Why Orthospelling?

Why you might or might not want a full-english orthospelling steno theory.

Rationale

Steno theories today are extremely complex, which makes them much harder to learn and master.

I'm writing a whole page about theory complexity (Theory in Practice), but for now, this is what has come of that.

I think phonetic steno makes a lot of sense when transcribing spoken word, but is not suited for normal usage of writing, editing, coding, etc.

Trade-offs

Speling

Orthospelling theories write words exactly how they are spelled, rather than how they sound. If you mostly use steno to write what you hear, this is definitely not a good fit.

Or if spelling just isn't your strong suit, you may prefer a phonetic theory.

Ergonomics and Comfort

Fully orthographic theories are potentially less ergonomic than phonetic theories since there are more ways a word could be spelled than ways it could sound, and because sounds can be cleverly merged in ways that do not cause conflicts. All of this means you need more keys, which means you need to move your fingers more in order to write most words. While they are still more definitely more ergonomic than any other alternative text input method, phonetic steno beats orthospelling out at least slightly.

I can say that I don't find Pinchord to be uncomfortable in any way.

Speed

An orthospelling theory may not be able to reach the same speeds as a phonetic theory.

While no one has reached professional speeds using an orthospelling theory, I do believe there is nothing stopping you from doing so.

Most words take the exact same number of strokes as a write-out in most phonetic theories. Beyond that, just like phonetic theories, you can brief to your hearts content, and get as fast as you'd like.

Benefits

Conflicts

There are no conflicts

Orthospelling theories do not have conflicts.

I'm not sure if I could really put into words the importance of this point, so I won't even bother.

Ease of Learning

If your goal is to reach (and later surpass) your qwerty speed with steno, orthospelling is going to get you there much faster.

Learning an orthospelling theory is much more comparable to learning an alternate keyboard layout. Phonetic theories impose a ludicrous amount of complexity that a fully orthographic theory simply does not have.

An orthospelling theory might have like 100 chords to learn, and that's literally it.

Those ~100 chord encompass everything* you would ever need in order to use a computer.

Getting fast with those chords is obviously a different story.

Maintenance and Upkeep

With an orthospelling theory, you can write any word that could ever possibly exist. Once you eat your chords, there is nothing left to learn. There is not dictionary to maintain, no new words to add, no homophones to deal with, nothing.