Shorthand

:This article is about shorthand (stenography), not to be confused with steganography (hidden writing).

Early history

An interest in shorthand or "short-writing" developed towards the end of the 16th century in England.

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In 1588 Timothy Bright published his Characterie; An Arte of Shorte, Swifte and Secrete Writing by Character which introduced a system with 500 arbitrary signs resembling words. Bright's book was followed by a number of others, including John Willis's Art of Stenography in 1602, Edmond Willis's An abbreviation of writing by character in 1618, and Thomas Shelton's Short Writing in 1626 (later re-issued as Tachygraphy).

Related Topics:
1588 - Timothy Bright - John Willis - 1602 - Edmond Willis - 1618 - Thomas Shelton - 1626

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Shelton's system became very popular and is well known because it was used by Samuel Pepys for his diary and for many of his official papers, such as his letter copy books. It was also used by Sir Isaac Newton in some of his notebooks. Shelton borrowed heavily from his predecessors, especially Edmond Willis. Each consonant was represented by an arbitrary but simple symbol, while the five vowels were represented by the relative positions of the surrounding consonants. Thus the symbol for B with symbol for T drawn directly above it represented "bat", while B with T below it meant "but"; top-right represented "e", middle-right "i", and lower-right "o". A vowel at the end of a word was represented by a dot in the appropriate position, while there were additional symbols for initial vowels. This basic system was supplemented by further symbols representing common prefixes and suffixes.

Related Topics:
Samuel Pepys - Sir Isaac Newton

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One drawback of Shelton's system was that there was no way to distinguish long and short vowels or dipthongs; so the b-a-t sequence could mean "bat", or "bait", or "bate", while b-o-t might mean "boot", or "bought", or "boat". The reader needed to use the context to work out which alternative was meant. The main advantage of the system was that it was easy to learn and to use. It was extremely popular, and under the two titles of Short Writing and Tachygraphy, it ran to over 20 editions between 1626 and 1710.

Related Topics:
1626 - 1710

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Shelton's chief rivals were Theophilus Metcalfe's Stenography or Short Writing (1633) which was in its "55th edition" by 1721, and Jeremiah Rich's system of 1654, which was published under various titles including The penns dexterity compleated (1669).

Related Topics:
1633 - 1721 - 1654 - 1669

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Rich's system was still in print in 1792 by which time Samuel Taylor had published a new system that was the first English shorthand system that was used all over the English speaking world. Taylor's system was in turn superseded by

Related Topics:
1792 - Samuel Taylor

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the Pitman Shorthand. This was first introduced in 1837 by Isaac Pitman and has been improved many times since. Pitman's is still in use in some parts of the English-speaking world, but in the USA (and elsewhere) it has been superseded by the Gregg Shorthand that was first published in 1888 by John Robert Gregg.

Related Topics:
Pitman Shorthand - 1837 - Isaac Pitman - Gregg Shorthand - 1888 - John Robert Gregg

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