite a few of the words in this list are just derivatives of other words. If I have a story for one of those words (ideally the root), then I normally didn't include a story for the derivative words. For example, since I have a story to help me remember TPEF for the word "effective," I didn't see a need to write stories for TPEFL for "effectively."

3. I started writing stories after I had already had a fair bit of experience with Plover, so some very common outlines (like –T for "the") were so engrained in my memory already that I didn't think they needed an outline. I think the story method isn't as important for ultra-common words, since writing them over and over again will force them into your memory. The stories are more valuable for words that will only come up once in a while.

4. Sometimes an outline will demonstrate a pretty straightforward inversion, and in cases like that I often wouldn't create a story.

Regardless, if you see a word that you think needs a story, go ahead and create one! I'll admit that creating a story yourself will probably prove more helpful in recalling an outline it than using one of mine. But I thought I would try to give you a 2800-story head start. ;)

2.6. But won't pausing to remember a story take time? Wouldn't it just be faster to output words from muscle memory?

Yes! Absolutely. Steno is built for speed, and recalling stories takes longer than just writing a word.

These stories are meant to be like the giant Saturn V rockets that powered astronauts in the Apollo missions into orbit. The rockets served a useful purpose, but once they were no longer needed, the astronauts detached them and let them fall away. Likewise, these stories can help you go from consistently forgetting an outline to consistently remembering them. And once you're consistently remembering them, you may be able to let go of the story and just encode the outline into your muscle memory.

But don't worry: if you forget an outline, the stories can help you insert it back into your memory.

2.7. Anything else I should know about the stories?

1. Don't assume anything I say in the stories to be true! There's a ton of made-up stuff and false information, but it's all there to help you learn the outlines.

2. Don't assume that a capitalized series of letters that I included in a story is an outline for a word listed next to it unless it's stated explicitly that it is. In many cases, these capitalized series of letters merely resemble the word associated with them, and do not actually map to that word. The purpose of including these series of letters is to help you connect the words and the outlines for which the stories were written.

3. The stories shouldn't be assumed to be actual explanations of how these outlines were developed.

4. Mentions of products or companies in stories does not constitute endorsement of those products and services. As indicated earlier, nothing mentioned of any company or product should be assumed to be accurate.

3. The outlines and the words

3.1. How did you pick what outlines to use for each word?

I started with words that are already in the Plover Dictionary. However, I then added in additional outlines in order to save keypresses and strokes. Whether you use these additional outlines is totally up to you!

Much more information on my preferences for new outlines is provided below.

3.2. Why did you choose so many new outlines?

Because I currently write steno on a keyboard, and not on a purpose-built steno machine, I wanted to be able to write all the words in ROPE's single-word deck in just one stroke and in 5 keypresses or less. I figured that this would reduce fatigue. In addition, I hypothesized that that creating shorter outlines could also improve my speed and accuracy.

Theoretically, you could write all words in ROPE in just 4 keypresses or less. However, not all of those outlines are easy to write. Therefore, I decided to aim for outlines that wouldn't be too hard to write, which led to me incorporate 5-keypress outlines into ROPE as well.

Once again, you don't need to use these additional outlines if you prefer not to! Outlines that are added in are placed in their own column, so it's easy to tell which is which.

3.3. My criteria for selecting outlines for words in the single-word deck:

3.3.3.1. Shorter outlines for more frequent words

One rule that I sat for myself when coming up with new outlines was that all outlines for root words in the top 1000 of the ROPE single-word deck had to be 4 keypresses or less, and all other outlines in ROPE had to be 5 keypresses or less. The overall reason behind this was to reduce the number of keypresses that you would use when writing in steno. Another benefit of starting with shorter outlines was that I could then use the words those outlines stood for as components of stories for longer outlines that included them.

3.3.3.2. Different outline endings better facilitate one-stroke derivative outlines for words representing different parts of speech

I consider it ideal to be able to write a word's derivative forms in a single stroke without too much difficulty. This is made easier when outlines with certain endings are used for root words that represent certain parts of speech. Because different parts of speech take different endings, it is good practice to choose outlines that can have those endings added in without the need for an additional stroke. This principle had a major impact on my outline choices, and as a result, you can generally write the different verb forms of verbs listed in ROPE in a single stroke.

For example, PROEUS is one option for a one-stroke outline for "process." However, it is not ideal for outlines for verbs to end in -S. This is because PROEUSD (for "processed") can't be written without some fancy finger movement, and PROEUSZ (for "processes") is a bit tricky to write. In addition, when -G is added to outlines ending in -S for verbs, it's possible to run into conflicts with other words that use the -GS ending for "-tion." As an example, if you use PAS for "pass," you can't write "passing" as PAGS, as that creates "passion." (Therefore, I added in PRAB for "process" and PAF for "pass."

