A Brief History of Shorthand

                                                        Definitions of Shorthand

Shorthand is a method of rapid writing by means of abbreviations and symbols, used especially for taking dictation. The major systems of shorthand currently in use, are those devised in 1837 by Sir Isaac Pitman and (in the U.S.) in 1888 by John Gregg (1867-1948)

Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to longhand, a more common method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek stenos and graphein. Source: Wikipedia

Kate Loveman

 I am currently reading a most fascinating book, The Strange History of Samuel Pepys’ Diary by Kate Loveman whom I discover to be something of a Pepys’ expert. In fact, she is thoroughly and completely immersed in Pepysiana and any reader uncovers a cornucopia of facts about Samuel, his diary and his life.  One of the amazing discoveries for me was that Pepys wrote the entire diary, over a period of nine years, [Jan.1, 1660, to May 31,1666], finishing due to failing eyesight] in a shorthand , using a system of symbols of his own devising to ensure the secrecy of its contents. His current biographer, Kate Loveman, worked on his diary for years before she tackled the formidable task of actually deciphering his shorthand and she feels the considerable effort to do so, added new layers of meaning and intention to her appreciation of the diary. Many others have tried, with varying degrees of comprehension, generally as part of the idea of future publication. Pepys died in 1703 leaving his famous library including the secret diary, to his nephew, John Jackson, but it was not until Jackson’s death in 1722 that his widow donated the entire library to Magdalene College, Cambridge. It took almost a further century to see the first publication of Pepys’ diary by Lord Braybrooke, based on an assumed mastery of Pepys’ shorthand.

Pepys' Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge

And this is how I have discovered the urge to learn much more about shorthand, previously lightly dismissed by me as being of low-level expertise and importance. In fact, shorthand is as old as literature! Anyone who has had to make hasty notes on a talk, of a meeting, of a discussion, has probably invented his own shorthand as being of temporary but urgent necessity. Witness Tiro, the freed slave, who took down Cicero’s orations using a stylus on wax tablets, and was possibly the first to use initial letters to stand as words in his own shorthand record of the great man’s speeches.  Boswell, while commenting on his own attempts to preserve the text of Johnson’s 
conversations said, “I had a method of my own, of writing half-words and leaving out some altogether so as to keep the substance and language of any discourse.” Real (i.e. formal, published) shorthand appeared only when writing master Peter Bales, and Dr Timothy Bright printed their system in 1588, the year of the Armada. Bales’s learned opinion was, 

Cicero, the greatest orator in Rome
whose words were recorded in shorthand
on wax tablets by Tiro, a freed slave.

James Boswell 1740-1795

“to write as a man speaketh ….. may in appearance seem difficult, but it is in effect very easy, containing many commodities under a few principles, the shortness whereof is attained by memory and swiftness by practice and sweetness by industry.” His explanation does not suggest to the
                                                  shorthand pupil that he is in for an                                                    easy ride!                                                        

Between 1588 and 1837, perhaps two hundred different methods of shorthand were marketed! Dickens alluded, in his David Copperfield, to the troubles of learning shorthand. He wrote, “a perfect and entire command of the mystery of shorthand writing and reading was about equal in difficulty to the mastery of six languages.”  Isaac Pitman rode to the rescue in 1837! Before the 1870s, shorthand was used more for jotting down one's thoughts or discreetly recording the conversation of others. But Pitman's system, imposingly named, “Stenographic Soundhand” was for professionals and it became the most widely used in the world, adapted to no fewer than fourteen European and Oriental languages. It was so famous that people assumed erroneously that Pitman had invented shorthand but what he did was to regularise and popularise his system, still in use today. Pitmans was used by wordsmiths such as court reporters and secretaries though he grandly suggested, “When people correspond by shorthand, friendships grow six times as fast as under the withering, blighting influence of the moon of longhand.” He originally intended his system to be a sort of written, diagrammatic Esperanto. Internationalists were enthusiastic about this idea and something of a shorthand craze developed in mid-nineteenth Britain but emphasis was increasingly placed on speed and with that came greater complexity. As a result, the shorthand world experienced a slightly chaotic period and this made it easier for Gregg to introduce his system, based on different principles a few years later.

Gregg's shorthand demonstrating
its complexity

A Manchester Guardian article of 20^th July 1901 was reprinted in July 2011 and included the later readers’ responses to the article. An interesting letter from Trudy Christopher in August 2009, said she had enjoyed learning Gregg’s shorthand in the 1940s, up to130 words per minute, but had been nonplussed in the 1980s to be asked about her shorthand at a job interview at a law firm. She was told that the firm’s lawyers felt shorthand expertise indicated a good background in grammar, spelling, punctuation etc. though perhaps editors were also impressed because they saw in it a reflection of other desirable qualities such as intellectual dedication. She got the job though rarely used her shorthand subsequently but always emphasised that using it ‘made for beautiful calligraphy.’

One other letter in 2009, contained a grandmother’s response: “To my grandchildren, the most interesting thing about me is my ability to write ‘a secret language’. I still use it to make my Christmas lists, which they try and try to figure out. Since it seems to be disappearing, I shall begin to teach it to them for their own use. It did lead me to a successful career – back in the olden days.”       

Leah Price wrote an essay on the history of shorthand, published in 2008 in the London Review of Books and towards the end of her article, she writes: ‘the most poignant postings ask for help in decoding a grandmother’s or aunt's diary.'