Those thoughts about shorthand crossed my mind a while back, as we cleaned out old documents from our basement, and I came across old notebooks belonging to my mother; notebooks about shorthand, then notebooks filled with shorthand writing in my mother’s handwriting.
She was born in 1929 and took some college courses in advanced secretarial skills, where she learned shorthand. She held down a number of jobs over the next couple of decades, doing clerical/secretarial work, taking dictation, etc. She said shorthand was quite helpful for her, and qualified her for higher pay rates than other secretaries she worked with.
She continued to use it throughout her life, when jotting notes. She even encouraged me to study it, saying it’d help me out in college, enabling me to take notes better. I never did take that advice (tho thankfully I did take her advice and learned to type well, long before it was common for boys to take typing classes. THAT served me well).
So, is Shorthand a skill with any practical use in this day and age? Or have modern voice recognition techniques and other adaptations made it a relic of the past? Anybody here know shorthand?
My mother (born in 1940) learned shorthand when she went to secretarial school after high school. She didn’t work as a secretary for very long, as she wound up becoming an airline stewardess, before getting married. When I was growing up, she still had some of the instruction books, and, IIRC, some LP records with dictation for practicing, but I don’t remember her using it more than a handful of times.
By the time I started working (1989), the company where I had my first job had all of us using Dictaphone microcassette tapes for dictating memos, though I imagine that some of our administrative professionals still knew shorthand. Even the Dictaphones were on their way out, as everyone had their own computers, and was typing their own memos and reports, by the early 1990s.
In my entire work career, I’ve never seen anyone take shorthand, nor have I known anyone who was known to still use it.
Until surprisingly recently, a certain minimum level of proficiency (speed and accuracy) in typing and shorthand was required to become a secretary. Most employers (AFAIK) no longer ask for shorthand as an absolute requirement, although it can be advantageous.
Besides that, a knowledge of shorthand could still be useful for journalists, students, or anybody who has to attend a lot of meetings and does not wish or is not allowed to always carry recording equipment. It has always been a specialized skill, though; it’s not like in 1900 every single person knew how to write a form of shorthand. Perhaps typing is equally niche; when was the last time someone checked your words per minute?
I learned shorthand and typing in high school because “a woman can always get a job as a secretary.” I got pretty good at shortand, and I was an incredibly fast typist until I broke my wrist. I’m still pretty good, but not like I was.
It still can be useful. While there is no prohibition for making an audio recording of a government meeting in my state at present, reporters often have to condense 2-3 hours of audio into a few text paragraphs in the hours between meeting start and deadline. Shorthand, or a personal facsimile thereof, is one way to accomplish the task; the other is to write your column on the spot with a laptop. I see both methods being used currently.
I used shorthand as a journalist, and a lot of my colleagues, who were mostly men, knew it and used it.
When you are typing your story it’s much easier to refer to your written notes and not have to listen to your whole recording to find the quote you want. You really don’t want to transcribe your whole interview to find the nuggets.
Also, another great benefit, probably nobody else can read your notes. If some judge says you have to turn over your notes or go to jail–no problem!
It’s funny because when I was in college there were two schools of thought on typing and shorthand for women and they went like this: “Typing and shorthand plus that BA will get you in the door, and then it’s up to you!”
and
“Do not ever let anybody know you can type and take shorthand or you will be stuck in the women’s ghetto forever.”
Me, I could always, always type faster than I could take shorthand. But it’s awkward carrying a typewriter around with you, or anyway it was in 1973. A reporter’s notebook and a pen, that’s easy.
That’s an interesting question. The ability to use a keyboard is now pretty widespread, at least in the U.S., but I have no idea how many people (particularly those under say, 35 or 40) ever actually learned formal touch-typing technique, versus just being good at two-finger / hunt-and-peck, or something like that.
My father made me take a semester of typing in high school (1982), with the thought that being able to type my own papers in college would mean that I wouldn’t have to “hire a co-ed” (his words) to type them for me. Thus, I know touch-typing. The last time I took a WPM test online, a few years ago, I got about 75wpm.
I still have all my mother’s stenography books. She still did shorthand for the heck of it every so often to show me how each stroke stood for a particular sound in a word, sort of like phonics IIRC.
She tried teaching me a few times but it never stuck with me. Besides, this was during the Dictaphone era where typing speed was paramount for any kind of secretarial job.
I was born in 1984. I learned to type by being a geeky seven-year-old allowed to play on his dad’s computers. I was briefly inconvenienced by a typing class in grade school where they tried to slow me down by having me hold my hands in a specific way on some obscure and not-very-useful region of the keyboard known as the home row; I blew them off most of the time and was head of the class or close to it. I’m now a computer programmer, a job which doesn’t require much in the way of fast typing.
Fast typing is needed if you’re taking dictation and you don’t have a recording you can speed up or slow down. I think the de-feminization of typing, the moving of typing from something only women do to something everyone does, has reduced the number of people who give and take dictation, meaning most modern typing isn’t done under a big time pressure.
I’m 61, and I learned Gregg shorthand in college as part of my business/admin major. For some reason, I learned it easily and got top grades.
I use it daily in my job as legal secretary. We don’t do too many letters nowadays, thanks to email, but I use it to take phone messages and attorney’s instructions all the time. I’d be lost without it.
I’d be surprised if it’s still being taught anywhere.
My mother was born in 1941, and same thing… she learned shorthand when she was young. She was an “admin assistant” for much of her life, so I am wondering if she attended a secretarial school after high school. I should ask her next time I see her.
Another secretary where I work, a bit older than me, trained in shorthand too, but she doesn’t use it and is rusty. However, she can read about 2/3 or so of my writing.
I have invented a few outlines of my own which nobody but I could read.
The Old Wench is a legal secretary/paralegal (since 1977) and still does use it now and then. It is a rare enough skill these days but still has enough applications to make it a good one to have in your pocket. For her it means extra bucks from The Firm and an easy time if she would ever want to jump to another large/large-ish firm.
I learned it in high school and use it for meeting notes. Especially if I wasn’t too say something like " you mean it’s going to be easier for you since your not going to be doing it, you molester of donkeys" and not want anyone to see what I wrote. It’s definitely a handy skill. (I’m 56).
Thus, I know touch-typing. The last time I took a WPM test online, a few years ago, I got about 75wpm.