Outlines that can have G, D, and S added to the end without turning into another word (and without requiring a second stroke) are ideal for verbs, as you'll often add on a G, D, and an S to a verb to produce the –ing, -ed, and –s endings. (However, outlines that end in G can work fine for verbs as well, as long as you can produce a one-stroke “-ing” version of the word by adding an asterisk to the outline for the root form of the verb.) Outlines that can have –L and –R added to them (without the need for a second stroke) are ideal for adjectives, since these often take an –ly ending, and sometimes an –er ending. Outlines that can have S added to them (without the need for a second stroke) are ideal for nouns, as you can then write the plural form of the word. (Outlines that end in -T and -G are also ideal for nouns, as these outlines are not as ideal for verbs.) Outlines that can't have anything added to them are ideal for adverbs and other words that don't have any derivative forms.

Speaking of adjectives: for both old and new adjective outlines, I recommend adding in -ly and -er endings by adding on R and -L to the end of the stroke (provided that those additions don't change the outline to a different word).

3.3.3.3. Some outline beginnings/endings are more ergonomic than others

With regard to ergonomics, I have found that some key combinations are easier to write consistently than others. This may be because (at least on a regular keyboard) my hands naturally rest in a curved pattern, with the middle and ring fingers higher than the pinky and index fingers. Keypress combinations that help maintain this curvature, such as ST-, may feel more comfortable to write than outlines that force the hands to assume a different position, such as TW-.

Other writers may have their own preferences, but I thought it would be helpful to share my (non-exhaustive) list.

Beginnings that I like (and would prefer to use for briefs):

SP-; ST-; SH-; SR-; PW-; HR-; TK-

Beginnings that I don’t like as much (and would prefer to avoid for briefs)

TW-; TR- (when followed by A or O); KP-; WH- (which really isn’t terrible but does make the index finger go higher than the middle finger)

Endings that I like:

-FR (especially for verbs); -FP (especially for verbs); -RP- (especially for verbs); -RB; -PG; -FS; -PB

Endings that I don’t like as much:

-FB (especially –FPB, as it’s hard to avoid writing –FRPB); -BT. Note that it's not ideal for an outline for a verb to end in -FB, as -FBD is awkward to write.

3.3.3.4. Preferred fingers to use for outlines

Steno makes good use of every finger, so I don’t think it’s ideal to avoid using a particular finger. However, I have found that I prefer to avoid vowel-less outlines that use a combination of ring-finger keypresses and non-ring-finger keypresses. In addition, I consider it a plus if a brief uses the same finger on both hands, as I find it easier to use the same finger twice than to use two different fingers.

3.3.3.5. Similar outlines for similar words

In addition, I also tried to give similar words similar outlines so as to reduce the amount of unique, non-related outlines that you will need to memorize. If one word in ROPE is the same as another word in ROPE, except for a certain suffix (such as –ly, –er, -ive, or -tion), it will be ideal for that word to have the same outline, except with one or more additional letters (such as -L, -R, -F, or -T) that represent the suffix. (See below for an explanation for my use of "T" instead of "GS" in some situations.) This strategy has the additional benefit of reinforcing your recall of similar words.

When adding a suffix to a word would cause the word to have more keypresses than allowed (i.e. 5+ strokes for root single words in the top 1,000 and 6+ strokes for all other single words in ROPE), I had three options. First, I could change the outline for the original word so that adding a suffix would keep the new word under my keypress limits. Secondly, I could add in a new outline for the derivative word whose root (the part I to which I was adding the suffix) was similar to, but not identical to the original outline. For example, in some cases, I replaced the final letter of an original outline with an asterisk to create an outline for the derivative word. Finally, I could add in an unrelated outline for the derivative word.

As noted above, I prefer to match the root version of an outline with the root version of a word and then match derivative versions of that outline with derivative versions of that word. However, in cases where the derivative version of the word is more common than the root version of the word (especially when the root version of the word doesn't appear in ROPE), I may match the root version of an outline to the derivative word, and the derivative version of an outline to the root word.

3.3.3.6. Intuitive outlines are preferable to non-intuitive ones

I prefer intuitive outlines to non-intuitive ones. Intuitive outlines are easier to learn, and it's also possible that they are faster to write (although this speed advantage may decrease or disappear once a non-intuitive outline is practiced sufficiently). However, unlike my keypress limits for outlines, intuitiveness is not a requirement for outlines to be included in ROPE.

"Intuitive" outlines, as I define them, are outlines that (1 start with the same letter as the words they represent, or (2 have some other similarity to the words, such as a phonetic or spelling-related resemblance. These outlines often also include non-intuitive components, such as letters not found in the original word.

(Note that an outline's first letter may be different from an outline's first key; for instance, an outline that starts with "TPH" could be considered as starting with the letter T or the letter N (to which TPH- maps). In addition, it was also acceptable for an outline to start with the same letter as did a syllable within the word.)

I also admit that I initially underestimated the value of intuitiveness in designing ROPE. Therefore, I have made hundreds of changes to my outlines deck in order to replace non-intuitive outlines with more intuitive outlines. My goal was for as many outlines in ROPE to be at least somewhat intuitive as was feasibly possible.

To select outlines for words that were at least somewhat intuitive, I would often test out different potential outlines whose first letter matched the first letter of the word they were to represent (or had some other intuitive element). Ideally, these outlines would have vowels but no asterisk.

