My mother taught Pitman shorthand (as well as related secretarial skills) for many years until probably the early nineties. My father still has many of her old textbooks, and some of them are novels translated into shorthand for reading and comprehension practice. They're kind of odd things to look at - page after page of squiggles that are somehow clearly artificial rather than natural orthography.
Also, it is interesting to encounter an encyclopedia article explaining something that was, until recently, common enough that its existence and usage was part of general knowledge. A useful reminder of how things change.
I don't think the point was that Wikipedia exclusively documents obscure knowledge that used to be common. Wikipedia obviously contains information about all the things, but shorthand used to be very common and it's funny to see it now observed as a curiosity on HN and referenced on Wikipedia.
>> shorthand used to be very common and it's funny to see it now observed as a curiosity on HN
Seeing this Wikipedia link made me feel old.
Shorthand was indeed very common, my older sister took Pitman shorthand courses in high school, but by the time I hit high school in the mid 80s, it was no longer offered at my school. By the time the 90s rolled around, it was probably a dying craft. Heck, in the early 90s, I had a summer job using a dedicated Wang word processing machine, typing out paper memos using a dictaphone (remember those?).
As I get older, I find it interesting when younger generations find novelty in things from my younger days, like hollerith cards, walkmen, vinyl, and film cameras.
When I was in high school in the 90s, I took a typing class on actual typewriters, and it was definitely taught with the idea of training people to be secretaries and not software developers.
Back when I was in college, our department secretary often mused about being the last person left on campus who used shorthand, having started at a time when it was how all meetings were transcribed.
Then again, she was also the only person on campus who could get away reasonably safely with writing her passwords on Post-Its around her monitor.
Is there a good app or other ressource to learn shorthand? I want to learn it, for quite some time now, but haven‘t found any good approach without a training course...
I'd recommend Teeline. It was developed for British journalists. I've used it off and on when I was a scrum-master to keep notes on standups
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teeline_Shorthand
My economics and music teacher always wrote anything not for students in shorthand. It was her natural instinct, and had to actively think sometimes to correct herself. It was one of the most useful things she felt she learned in life. She gave me $300 after graduation when I met her at the library to give her an update on whats going on in my life. I don't think I've met a teacher that cared as much as she did. She always wanted a hug when old students saw her, and refuses to retire. I always make sure if I'm home to stop by to keep her updated on technology news and see what's going on in her life.
She's the only person to date that I have met that knows shorthand. She has an insane amount of crazy stories.
My mom worked as a secretary and so did my grandma. They both know shorthand.
When you’re saying something to them and they’re taking notes, it’s amazing how suddenly they’ll switch to shorthand even knowing that the notes are for you or for someone that doesn’t know it. Interesting at the doctors office or somewhere where we have to fill paperwork.
Interestingly, they have a hard time understanding each other’s sometimes. There’s some basics that are fine, but each one has adds their own bit of style I guess which makes it harder.
My moms signature is also weird. Her name has a g and she writes it weird because of something in shorthand. That g made faking her signature a pain. Then we learned teachers didn’t really notice.
In Czech Wikipedia, they mention a Czech record from 1957 of 200 words/min. They compare normal writing 20-40 words/min, normal speech 70 words/min, TV speech 80-100 words/min.
So a well-designed modern shorthand could probably go over 200 words/min.
There are still some court reporters in the US using Gregg shorthand, and are able to record at over 200 words per minute. [1]
Modern" shorthand is really largely the same as shorthand as done in the early 20th century though. Gregg and Pitman are both phonetical, so there's really nothing particularly special about modern language that doesn't apply, other than that there may not be brief forms for words such as "cell phone" or "computer", but they could be created, though all it'd do if you don't is slow down your top speed. They're still not ultra-common words though.
Any one knows a good (preferably free online) source for learning shorthand? I was recently interested in learning it, but was shocked by how little decent online material there is about it.
If it's for your own personal use, I'd suggest Teeline Gold - The Course Book. Teeline isn't quite as efficient as Pitman or Gregg, but it's much easier to learn. It's essentially a progressive enhancement of standard handwriting and offers a useful improvement in speed even if you only partially learn the system. It's the standard method taught on British journalism courses, on the pragmatic basis that many journalists will primarily rely on digital recorders and won't get the full benefit from a more efficient but more difficult shorthand system.
