On page 17 in the Quickscript manual Kingsley Read offers some standard contractions for use in Senior Quickscript. Looking at with & without, it is clear that "with" is 18+26. However, "without" is 18+26, followed by 1-2 more letters that are unclear. The one following 26 seems to be 3, but then it looks like there is either another letter next to that, which makes no sense, or perhaps it's a blob of ink.

I've looked up the translations of the texts he provides as examples of written Senior QS on pgs 24-25 (the Rip van Winkle excerpt, as well as the Froude and Stevenson excerpts) but the word "without" doesn't appear in any of these, so I'm stuck.

On pg 12 he states that 3 is used as a contraction for "to," so it doesn't quite make sense to me that he'd use 18+26+3 as an abbreviation for "without." I would think it would be 18+26+37+3, or maybe 18+26+37. However, my best guess after staring at it intently is that it really is 18+26+3+inkblob (meaning that his intention was that the contraction for "without" be 18+26+3).

Does anyone have an authoritative source that speaks to this point? I know I can make up my own contraction for "without," a word that definitely needs one since it's so frequently written, but I'm wondering what Read intended.

My understanding of the contraction for "without" is 18+26+37+3. The T (#3) is a half-T (described on page 14) that attaches to the end of "ou" symbol (37), pointing upward.

I see no additional letters to the right of the "without." There is a dot that separates the contractions "with" & "without." This type of separation is used multiple times throughout the manual (see pages 14 & 15 for examples).

That is my interpretation of the contraction "without."