In the introduction in The Manual, Kingsley Read lays out multiple reasons why people should learn Quikscript. At the very least, he was adamant that we try scripts other than Orthodox¹. Some of his reasons, however, are quite dated — nobody today cares much about how much space books take up. Still, there are reasons why someone would want to take up learning Quikscript today other than for sheer entertainment.

It’s faster to write than Orthodox

I can type much faster than I can write, but I can’t type on a proper keyboard when I’m standing. Even when I do have my phone handy and open to a text editor, I can’t draw diagrams on it. In cases like these, it’s useful to be able to hand-write notes quickly so you don’t miss the conversation. Quikscript isn’t as fast to write as shorthand, but it’s much easier to learn and more forgiving of bad penmanship. As someone whose writing has been described as “chicken scratch”, I appreciate a fast-yet-forgiving script.

Almost nobody else can read it

Ever wanted to write notes that other people can briefly glance at, but you don’t always want them to be able to read? You can do this with Quikscript.

Of course, this privacy enhancment has its limitations. If other people are really interested in seeing what you wrote, they’ll probably whip their phones out, take a photo of what you wrote, and post it on Imgur and crowdsource decoding help from the Internet. Keep this in mind if you’re trying to keep things from a determined, nosy sibling who is, at the oldest, a teenager.