For example, to find an outline for "several," I could try out SEF, SER, SEP, SEB, SEL, SEG, and so on. For "bit," I could go through outlines that started with BA, then BO, then BE, and then BU. If one of these outlines was not already serving as an intuitive outline for a more frequent word, it could be a great choice for the new word. I could also consider using vowelless outlines, especially if all the "voweled" outlines that started with a particular letter were already taken, or add in outlines with an asterisk.

Using outlines whose first letter matched the first letter of the word generally worked well, except when the first letter required lots of keypresses to represent in steno, as these keypresses would make it harder for me to keep outlines within my 4- and 5-keypress limits. For instance, the fact that the letter "G" requires 4 keypresses (TKPW-) using the steno keyboard made it harder to add in outlines that (1 began with G- and (2 still met my 4- and 5- keypress stroke limitations.

However, in these situations, I could develop other kinds of intuitive outlines. For instance, "get" received KET as an outline, as k- sounds quite a bit like "g" but only requires one keypress in steno. "Injure" was mapped to KHUR, as KH- sounds a lot like "j-," but saves two keypresses compared to SKWR-. A hard "I" sound (which would also take up 4 keypresses) also represented a challenge, but I could use OEU or EU to represent "I" instead.

3.3.3.7. The use of –T and * to represent different endings

When it makes sense to do so, I prefer to use -T instead of -GS to represent the "-ion" and “-ation” endings, as (1 it often saves a keystroke, and (2 it can make it easier to write the plural form of outlines for verbs that end in G. For instance, I use ORGT for "organization." Using ORGT allows you to use ORGS for "organizes," and also makes it a little easier to write "organizations" (ORGTS).

When it is helpful, I also use –T to represent other endings as well, such as the "-ment" ending. –T essentially serves as a 'miscellaneous” ending that can represent multiple suffixes as needed.

When adding –T to the outline won’t work, or when –T is already taken, I like to use * as a “backup” modifier. In addition, I sometimes added in an asterisk to outlines for words to form outlines for that word's antonym. For example, by adding an asterisk to the outline for "possible" (POB), I created an outline to represent "impossible" (P*OB).

An asterisk is also used at times when a letter can't be added to an original outline to form a derivative outline because that letter is already present in the original outline.

If both -T and * were already taken, I could also add *T to an outline as an additional modifier.

3.3.3.8 -le and ly considerations

Many words have both "-le" or "-ral" and "-ly" derivative forms. For example, "nature" has both "natural" and "naturally" as derivatives. In these situations, I prefer to add -L to the root outline for the "-le/-ral" ending. For the "-ly" ending, you can add an asterisk to the outline with -L in it; however, to save a keypress, you can also try adding an * (and no -L) to the root word outline.

3.3.3.9. Outlines with -R and R-

If you have an outline that uses R-, especially if it’s a vowel-less outline, you should also consider adding in the same outline except with -R, and vice versa. That’s because it can be hard to remember which R to use, even with a mnemonic story that helps differentiate between them. Outlines for two different words that differ only in which R they use aren't ideal, although this practice still shows up in ROPE.

You may also find it helpful to apply this concept to outlines that use one of the two Ps.

3.3.3.10. Preferred keys for outlines

Although the briefs in ROPE use every key, my preferred keys for briefs are those that don’t involve much horizontal finger travel: specifically, every key but the asterisk key, the number row, D, and Z. However, plenty of my briefs do use the asterisk key, since it’s a helpful tool for creating derivative outlines.

3.3.3.11. Does it work “in vivo”?

An outline may look great on the spreadsheet, but only after it’s put into practice can you determine whether it works for you. I have made lots of changes to my original outline list after finding that some of the outlines I originally assigned to words were hard to write consistently.

3.3.3.12. Using outlines already mapped to other words

I don’t have too many qualms about using great outlines already mapped to less frequent words for more frequent words, particularly if I can remap the less frequent word to the same outline except with an asterisk added. (For example, I remapped TPUR, which originally maps to "fur," to "fire," and added in TP*UR for "fur.") Ultimately, there are only so many great outlines to go around, so I’m happy to transfer them to more frequent words.

3.3.3.13. Outlines for numbers greater than 10 and their ordinal equivalents

For the cardinal numbers "eleven" through "nineteen" (except for "twelve"), I use the ones digit of that number plus an E. For the cardinal numbers "thirty" through "ninety," I use the tens digit of that number plus a U. For the ordinal or "-th" forms of those numbers, I just add a * to those outlines.

To add these outlines into the dictionary, you will need to use the form shown in the outlines column (e.g. 1E for "eleven" rather than #SE, even though #SE represents the actual keypresses for that word).

**3.3.3.14. Remapping original "suffix + word" outlines ** A number of ROPE's added-in outlines were originally outlines that combined a suffix with another word. I was happy to repurpose these outlines because I prefer (when possible) to write suffixes within the same stroke as the word itself, rather than in a second stroke.