I've been looking into alphanumeric shorthand, it has the advantage of not learning new scripts or characters and easy with a keyboard. But then my keyboard layout (dvorak-iu) is not optimized for this and I have to redesign it as otherwise it might slow me down.
Another interesting one is Quickscript, technically not a shorthand but you can write quicker and it's phonetics based.
Yet another nice technique is using a specialized steno keyboard like Velotype keyboard (invented in my country)
Growing up I was always astounded by how fast my Mother could take notes and remember so many details based on what looked like a bunch of crazy scribbles to me. I had always wanted to learn it but never took the time as I got older. Might be something worth checking out.
If anyone is intrigued by constructed scripts like shorthand, there are some more approachable, practical ones that don't need years of study.
The poet George Bernard Shaw was famously irritated by English orthography, especially spelling, and pushed for reform. To that end he first invented a phonetic transcription of English which he called Shavian [1] and published book written in it as a fun demonstration [2].
Starting with Shavian, Kingsley Read then improved the alphabet into a more practical form called Quikscript [3], a little more cursive and designed for handwriting. I've used it for journalling and there's a few users out there [4] if you search.
The Shavian alphabet and the book published using it both occurred after Shaw died. His estate funded a trust to accomplish those things; Shaw never saw either.
The sad part is that Shaw devoted a sizable part of his estate towards establishing the script, but after debtors and everyone else was done with it, there were only enough funds to publish one book (Shaw's Androcles and the Lion)... To think we might have made maybe even a tiny step towards English orthography reform...
I don't find it "easy" to read that, but it's not impossible. And depending on personal levels of experience, eliminating vowels might take more effort than just writing full words.
An option is to just leave out all vowels except at the beginning of words. It's quite easy to read, however it might not be worth it for just thirty percent increase in word density.
I've been teaching myself Gregg simplified since late last year. I probably put in 30 minutes a day, and an hour or two on the weekends.
First of all, it's very fun (the main reason I got into it)
I currently can write about as fast as I type. Somewhere in the range of 40 - 80 WPM depending on how many complex words I need to use (those slow you down a lot more than common ones)
The biggest negative for me right now: reading. I can write it far faster than I can read it. For things like meeting notes,this pretty much rules shorthand out as I need to be able to flip through to find a particular meeting, or something important that someone said. This will get a lot easier with practice, but it's the biggest blocker for me at the moment.
I've made about 1000 flash cards in Anki for memorizing words, short forms, special rules, etc.
Very cool, but probably an obsolete technology in an era where recording is easy and typing is pretty good. I might feel differently as I improve, but that's how I feel now.
I think the original intent was to take notes quickly and later transcribe them to be read as normal text. I've wanted to learn shorthand for writing into my tablet and have it transcribe automatically, but I haven't put in the research to know if a translation app exists.
Right, that's definitely the intent of shorthand, but it works better when you have someone dedicated to processing the captured conversation.
If I tried to transcribe my notes from every meeting, I would end up working on it for more time than the actual meeting took at this point.
I have thought about the exact same app actually. Being able to photograph my Gregg outlines and get an English transcription would be the dream.
Gregg and many other shorthands are purely phonetic. There's no difference between to, too, and two. You would need to do OCR on the outlines, map those to sounds, and map the sounds to possible words, then assemble a meaningful sentence based on what meanings make sense in context. A neural net could probably do a good job of mapping from outlines to possible words, and you could use NLP tools to try to choose a sentence from the possible outputs. It would be tricky to do well, for sure.
I'm still early in learning, so I'm not sure how much it helps, but I've heard that regularly reading material written in Gregg that you don't know beforehand is the fastest way to increase your reading speed.
There's also handywrite (http://www.alysion.org/handy/handywrite.htm) which has the nice thing that the essence of it (not much different than gregg really) fits on an index card.
40 comments
[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 90.1 ms ] threadAlso, it is interesting to encounter an encyclopedia article explaining something that was, until recently, common enough that its existence and usage was part of general knowledge. A useful reminder of how things change.
That was indeed my point.
Seeing this Wikipedia link made me feel old.
