I never learned shorthand. It was the name of it that sent me running. My feet are tremendously large for my height, as are my hands. I truly am, as they say, “big-boned.” Once, I had a gynecologist tell me that my hips were perfect for birthing children. A gynecologist’s way of saying, “My, how big-boned you are!”
Anyway, shorthand. Oh, I know it has nothing to do with the size of our hands, among other things.
It is an abbreviated symbolic writing method. Yes, symbolic. It is designed to increase the speed and brevity of writing. That is, compared to longhand, a more common method of writing a language. The method where we actually spell the words out, with all the letters. Even if those words put too many letters in them, double letters, where they really weren’t needed in the first places. Like, accommodate. Or, embarrass. Mississippi.
The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography. Now, for some reason, this reminds me of those little candles you put under trays of food to keep them warm. Little stenographs. But really, the word comes from the Greek stenos (narrow) and graphein (to write).
I took typing in high school and skipped the shorthand. I didn’t think I’d use it. But how do they decide what to teach? There are many forms of shorthand around. The one I am thinking about is the Pitman Method. It was on this date, November 15, in 1837, that Isaac Pitman introduced his shorthand system of writing to anyone who would have it.
Isaac Pitman was born in 1813 in England. He was the third of eleven children. Isaac attended school but left early, at the age of 13. He had health problems, but he also struggled with speech difficulties. But more than anything, the crowded classrooms made him fall right out of his desk. He had fainting fits, it seems.
So, you can probably read a lot of other articles about his life. But from assessing the situation from afar? I think he missed out on all the spelling lessons and he didn’t want to go back to grammar school to learn them. So he molded his entire life around coming up with a new spelling system, the shorthand.
The other histories will tell you he took a job as a clerk at a textile mill but refused to give up his education. He kept his studies up at home. No fainting there. It wasn’t long before he enrolled at a teacher’s training college. Eventually, he went on to teach at local schools for eleven years.
Reportedly, while teaching English, he became fascinated by spelling. Not only fascinated, but he was also a critic. Isaac felt it needed reform. And of course, this led to his creation of Pitman Shorthand.
His system involved rapid writing based on the sounds of words. That good old phonetic way, rather than on conventional spelling. He explained all of this in a book, Stenographic Sound Hand, published in 1837.
He worked in this consistently for 60 years, always improving the method. Until his death, at the age of 84 (in 1897), he continued to advance the system through twelve editions of Pitman Shorthand. He also established a Phonetic Institute, where you have to nok on dor 2 ntr.
I think shorthand is probably not as popular as it once was, with the advent of recording devices and technology in general. Still, though, it seems many reporters use this because they must have the ability to write down what somebody says at the same time they’re saying it, then read the note back instantly to ask the next question.
In life, though, the biggest part of that skill is to listen to the person speaking, so we hear them right in the first place. Yes, to listen.
A skill many people seem to be lacking, short hands or not.
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“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.”
― Ernest Hemingway
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“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”
― Stephen R. Covey
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“We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say.”
― Zeno of Citium
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How short are your hands, or how long are your words?