As an example of this strategy, I remapped TOG (which originally maps to {^ing to} to "together," since I prefer, when possible, to write the "-ing" suffix for a word by adding a -G to the root word's outline.

**3.3.3.15. Using asterisks to represent the "a-" prefix

Asterisks are also sometimes used to represent the "a-" prefix. One example is SHR*P for "asleep," which is based on the addition of SHR-P for "sleep."

3.3.3.16. Replacing –S with –Z for plurals of outlines that end in -GS If the outline for a word ends in -GS, I like to add in a plural form of that outline that replaces the -S with a Z. Doing so not only saves a stroke, but makes the plural outline easier to write (as -GZ is more comfortable than is -GSZ).

For example, AGS is my addition for "nation." Because AGSZ for "nations" would be pretty uncomfortable to write, I added in AGZ as an option for "nations."

However, even when this strategy is viable, I still recommend adding in the -GSZ plural form as an option. Otherwise, Plover may try to add in the plural form twice, resulting in a word ending in something like "-ses."

Another (and preferable) strategy, of course, is to change the word's outline so that it doesn't end in -GS to begin with.

3.3.3.17. Removing vowels from outlines

One easy way to make shorter, yet intuitive outlines was to remove the vowels from pre-existing outlines. I often didn't consider it necessary to write stories for such outlines.

3.3.3.18. The perfect is the enemy of the good

The outlines that I chose are far from perfect. However, I believe that accepting a pre-existing addition, provided that it meets the criteria described above, is often preferable to continuously changing an outline to make it slightly "better." It is harder to build speed with a constantly changing outlines list than with an imperfect, but relatively stable one.

3.3.4 Other notes on outline choices:

Adding in outlines for "hidden" root words

If a word in ROPE was based off a root word that is not one of the ~4,200 words in ROPE's single-word deck, I sometimes created a new outline for that root word, and then provided a story for that outline. This practice can help you remember both the derivative word in ROPE and the root word that isn't in ROPE.

3.3. I'd rather use a different outline for some of these words.

No problem! The Excel and Anki versions of ROPE are both super-customizable, so you can make all the changes to the outlines that you'd like. The outlines I've listed are simply my preferences, just as the stories I've listed are simply the ones that I preferred to use. Feel free to edit this list to fit your needs.

3.5. Are there some other outlines I should also add in?

Feel free to experiment with outlines to see if you can create derivative forms of them by adding in different suffixes. There are probably many such forms that I didn't explicitly mention in my notes column.

In addition, I recommend adding in misstroke outlines for words when helpful. Misstroke outlines are especially useful when you have an outline that uses the middle and pinky finger on one hand, but not the ring finger. In those cases, you'll want to add in an outline that also uses the ring ringer. This means:

1. In outlines that include SW-, try to include a misstroke outline that has SKW-.

2. In outlines that include -BS, try to include a misstroke outline that has –BGS.

3. In outlines that include SP-, try to include a misstroke outline that has STP- (or perhaps SKP-).

4. In outlines that include –PT, try to include a misstroke outline that has –PLT.

In addition, I find that it's hard to remember which R key should be used with outlines. Although mnemonic stories should help, one solution for this issue is to add in an alternate outline that uses the other R key. In addition, you may also want to consider adding in an outline that uses both R keys (as both of your index fingers may want to press R at the same time). This issue can also arise with P, so if you find yourself entering in the "wrong" P key, try adding in an alternate outline that uses the other P key.

4. Other notes regarding the single-word deck

4.1. What other information is included in the Excel/Anki single-word deck files?

The Excel and Anki files also include:

1. The original list from the NGSL website, if any, in which these words appeared

2. The frequency ranks for words

3. A notes column that can provide various kinds of information, including on what outline an outline is based; what the outline overwrites (and what outline, if any, I added in for the overwritten word); a simplified version of the outline (although this is pretty rare); and derivative forms of the outline that I also added in.

Regarding this column: Please note that information about what word or phrase an additional outline in ROPE overwrites (and what outline, if any, I added in for the overwritten word/phrase) may only be included once, as I didn't see a need to include it multiple times. I sought to at least include this information in the entry in ROPE for the word/phrase to which that additional outline maps. (Entries for phrases can be found in the phrase deck.)

If the word/phrase to which the outline maps isn't in ROPE, and the outline is a derivative of another outline for a word/phrase that is in ROPE, then I intended to include this information within the entry for that other outline. In addition, I did not always specify which word/phrase an additional outline overwrote if it could be inferred from other information in the notes column. (For example, if I noted that TP-PB for "fine" overwrites "finance," then I didn't see it necessary to note that my addition of TP-PBG for "fining" overwrites "financing," as this could already be predicted based on the information about TP-PB's overwriting "finance.")

Also note that new updates to the main Plover dictionary may render any given notes column obsolete. Therefore, before adding in any suggested additional outline, you may want to open up the main Plover dictionary to verify the word/phrase, if any, that that additional outline overwrites. In addition, you can consult the supplementary ROPE dictionary to see what outline, if any, was added for that overwritten word/phrase.

