About Shorthand

The history of shorthand, or tachygraphy, dates to the ancient Greeks and perhaps even earlier. The archaeological record shows that stenographic symbols from Greece have been discovered on the "Acropolis Stone" (c. 350 BCE). As shown below, the marble slab depicts a modified writing system that uses vowels primarily, but also includes certain modifications to denote consonants.

historyofinformation.com/images/acropolis_stein.jpg - The Acropolis Stone

At the time, there was a definite need for this type of modified writing system. For instance according to Legge (2014), "In Ancient Rome, Marcus Tullius Tiro developed the Tironian notes so he could write down Cicero's speeches. It was a form of abbreviated longhand which both Julius Caesar and the Emperor Titus are said to have used" (p. 54).

Other early shorthand systems were comprised of short symbols that were simply segments of letters used in normal writing. By the late 12th century, though, John of Tilbury, a British monk, published the Nova Ars Notaria which provided an abbreviated word system that initiated the transition to other, easier to use, shorthand writing methods that were based on alphabetical symbols.

By the late 16th century, there was growing interest in shorthand in Britain and in 1588, Dr. Timothy Bright published his Characterie; An Arte Of Shorte, Swifte And Secrete Writing By Character, which marked the beginning of the modern era of shorthand. In 1837, Sir Isaac Pitman published Stenographic Soundhand and this stenographic system, along with the Gregg shorthand system developed by John Robert Gregg in 1888 are still being taught around the world (Gregg is what the U.S. Army taught me in 1971).

Court stenographers in 19th century Britain became so proficient in using these systems that they could work in relays, with some stenographers remaining in court taking notes while others transcribed their notes into longhand. This level of expertise is impressive because reading someone else's shorthand notes is challenging under the best circumstances.

The figure below illustrates some examples of Gregg and Pitman shorthand, as well as other, less commonly used methods.

Samuel Pepys recorded his famous diaries in shorthand, and Sir Isaac Newton and President Thomas Jefferson also used shorthand for their journals.

During the early 20th century, simplified versions of these more complicated shorthand methods known as "speedwriting" were introduced which were faster to learn.

Although speech-recognition software has largely eliminated the need for stenography in the workplace, learning shorthand can help you take great notes in class (be sure to transcribe them and type them up as soon as possible). Even if you don't use shorthand, typing your class notes can help reinforce the information and allows you the opportunity to record this information while it is still fresh in your memory.

References

Legge, C. (2014, June 10). Who invented shorthand? Daily Mail (London), 54.

I recently came across an essay, "An apple a day keeps the Flexowriter away" by William K. Zinsser (his real name) (Horizon, August 1967, p. 120) that poked fun at doctors who were using Flexowriters to personalize letters to patients (which also reminded them their bills were due). This essay made me laugh for a couple of reasons, but most especially because I actually used a Flexowriter in Southeast Asia back in the early 1970s. .

The first commercially successful typewriter was invented around 1870 and 50 years later, the Friden Flexowriter was introduced which made it possible to record a series of keystrokes on paper tape using 5 to 7 punched holes and then to play these codes back through a reader (at left of keyboard) to retype the same text repeatedly.

This was a real breakthrough for overworked Army personnel such as myself and I welcomed it with open arms. The Flexowriter, though, was engineered with all of the latest state-of-the-art sound-dampening technology, which meant it was only slightly louder than an out-of-alignment steam engine twice its size. The machine also tended to vibrate and would actually shake anyone sitting or standing nearby. When running full blast in a confined office, the effect was truly unsettling. (A proportional spaced version of the Flexowriter known as "The Presidential" was used during World War II by the president to personalize letters notifying next of kin of the deaths of military personnel. Although I never used one of these, I did use a proportional spaced IBM Selectric typewriter in Korea that was invented (and apparently serviced) by Satan himself, but that's a story for another time.)

In 1970 as I was complaining one day about the noise and hassle involved in operating the Flexowriter and suggesting that there must be a better way, a captain recently assigned to the Pentagon assured me that there not only was a better way, word processors were already being used at Department of the Army headquarters. Word processors and then personal computers, of course, doomed the Flexowriter and even memory typewriters in short order and it only took 100 years.

