Shorthand
any system of shortened penmanship that enables the writer to keep pace with a speaker. Shorthand was practiced by the Greeks and Romans. Xenophon is said, on slender authority, however, to have taken shorthand notes of the lectures and talks of Socrates. The earliest positive mention of Greek shorthand dates from the second century. The earliest actual specimens date from the tenth century. They are preserved at Paris and in the British Museum. Shorthand was taught at an early date in the schools of Rome. A Greek servant of Cicero invented a new system of Latin shorthand in which to make notes of his master's letters and orations. The shorthand system of Tiro, this invaluable scribe, continued to be used for several centuries. Scribes were employed by the early Christians to take down the sermons of bishops, the acts of councils, the lives of martyrs, etc. Tiro's notes, as the system was called, were used in France as late as the eleventh century.
Although French, German, Italian, and other modern languages have their shorthand systems, modern shorthand is of English origin. It appears to date from the period of the Reformation. Charles Dickens, the novelist, was an expert stenographer. He won his way in the world by taking parliamentary proceedings and political speeches in shorthand, preparing reports for the press. Over five hundred professed systems have been advanced in England and a large number have appeared in the United States and other English-speaking countries. The most celebrated of these systems is that of an English schoolmaster, Isaac Pitman, published in 1837 under the title of Stenographic Sound-hand. It was published at fourpence by Samuel Bagster, the publisher of Bagster's Bibles. The name was changed subsequently from sound-hand to phonography, a Greek compound having the same meaning. One of the inexpensive manuals written by Dr. Pitman reached a sale in Great Britain and in the colonies of over a million copies. Pitman's system has of late been modified and simplified, but the modern system is evidently based on his characters and follows his general plan of a character for each sound or combination of sounds. If written with accuracy, a shorthand manuscript is as little subject to doubt as ordinary penmanship. In actual practice the vowel sounds are omitted usually.
In addition to Pitman shorthand, the Graham, the Longley, the Munson, and the Gregg systems find favor in business colleges. The American Congress expends $20,000 a year for shorthand reporters and stenographers to report its proceedings.