4. Alternate outlines for some of the words

# Part 2: The Phrases Deck and commands/punctuation outlines page

(Note: for information regarding how to use the Anki phrase deck, see the notes above regarding the single-word Anki deck.)

5.1. How the phrases deck was made:

5.1.1. The Phrases in English website The phrases in the spreadsheet and deck came from the wonderful site Phrases in English (http://phrasesinenglish.org/), which allows you to search through an older version of the British National Corpus to find words and phrases. (From the PIE website: “"Phrases in English" (PIE) incorporates data from the British National Corpus, but is not affiliated with it. This site was developed by William H. Fletcher of the US Naval Academy in consultation with Michael Stubbs of the University of Trier. Development was funded in part by the Naval Academy Research Council.”)

(The rest of 5.1. 2 is pretty technical, so feel free to scroll down to 5.2 if you're not interested in exactly how the phrases deck was created.)

5.1.2. Creating the list I used this site to create lists of the top 100,000 phrases by frequency (with a minimum frequency of 20 appearances in the corpus) for phrases of 2 to 8 words. (The minimum frequency stipulation meant that not all of the lists ended up reaching 100,000 results.) In addition, I used the site to create a list of all 720 results (no minimum frequency) for the entry *_* in the search box, which would detect phrases that were entered as single words.

Please note that some "phrases" in this list were actually single words that had been broken into two parts. These words were still included in my final phrase list, but were not added to my Anki deck.

I copied and pasted each of these lists into an Excel spreadsheet. Next, I sorted the list alphabetically and put apostrophes in front of entries that started with equals signs to prevent Excel from thinking those entries were formulas. After that, I used Excel's find+replace function to replace the space in between words seen in the original lists with a regular space (produced by pressing the space bar once). This step was needed because for some reason, the original spaces in the lists generated by the Phrases in English site interfered with Excel's search capability. (It was quite striking, once this step was completed, to see Excel tell me: "All done. We made 716052 replacements.")

I then used the find+replace function to replace all underscores in the original list with a regular space. (Some phrases were represented as one single word using an underscore on one occasion, but as multiple words on another occasion, which would pose issues when trying to remove duplicates. Therefore, I wanted to remove these underscores early into this process. This produced only 5502 replacements this time!)

I also replaced "per cent" with "percent"; "centre" with "center"; and "colour" with "color." Finally, I added a header to the two columns I kept so as to make creating the Pivot Table easier.

I then used a Pivot Tables function to sum the frequency totals of duplicate entries (of which there were quite a few), which also removed the duplicate entries. Afterwards, I sorted this list by the number of occurrences of each phrase and entered in frequency rankings for the top ~10,000 or so.

I then copied and pasted the top ~2,000 phrases into a new spreadsheet for additional manipulatulation, and continued to tweak the formatting so that the entries could be included in ROPE. (For example, I reformatted some rows of the list to convert entries into actual words. This involved removing the spaces that had been added in between words with contracted forms and capitalizing the word “I” when it appeared in phrases. All the phrases in the list were originally uncapitalized.)

After building this spreadsheet, my goal was to create a list of around 1,079 common English phrases that could be incorporated into ROPE. To build this list, I had a number of criteria:

1. Phrases would be included into my list in order of frequency, with the most frequent phrases getting priority.

2. Phrases were always/often/sometimes removed from inclusion (and placed in another category at the bottom of the spreadsheet) if:

a. They were actually a single word after reformatting (see below)

b. They contained a proper noun

c. They contained a set of characters that represented a symbol or did not represent a full word (such as "ve got" or "s the.). I believe that in the original list, entries such as "ve got" and "s the" were originally preceded by an apostrope (e.g. 've got and 's the). However, because Excel treats apostrophes as special characters when they start an entry, these apostrophes got removed during the above steps. This wasn't a major concern for me, however, since I was not planning on including them in my phrases deck in the first place.)

d. They started with “a,” “an,” or “the,” “his,” or “her” (especially if they were followed by a noun), or started with “to” followed by a verb)

e. They included a number represented by a “#,” or included a written number and a noun (e.g. "two years"; "the three")

f. I didn’t feel that they merited inclusion in the list (for example, “see p”; “and er”; “voice over”; “secretary of”; and “in studio”).

g. It represented a single noun (e.g. “secretary of state” and “prime minister”)

h. It was merely part of another phrase in the list that would account for all or almost all of the uses of that phrase. For example, I removed “as part” because “as part of the” was also in the list, and there wouldn’t be too many times that I would write “as part” without a “the” following it. Similarly, I didn't include "on the other" and "other hand" because "on the other hand" was going to be included.

Note that due to these removals, the numbers in the "Frequency rank among included cards" column are not contiguous.

Ultimately, I came up with a list of about 1,080 phrases that I then incorporated into the phrase deck. I gave all of these words a relative frequency rank, and used that rank to order the cards for import into Anki. (Why 1080? 1080 plus 4201—the number of entries in the single-word deck—equals 5281, which is just over the number of feet in a mile.)

