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Shorthand
Shorthand is also known as stenography, from the Greek stenos (narrow) and graphein (to write). is a method of quickly writing down information. It has roots in the Senate of ancient Rome and allows the annotation of more than 200 words a minute by top exponents. It enables secretaries to transcribe meetings and dictated letters. Newspaper reporters can get down details of court case proceedings or interviews.
The first fully formulated shorthand system, it's widely agreed, started in 63BC when the philosopher and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero wanted a reliable way to cover debates in Rome's Senate. Marcus Tullius Tiro, a learned freeman living in Cicero's house, obliged, inventing what became known as Tironian Notes.
This method was officially adopted, but shorthand had a difficult time. The Byzantine Emperor Justinian forbade its use after 534 AD, as it had come to be seen as a secretive code, encouraging subversion. It became associated with witchcraft and magic during the early medieval period and largely disappeared.
In 1180 the monk John of Tilbury published an abbreviated word system, prompted by the late Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket's interest in preserving sermons.
In the 15th Century, the discovery of a book of psalms written in Tironian Notes in a Benedictine monastery led to a renewal of interest in shorthand. By 1588 physician Timothy Bright had devised an English system consisting of lines, circles and half-circles. The 17th Century diarist Samuel Pepys used a form of shorthand.
Several other variations developed until Isaac Pitman, from Trowbridge, Wiltshire, came up with a phonetic system, Stenographic Sound-Hand, in the 1830s. It was exported to the US, becoming the dominant system there.
Irish-born Robert Gregg was 18 when he invented his own phonetic system, Light-Line Phonography, in the 1880s, which gradually supplanted Pitman in the US.
In the 1920s Emma Dearborn, an instructor at Colombia University, started Speedwriting, allowing more than 20,000 different words to be written once the user has learned 60 rules and a list of about 100 brief forms.
But, in an age of electronic voice recording and instant tweeting of events, is shorthand becoming obsolete?
Source: BBC
This post is for sharing knowledge only, no intention to violate any copy rights
Shorthand is also known as stenography, from the Greek stenos (narrow) and graphein (to write). is a method of quickly writing down information. It has roots in the Senate of ancient Rome and allows the annotation of more than 200 words a minute by top exponents. It enables secretaries to transcribe meetings and dictated letters. Newspaper reporters can get down details of court case proceedings or interviews.
The first fully formulated shorthand system, it's widely agreed, started in 63BC when the philosopher and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero wanted a reliable way to cover debates in Rome's Senate. Marcus Tullius Tiro, a learned freeman living in Cicero's house, obliged, inventing what became known as Tironian Notes.
This method was officially adopted, but shorthand had a difficult time. The Byzantine Emperor Justinian forbade its use after 534 AD, as it had come to be seen as a secretive code, encouraging subversion. It became associated with witchcraft and magic during the early medieval period and largely disappeared.
In 1180 the monk John of Tilbury published an abbreviated word system, prompted by the late Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket's interest in preserving sermons.
In the 15th Century, the discovery of a book of psalms written in Tironian Notes in a Benedictine monastery led to a renewal of interest in shorthand. By 1588 physician Timothy Bright had devised an English system consisting of lines, circles and half-circles. The 17th Century diarist Samuel Pepys used a form of shorthand.
Several other variations developed until Isaac Pitman, from Trowbridge, Wiltshire, came up with a phonetic system, Stenographic Sound-Hand, in the 1830s. It was exported to the US, becoming the dominant system there.
Irish-born Robert Gregg was 18 when he invented his own phonetic system, Light-Line Phonography, in the 1880s, which gradually supplanted Pitman in the US.
In the 1920s Emma Dearborn, an instructor at Colombia University, started Speedwriting, allowing more than 20,000 different words to be written once the user has learned 60 rules and a list of about 100 brief forms.
But, in an age of electronic voice recording and instant tweeting of events, is shorthand becoming obsolete?
Source: BBC
This post is for sharing knowledge only, no intention to violate any copy rights