Glossary

Brief is short for abbreviation, specifically as it applies to steno outlines.  Briefs are (often non-phonetic) dictionary entries (outlines) that are used to write words or phrases. Briefs are used and/or may be used for the most common words and phrases one writes, names, to shorten long words and pretty much anything at all one would want to use a brief.  Some briefs may violate steno order.

A person who captions video and/or audio files, broadcasts, streams, live conventions and more.  Much captioning is done live (also known as realtime).

Pressing down two or more keys at the same time.  All steno keyboards are chorded keyboards.  Note the word chord is often used interchangeably with the word stroke or outline.

Using the same outline for more than one word.  Before the age of computerized machine shorthand, a stenographer would use the same outline for words that sounded the same and determine the correct word to use when transcribing their notes based on the context the word was used.  For example, they would stroke TO for the words to, two and too and use the context to determine which word to use.  As current steno software programs, including Plover,  are all realtime systems, all sound-alike words have their own outline entered in the dictionary.  This can, of course, cause some confusion when first learning steno theory as sometimes, those outlines may violate phonetic or other standards/conventions, but Plover theory does set out rules defining how most conflicts are handled.

Note that should you have the same outline for different words in two or more different dictionaries, Plover will always use the outline in the dictionary with the highest priority.

To grok (TKPWROBG) something is to have gained a fundamentally intuitive understanding at the core level of your being.  It's from Robert A. Heinlein's 1961 novel, Stranger in a Strange Land.  There's a lot more nuance to the word grok, of course, both in the the novel and how its use and meaning has evolved over time.  As the Hackers Dictionary puts it:

For some, groking steno is a sudden flash of lightbulb moment; for others, it's an evolution over time.  For most, it seems it's a series of lightbulb moments contributing to an ever-evolving paradigm shift leading to groking steno.   It's pretty exhilarating  

Outlines displayed in Plover's "paper tape" feature are called notes.  Back before the age of computerized stenography, steno machines printed outlines onto paper tape.  Even though paper tape is (mostly) no longer used, many references and stenographers still refer to the printout of strokes as "notes" on "paper tape".

The key combinations stroked to create a word, phrase, number, punctuation, command, emoji or anything else are called an outline.  Note the words stroke, chord, outline and brief are often used interchangeably.

The act of pressing any key or combination of keys all at the same time is called a stroke.  Some words are written with one stroke, others with two or more strokes.  Note the words stroke and chord (and sometimes the words outline and brief) are often used interchangeably.