However, the phrases deck spreadsheet also includes other phrases/words that ranked in my original list of the top 2,002 entries as well. These phrases/words were not included in my Anki deck, but you are welcome to look through them and study them as well.

5.2. Choosing outlines for phrases

Some phrases were covered by one or more original outlines, in which case I listed one of those outlines in the spreadsheet. However, I also created a number of outlines for these phrases as well.

In general, I tried to make phrases phonetic in nature, but some phrases include non-phonetic elements; in some cases, this is because they are based on a single-word outline that is only somewhat intuitive.

It was ideal, when possible, to create phrases for outlines that were are simply groupings of the outlines for the single words that make up the phrase. (For example, TPH- for “in” plus –T for “the” equals TPH-T for “in the.” However, such outlines are often mapped to other words. In addition, these outlines aren’t always very ergonomic. Therefore, such outlines represent only a minority of my phrase outlines.

5.2.1. Matching outline element order to phrase element order**

I preferred that the order of elements in a phrase match the order of elements in its corresponding outline. For example, I prefer KU for "can you" because the K (for "can") and the U (for "you") come in the same order as the "can" nd "you" in "can you." I often used an asterisk to "reverse" the output of an outline where needed. For instance, I use K*U for "you can," as the asterisk "reverses" the order of "can you," resulting in "you can." I believe that this convention makes some phrase outlines easier to remember.

5.2.2. Phrases and contractions Asterisks can also be used to convert an outline for a phrase into an outline for a contraction, and vice versa. For instance, I use H-D for "he had," so I added in H*D for "he'd."

5.2.3. Phrases with "an"

I also tried to add in options for “an” versions of phrases that ended in “a.” These outlines are often similar to the “a” version of the phrase, except that they also have a modification that represents the “an.” These modifications often entailed (1 a -P (which is often more ergonomic than a -PB); (2 a –PB; or (3 an asterisk. When one of these modifications was used, I didn't necessarily deem it necessary to add in a story for that outline.

5.2.4. Using asterisks to represent words following a verb in phrases

Asterisks could be used to represent the word that follows a verb in a verb phrase. For instance, the addition of S*AE for "say that" combines the addition of SAE for "say" with an asterisk to represent "that."

5.3. Derivative single-stroke phrase outlines that you can add in

There are a number of ways that you can extend some of the phrase outlines that are included in ROPE while keeping the resulting outline within one stroke. I often did not mention these derivative outlines directly in the notes, so I recommend experimenting with different outline options yourself. The ROPE dictionary, of course, will include derivative outlines that I have already added in.

Here are some specific ways that you can try to extend outlines. (I believe that the options that appear non-intuitive are all based on pre-existing outlines in Plover.) There are of course other ways to extend outlines that aren't covered below. In addition, note that you may also be able to use these strategies to turn an outline for a single word into a phrase outline.

1. You can try adding a -T at the end of outlines (or a T- to the beginning of outlines) to represent "the."

2. You can try adding in -FS to represent "was" and -RP to represent "were."

3. You can try adding in -BG to represent "can" and -BGD to represent "could."

4. You can try adding in -L to represent "will" and -LD to represent "would."

5. You can try adding in -S or S- to represent "is," -R to represent "are," and -B to represent "be" or "been."

6. You can try adding in -RBD to represent "should."

7. You can try adding in -F to represent "have," "of," or "if"; -D to represent "had"; and -Z to represent "has."

8. You can try adding in -RBL to represent "shall."

9. You can try adding in -RT to represent "are the" and -BT to represent "be the."

10. You can try adding in -BS to represent "said" and -BS to represent "says."

11. You can try adding in *T or T- to represent "it."

12. You can try adding in -PBG to represent "think."

13. You can try adding in -BL to represent "believe."

14. You can try adding in *T to represent "that."

15. You can try adding in -T or -T to represent "to."

16. You can try adding in -PT to represent "want."

Note that it may even be possible to combine two or more of these strategies within the same single-stroke derivative outline. For instance, adding both -B and -T to the same outline can represent "be the."

As an example of how to put some of the above options into practice: THAU is an outline for "that you." Here are some derivative phrase outlines that can be formed using THAU as a base:

1. THAUBG for "that you can"

2. THAUL for "that you will" (already in the Plover dictionary)

3. THAUF for "that you have"

4. THAUBGD for "that you could"

5. THAULD for "that you would"

6. THAURP for "that you were"

7. THAUD for "that you had" (already in the Plover dictionary)

8. THAURBD for "that you should"

9. THAURBL for "that you shall"

10. THAURT for "that you are the"

11. THAUPBG (which overwrites "thank you," for which I added in HAU, as I added in HA for "thank") for "that you think"

12. THAUBL for "that you believe"

13. THAUBLD for "that you would be" (which combines two of the strategies noted above)

14. THAUBLTD for "that you would be the" (this outline is rather hard to write, but serves as a demonstration of how you can combine even three of the strategies listed above)

15. THAUPT for "that you want"

5.4. Conjugating phrase outlines that include a verb**

In addition, you can try adding in single-stroke outlines to represent different conjugations of phrase outlines that involve a verb. For example, I added in WUT (which overwrites one way to write "but") for "want to." Therefore, I also added in WUGT for "wanting to," WUTS for "wants to," and WUTD for "wanted to."