The essay by Zinsser (his real name) made me think that we'll be looking back on our current IT that we are so proud of 50 years from now and regarding it much like we view the ugly duckling Flexowriter today. I wonder what it will be like then. I'm betting there will still be no flying cars but there will be plenty of consumer robots and Americans will still own lots of guns.

Every spring, the storm clouds gather, the wind blows stronger and tornadoes of varying intensity make life interesting here in Tornado Alley. In recent years, I've noticed weathermen, er, I mean weatherpersons, er, I mean meteorologists, describe these events in increasingly verbose terms. For example, it doesn't seem to just "rain" around here anymore, rather there is "thunderstorm activity" or "precipitation events."

According to Professor Calvin S. Brown's essay, "A Tale of Two Urban Areas" (Horizon, Autumn 1966, Vol. 8, No. 4, p. 120), this trend mirrors another that is taking place in academic writing circles wherein empty nouns are becoming commonplace, apparently in an effort to somehow "sound smarter." For instance, Brown reports that, "The announcers were merely falling in line with the latest big trend in English. It can be accurately described in what may someday become a rule of English grammar: use the noun that you really mean as an adjective, and let this adjective then modify some empty or redundant noun. In the language of educationists, this rule is already in effect. Not only have city and country been entirely replaced urban areas and rural areas, but the urban areas contain slum areas, and the rural areas contain wooded areas, and the parks in both have become recreational areas."

Speaking at the world-famous Big Apple-based Department of Redundancy Department in New York City, Professor Brown responded to criticisms of his analysis of the rise of the empty noun by stating, "It is as if a man packing something in a box hadto use all of the excelsior available." While Professor Brown concedes that television personalities have the weak excuse of having to fill up a certain number of on-air minutes, he argues that writers do not enjoy this excuse: "Most writers do not have the announcer's excuse. They are simply pompous, and in their minds, the more and bigger the words, the more impressive the statement will be. They utilize instead of use, and donate instead of give -- and even, in advanced cases, verbalize instead of talk. Since such expressions are impressive (if at all) by being out of the ordinary, once they become ordinary their point is lost, and those who use them come to consider them as normal English and the simpler words as somehow substandard."

Alas, this trend appears to be gaining momentum, especially in the schools where driving is no longer taught in favor of "driver education" and "programs for teaching driver education skills" (Brown, p. 120). Unless and until these trends are reversed, it is reasonable to predict that we can expect more of the same in the future. As Professor Brown concludes, "Once you double the padding, the possibilities become literally infinite. If two empty nouns can be used, why not three, or five, or seventeen?"

3,000 BCE: Writing is invented in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt

800 BCE: Homer (his real name) writes the Iliad and the Odyssey

500 BCE: Sophocles writes tragic plays that depress everyone, including the students who are forced to study them well into the 21st century

450 BCE: Herodotus writes the first history book which ends, like all others since that time, in 1965

400 BCE: Aristophanes writes 40 plays, but most are terrible and only eleven survived the cut

300 BCE: Aristotle becomes the first, but not the last, student of Plato to doubt his wisdom and writes about it in his famous treatise, "Why Plato is full of it."

200-100 BCE: A number of essays are written in Japan but no one notices

1572 CE: Frenchman Michel de Montaigne becomes the first writer in history to describe his writings as "essays," derived from the French infinitive essayer, meaning "How can I make a quick buck without doing any real work?"

1950 CE: American schools begin assigning essays as an "educational tool"

1959 CE: Professor Verb writes his first essay, "Why I deserve a bigger allowance" (the ice cream man had just raised his price to 6 cents for ONE Popsicle -- if you can imagine)

1963-1971 CE: American students revolt against "the System," purportedly because of the Vietnam War and Civil Rights but secretly because of all of the essays they would have to write otherwise

1997 CE: TurnItIn is established, effing it up for everyone