Shorthand was indeed very common, my older sister took Pitman shorthand courses in high school, but by the time I hit high school in the mid 80s, it was no longer offered at my school. By the time the 90s rolled around, it was probably a dying craft. Heck, in the early 90s, I had a summer job using a dedicated Wang word processing machine, typing out paper memos using a dictaphone (remember those?).
As I get older, I find it interesting when younger generations find novelty in things from my younger days, like hollerith cards, walkmen, vinyl, and film cameras.
Then again, she was also the only person on campus who could get away reasonably safely with writing her passwords on Post-Its around her monitor.
She's the only person to date that I have met that knows shorthand. She has an insane amount of crazy stories.
When you’re saying something to them and they’re taking notes, it’s amazing how suddenly they’ll switch to shorthand even knowing that the notes are for you or for someone that doesn’t know it. Interesting at the doctors office or somewhere where we have to fill paperwork.
Interestingly, they have a hard time understanding each other’s sometimes. There’s some basics that are fine, but each one has adds their own bit of style I guess which makes it harder.
My moms signature is also weird. Her name has a g and she writes it weird because of something in shorthand. That g made faking her signature a pain. Then we learned teachers didn’t really notice.
So a well-designed modern shorthand could probably go over 200 words/min.
Modern" shorthand is really largely the same as shorthand as done in the early 20th century though. Gregg and Pitman are both phonetical, so there's really nothing particularly special about modern language that doesn't apply, other than that there may not be brief forms for words such as "cell phone" or "computer", but they could be created, though all it'd do if you don't is slow down your top speed. They're still not ultra-common words though.
[1] https://www.courtreporteredu.org/2015/08/some-federal-court-...
https://www.amazon.com/Teeline-Gold-Coursebook-Jean-Clarkson...
Another interesting one is Quickscript, technically not a shorthand but you can write quicker and it's phonetics based.
Yet another nice technique is using a specialized steno keyboard like Velotype keyboard (invented in my country)
The poet George Bernard Shaw was famously irritated by English orthography, especially spelling, and pushed for reform. To that end he first invented a phonetic transcription of English which he called Shavian [1] and published book written in it as a fun demonstration [2].
Starting with Shavian, Kingsley Read then improved the alphabet into a more practical form called Quikscript [3], a little more cursive and designed for handwriting. I've used it for journalling and there's a few users out there [4] if you search.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shavian_alphabet
2. https://www.amazon.com/Shaw-Alphabet-Androcles-Lion/dp/B0000...
3. http://www.omniglot.com/writing/quikscript.htm
4. https://www.reddit.com/r/Quickscript
First of all, it's very fun (the main reason I got into it)
I currently can write about as fast as I type. Somewhere in the range of 40 - 80 WPM depending on how many complex words I need to use (those slow you down a lot more than common ones)
The biggest negative for me right now: reading. I can write it far faster than I can read it. For things like meeting notes,this pretty much rules shorthand out as I need to be able to flip through to find a particular meeting, or something important that someone said. This will get a lot easier with practice, but it's the biggest blocker for me at the moment.
I've made about 1000 flash cards in Anki for memorizing words, short forms, special rules, etc.
Very cool, but probably an obsolete technology in an era where recording is easy and typing is pretty good. I might feel differently as I improve, but that's how I feel now.
If I tried to transcribe my notes from every meeting, I would end up working on it for more time than the actual meeting took at this point.
I have thought about the exact same app actually. Being able to photograph my Gregg outlines and get an English transcription would be the dream.
Gregg and many other shorthands are purely phonetic. There's no difference between to, too, and two. You would need to do OCR on the outlines, map those to sounds, and map the sounds to possible words, then assemble a meaningful sentence based on what meanings make sense in context. A neural net could probably do a good job of mapping from outlines to possible words, and you could use NLP tools to try to choose a sentence from the possible outputs. It would be tricky to do well, for sure.
For now, it's vim for my meeting notes :)
You need something easy for a human to write and easy for a computer to decode.
I think Gregg is out for this reason, but so is graffiti (it's not fast enough right?).
I'm still early in learning, so I'm not sure how much it helps, but I've heard that regularly reading material written in Gregg that you don't know beforehand is the fastest way to increase your reading speed.
There's also handywrite (http://www.alysion.org/handy/handywrite.htm) which has the nice thing that the essence of it (not much different than gregg really) fits on an index card.