Similarly, you can try turning a phrase outline into its plural form by adding an -S (or -Z if necessary).

5.5. Stories in the phrases deck

Originally, the phrases deck did not have any stories added for it. However, during my review process, I realized that these stories would be very helpful, so I ended up adding in about 625 of them. (The number of stories is subject to change over time).

The explanation of stories found in the single-word deck section of this readme also applies to the stories for the phrase deck. Note, however, that there will sometimes be parentheses and outlines separating elements of a phrase in my stories. Although this might make the phrase somewhat harder to distinguish, I believe that these stories will still be helpful.

As an example, consider the following story for PWA*GT for "began to":

"When everyone BAG (began) to eat the TACOS (-T) served by the host, the party really took off. (PWAG is an addition for "began.")"

In this story, the phrase "began to" actually appears as "began) to," since parentheses were added in to specify that BA*G corresponds to "began."

In addition, consider the following story for P*TS for "because the":

"Why isn't there any food in the house? P-S (because) -T (the) PORCUPINES (*) outside came in and ate it all! (P-S is an addition for "because.")"

In this case, "because" and "the" are separated by parentheses and -T, the outline for "the."

It's also worth noting that stories may not be designed to help you remember all elements of a phrase. For example, stories for phrases that start with SKP- for "and" often won't mention that part of the outline. SKP- appears so often for "and" in phrases that you should be able to remember it on your own after enough study.

As in the single-word deck, not all phrase outlines received a story. For example, if a phrase outline was simply a combination of two or more outlines from the single-word deck, I often didn't include a story for it.

5.6. Important notes regarding the phrases deck

1. I recommend studying through the words in the single-word deck before you begin studying the words in the phrase deck. I believe that it's more important to be able to write a series of words individually than it is to be able to write a phrase that combines them.

2. In contrast to the single-word added-in outlines list, there is no limit to how many characters an outline can contain (although I still had a preference for outlines with fewer keypresses). However, for a phrase outline to be included in these lists, it must have only one stroke.

3. I did not always note what derivative forms of an outline I also added in, so feel free to play around with these outlines and add in your own derivatives as well. (Examples of how to do so are noted above.)

4. Note that there will be a number of situations in which using a phrase outline involves more keypresses than would using individual word outlines. However, because you save strokes through the use of the phrase outline, I am confident that with practice, using the phrase outlines will ultimately prove to be faster.

5. I do not always explain the etymology of phrase outlines in the notes column next to the additions column, especially if a given phrase outline simply combines two or more original outlines from the single-word deck, or makes use of one of the key combinations listed in section 5.3 of this (phrase deck) section of the readme. (For example, there aren't any explanatory notes for the phrase HOUT for "how the," since HOUT combines the outlines HOU for "how" with -T for "the.") I believe that such etymologies should be pretty clear to someone who has studied through the single-word deck (which I recommend doing prior to tackling the phrases deck).

However, also note that a phrase outline that incorporates one or more added-in outlines for words in the single-word deck may also not have an entry in the notes column. Even if such an entry exists, this entry may not make reference to all outlines that form part of the phrase outline.

Therefore, if a certain phrase outline appears unclear to you, it may help to look at the outlines (including added-in outlines) for the words in the single-word deck that correspond to the words in the phrase. Also keep in mind that many outlines have non-intuitive components. Some letters may have been added to an outline simply because there was a shortage of more intuitive outlines. Also, note that SKP- frequently maps to "and" in phrase outlines.

In addition, you may also find it helpful to consult the list in part 5.3 of this (phrase deck) section of the readme, which shows some non-intuitive key combinations that can be used to extend outlines. These non-intuitive combinations (such as -FS for "was" and -BS for "said") are often not explained in the notes section, but study and practice should help you get used to them.

4. [Note to self: to add in additional phrases, see the "New English phrases list for ROPE V4" document.]

** 6: Command and Punctuation Outlines in ROPE **

ROPE also has an incomplete list of pre-existing and added-in command and punctuation strokes that you can use with Plover. Some of these strokes are from Ted Morin's Cross Platform Movement dictionary ( http://www.openstenoproject.org/stenodict/dictionaries/cross_platform_movement.html ), and some are my own additions. The Plover Dictionary Format page on GitHub ( https://github.com/openstenoproject/plover/wiki/Dictionary-Format#plover-control-commands ) was another source of commands and outlines, and https://sites.google.com/site/ploverdoc/appendix-the-dictionary-format (Zack Brown) may have been as well.

I will try to keep this list up-to-date, but it won't be comprehensive. If you wish to see all the current command strokes added to my dictionary, open up the dictionary in Plover, sort by Translation, and then scroll down near the very bottom for strokes that start with {. (Note that many command strokes start with {# .) Pre-existing command strokes can be found in the Commands.json dictionary.

I don't intend for any additions in ROPE to overwrite the only option for a command stroke unless I have added an alternative command stroke in my dictionary.

