This topic is riding the fence between GQ and IMHO, so I flipped a coin. GQ wins.
In every case I can think of, it seems like shorthand is obsolete. Are there times/places when shorthand is still useful? I know you can buy books to learn it, but is it still offered in most places that used to teach it? Will it soon go the way of the buffalo?
I’ve studied standard Gregg shorthand on my own, and it’s a mystery to me why it’s dying out. Sure, it’s a lot more efficient to use a laptop for taking notes, especially if you’re a fast typist. But how often have you been in a situation when you needed to jot something down quickly and didn’t have a laptop immediately available? It happens to me all the time. And since I’m applying off to law school for next fall, it’s bound to be all the more valuable a skill. I’d better start brushing up in my copious spare time. :eek:
The textbook I bought to train myself (Gregg Shorthand Manual Simplified) is pretty hilarious – not because it’s meant to be funny, but because it hasn’t been updated since 1955, photos and all. But I learned quickly enough.
Will shorthand die out? Could be, but considering I took Latin and Classical Greek in college, I’m not terribly daunted about the prospect of dedicating precious hours of my life to learning obsolete forms of communication.
I’ve helped with a couple of internet job searches for someone looking for an administrative/executive assistant-type position. I’ve probably looked at 1000 or more such listings and I’ve never seen shorthand mentioned even once. Possibly it appears under a different type of title, but it’s certainly not considered to be part of the admin’s basic arsenal anymore.
Question for kizarvexius: Granted that shorthand probably doesn’t have much utility in the business world, how useful would it be for something like taking lecture notes in college? Also, does shorthand “go stale”? That is, if you set your notes aside for weeks or months, can you pick them up and read them? Or is the system really a tool for jogging your memory about things that are fresh ("Miss Jones, take a letter…)?
I’m 48 and a legal secretary. I learned Gregg shorthand in college and am thankful every day of my life that I did. As Kizarvexius points out, how often do you have a laptop or recording device available when you need to take notes on the fly? I use shorthand to:
Note down “how-to” instructions for the newest home electronics gizmo until I memorize how to operate it
Take phone messages at work
Take down rapid stream-of-consciousness verbal instructions from my bosses
Take letters
Yes, one still can take letters in shorthand. One of my bosses is years younger than me, and is a better talker than typist. Once he discovered that he could reel off a half-thought-out letter to me on the fly, he started doing this all the time. It makes me smile, because I remember the days when attorneys dictating letters to me were older, dignified types, and here’s this young, hockey-playing guy dictating like the CEO of a corporation in 1958.
I’m impressed that you taught yourself, Kizarvexius. I think that a person possessing an aptitude in languages will find learning shorthand easier than other folks. I liked languages and calligraphy and picked up shorthand very quickly.
Virtually all realtime closed captioning on television (thousands of hours of it each year) is done using shorthand. Of course, it’s not the Gregg or Pittman shorthand you’re probably thinking of. It’s machine shorthand, using a Stenotype keyboard. Here’s how it works.
The very small amount of realtime captioning that doesn’t use shorthand is done with speech recognition.
Oh, but shorthand has plenty of utility in the business world. That’s why I have such a hard time understanding why so few people use it anymore. To be sure, technology has a lot to do with it – people would rather type than write (myself included), and would rather make a recording than have to try and get something down correctly in one shot. But only a few years ago I had to start taking minutes at meetings involving technical topics I knew nothing about, and my handwriting is painfully slow. So I invented my own shorthand to speed things up. Worked pretty well, and had the advantage that nobody could look over my shoulder and read my notes. Eventually I moved on to Gregg shorthand, but just as I started becoming proficient, I stopped having to attend the meetings. I still use my own personal shorthand all the time, though.
Will it be useful in school? Damn right it will. Again, I have painfully slow handwriting. My hands cramps up after only a few minutes, especially when I’m jotting things down quickly. Since I probably won’t be able to carry a laptop around with me to every class, shorthand is the best option.
Does it get stale? Sometimes. I can read most of the notes that I took in my own shorthand. I’ll run into problems when I hit some symbol that I was experimenting with using but didn’t keep. Or when I used weird abbreviations. But most of the time I can read it.
The one big drawback of shorthand – just about any kind of shorthand – is that it works phoenetically. This means you have to get used to spelling words as they sound, not as they appear in the dictionary. If you’re the sort of person who relies on a spellchecker to get through the working day, you’ll have problems adjusting.