Like the words and phrases in ROPE, this list is subject to change over time.

# Part 4: Other considerations

1. I just downloaded Plover for the first time tonight. Can I start using this immediately?

I wouldn't recommend using this until you've gone through all the terrific Learn Plover! exercises. (https://sites.google.com/site/ploverdoc/ ) I normally didn't include any information about interpreting outlines if it was already listed there. For instance, the stories assume that you know which combinations of keys on the Plover keyboard (e.g. PH-, -BG) map to which keys (e.g. M, K.).

Once you've done the Learn Plover! exercises, I think you're welcome to start ROPE if you'd like to.

2. Do you plan to keep updating this?

Yes. This is definitely still a work in progress.

I also plan to release frequent updates to these files. However, if I make more major updates in the future, I might release a new set of materials with a different name (e.g. ROPE 3.1 or even ROPE 4.0.)

3. I'd like to contribute! Can I send you stories and corrections?

Corrections are welcome! As far as stories go, I think the best thing to do is add those stories to your deck, and then share them online for others to use if you wish, rather than sending them directly to me.

4. I don't like the formatting of the Anki cards! The text is far too large/small.

My apologies for this. I use Anki on an unscaled 4K monitor, so I have to make the text a lot larger than I otherwise would. You can change the font size and formatting of the deck through Anki, and there should be online FAQs available to help you out with that.

5. What is the purpose of the outlines poster, and should I use it as a learning resource?

The outlines poster, which only includes outlines from the single-word deck, is really just there for fun. I use the PNG version as a 4K desktop background, and I can print out the PDF version onto 3 letter-sized pages as a physical poster. These posters are not updated very often, so over time they will become more and more outdated. Therefore, I would not recommend them as a serious learning reference.

6. Copyright info:

I release all of the stories I myself wrote into the public domain (along with the outlines I created, if that is necessary/possible), so you can do whatever you want with them. (All trademarks referenced in the stories, of course, are still protected by law.) The makers of the NGSL report that "all of our corpus-derived word lists are public domain and available to you for free as long as you properly cite our work." I also received permission to use the "NGSL Stats & Frequencies to 34K" document in this project.

The Phrases in English website states that "to help ensure continued support for this and follow-on projects, users are kindly requested to cite it by name and URL in their work and to provide the developer bibliographic data and electronic copies of any publications or papers which use data from this site." I cited the website above, but unfortunately William Fletcher's email did not appear to be in service when I tried contacting him. (I did try reaching out to him through LinkedIn, though.)

7. Note on glitchy early version of Anki deck:

[This is sort of a "note to self" for future Anki file creation.] When I first created the Anki deck for an earlier version of ROPE, I copied and pasted the cells directly from Excel into Notepad, saved the Notepad file as an UTF-8 document, and then imported this document into Anki. This led to some odd issues (for instance, 4198 of the 4201 cards were imported, but "lab," "lamp," and "ingredient" were not; in addition, some cards had missing characters, such as missing quotation marks). Therefore, I went back and reread the instructions for importing Excel files into Anki (https://docs.google.com/document/d/12YE_FS6A9ANLTESJNtPP116ti4nNmCBghyoJBRtno_k/edit# ), and now I realize I must do the following for a successful import:

1. Within Exel, save the Excel file as a Unicode Text .txt file with a different name. (To prepare this file, I copied and pasted (as values) only the rows and columns I needed for the Anki cards from ROPE’s Excel file into a new Excel file; cleared all the formatting; and then saved it in Exel as a Unicode Text file.)

2. Open this Unicode text file in Notepad (rather than copy and paste the text from the ROPE Excel file directly into Notepad). Before opening the file, change the "encoding" to Unicode within the dropdown menu.

3. Save this Notepad file as a UTF-8 file by changing the encoding to UTF-8 at the bottom, then saving it as a .txt file once again. Change the name from the original .txt file as well so that you'll know which one to import into Anki.

4. Import this UTF-8 file into Anki. I recommend having "Import even if existing note has same first field" selected, as it appears that otherwise, cards will not be added to a deck if they exist elsewhere.

Note: the error message "the first field of the note type must be mapped" may occur if, during the import process, you do not map any field to the first field (Front) of the ROPE note type. To solve this, map the word/phrase column to "front" instead of to the word/phrase field. (Another solution could potentially be to delete the "front" field, but that would probably delete all of the words from the English ROPE deck! Therefore, for now, I'll simply map the word/phrase column to "front.")

Even with all these steps, after enough practice, you should be able to import a set of cards from Excel into Anki in less than 4 minutes.

7.3: A word of caution on editing the cards in the Anki deck:

If you add in a new outline for a card in the Anki deck, and that card is not due soon because you have already guessed it a number of times, I recommend going into the "Browse" section, selecting the ROPE deck that you wish to edit, and rescheduling the card so that it will be placed in the review queue with an interval in between 0 and 0 days (the default option). This will help you practice the new outline more frequently.

7.4. Is a VR version of ROPE being planned?

Not at this time, no.

-Kenneth Burchfiel