1. "Stenographer's Notes"
Posted by augusta on Jul-2nd-02 at 9:11 PM

Gregg published his book on his shorthand system in the U.S. in 1893.
In the late 1800's there were debates over which system was better - the Gregg or the Pittman.

Pitman shorthand was introduced in 1837.  It was not the only one in use.  Pitman was popular with court reporters, and is older than Gregg.  I'm no expert, but from this it sounds like Annie White probably used the Pitman (or Pittman) shorthand style.

There are hundreds of shorthand systems in different languages.  Forkner is one.  Thomas Natural, Century 21, Eclectic.  There are alphabetic systems: speedwriting, stenoscript, (Forkner falls under this) and AlphaHand.  And there are "teeline" systems based on alphabetic characters that were popular in Great Britain but virtually unheard of in the U.S.

After 1900 a shorthand machine was developed by Ward Ireland Stone. 
Court reporters use stenotype machines which quickly record sounds on a mechanical device operated by pressing several keys at a time.  The dominance of the shorthand machine today is due to having keystrokes transcribed via computer for a quick turnaround of transcripts.
(Source:  Various websites on shorthand.)

Thanks for the info, Augusta.  So, the stenographic machines that they use in court today are similar to the ones used in the past.  It sounds difficult to operate though? 

no capitals this time, sorry.  have cheeto-fingers.

does this mean court reporters type phonetically

i always wondered

(Message last edited Jul-3rd-02  3:52 AM.)

I believe all stenography is phonetically-based, including court reporting.  I used to work as a steno, but the only shorthand I take is Speedwriting, which is based on the alphabet.  However, what's taken down is still exactly what one hears.  When I went to work for the Department of Army years ago, I was assigned to take dictation from a burly colonel who had a bullet-shaped, shaven head.  I wasn't very confident about my steno ability (with good reason!).  He dictated a short letter, using a word that sounded like "tack."  I wrote the Speedwriting symbol "tk," which would be "tack," although one doesn't cross the "t" in Speedwriting.  I was so scared of that colonel that I wouldn't ask what "tack" meant in that context.  I figured I'd get help from one of the other clerks.  I asked one of them, and he said, "Gee, he could have meant 'TAC' or 'tech.'  I dunno which."  Humiliated, I had to creep back into the colonel's office and ask which he meant.  Does everybody recall that the steno at the Borden trial mistook Bridget's "keys" for the word "case," because of her Irish brogue?  That steno took down exactly what she heard (phonetically), but it was wrong!

Note that words that sound alike do not always mean the same thing.
"In what context"?

This sounds like the undertaker "Windward"  vs.  "Winwood" debate.

I suppose then it would be an advantage at trial to be of the same or similiar background and accent.

I suppose that's impossible in the ARMY!

BTW:  Am I the only one who wants to know what word the Colonel meant after all?

(Message last edited Jul-3rd-02  7:45 PM.)

Yes, I would too!  Thanks, Edisto for shedding some light on the mysteries of shorthand for me.  You know what might be fun too, if you typed out a sentence in shorthand for us and see if we can read it! 

If you put on your close-captioned on your tv and read along with what they're saying, some of the words come out way wrong, since it's done phonetically. 

Really?  Now if I can just figure out how to put on the close captioning, I'd be set! 

I fear it wouldn't be possible to "type" out Speedwriting shorthand notes, because there are characters that don't appear on a normal keyboard.  For example, a letter "k" (for a "k" or a hard "c") can be written with a lead-in line at the top (sort of a straight line).  If the lead-in line is short, the sound is "kr," as in "crumb."  If it's a long lead-in line, the sound is "kl" as in "clean."  There are slashes (/) for a sound like "art" or "ort."  Lots of other shortcuts are used too.

Jeesh!
Sounds like GREEK to me!
Whatever they were paying you, it Wasn't Enough!

Yikes, it sounds more difficult than I thought! 

You got that right!  I had taken a college-prep course in high school, but then got married instead.  (That's called "putting the heart before the course.")  So my folks gave me the present of a Speedwriting course, so I could get a better job.  The business college advertised that one could learn Speedwriting in eight weeks - which was true.  Getting up speed took a bit longer, though.  I was making the princely sum of 75 cents an hour before I took the course.  Afterward, the sky was the limit.  Heck, somebody was willing to pay me $l.25!  The Speedwriting came in really handy in college though.  I was a champion notetaker.  People used to ask to borrow my notes, and I really enjoyed their puzzled expressions when I turned 'em over. "kl ^e Zmal." ("Call me Ishmael," or an approximation thereof.) Or more to the point, "-w v u m' lz," ("Where were you, Miss Lizzie?") Again, that's an approximation; I don't have the symbols to do it right!

That's fascinating!
You know what that seems like?
It seems like as much auditory MEMORY as visual symbols!
I suppose not every person would be suited to learning that.
Is it like learning another language?
And do you always remember it?

Ummm...wish I could say it requires unusual intelligence, but I'm sure it doesn't at all.  It does stay with you, though, kinda like learning to ride a bicycle.  However, I have to admit I've made up some of my own symbols over time, which would make it even harder for people (even if trained in the same system) to read my notes.  I suspect people tend to shorten the symbols even more if they represent frequently-used words that pertain to a familiar field.  For example, I worked for the military, and I soon learned to tell "tech" from "tac."  (It turned out to be "tac" for "tactical.")The symbol for "Borden" would be "b/n" but it could be abbreviated still further as either "B" or just "bn".  A lot depends on the context, because the same set of symbols can stand for more than one word.  (Sometimes with disasterous results!)

I hope you don't mind me asking all these questions...just one more?

When you transcribed your "notes" did you have the memory of Hearing it spoken as you worked out your shorthand?
Or was the transcription remote in time from the notes taken so no auditory memory was used?

[I know, that's 2 questions!  You should be in STEF'S SHOES!  Putting up with me Every Day!]

I've really enjoyed this thread.  Like Edisto,I used self-taught speedwriting at work, and at school.  Up until now, I haven't run into anyone else who was familiar with it so it's been fun to read these postings. 

In answer to your question, Kat -- in my experience, because the person who was dictating CONTINUED saying other words while I was still putting down the words he/she had just FINISHED saying -- I really didn't make an auditory connection during transcription.

I suspect this "auditory memory" thing varies from person to person.  I always found that the faster I transcribed my notes, the better off I was.  If I went right back to my own desk (as I did when I left that bullet-headed colonel) and transcribed my notes, I could indeed "hear" him dictating.  However, if I had waited a week to transcribe them, I might have been in a heap o' trouble.  In Speedwriting (and I'm anything but self-taught, incidentally), the same symbol can mean more than one word, and the context matters a lot.  For example, "tk" can mean "tack," "tech," "tac," "tick," anything else that has a "t" at the beginning, a short vowel, and a hard "c" sound or a "k" at the end.  I can tell it isn't "trick," because that word would have a short lead-in line at the top of the "t" to tell me it would be a "tr" sound.  If you can't pick up the context from the surrounding words, you may have problems.  I often do my grocery lists in Speedwriting, and sometimes I'm mystified when I get to the grocery store, because there's no context!  There are some sounds in Speedwriting that are represented by symbols; for example the word "sound" itself would be an "s," followed by a long, swooping, curved line that is the "ound" part of the word.  If the first letter is capitalized, that means there's an "r" sound on the end of the word.  "Letter" would be "Lt."  I think I said "Lizzie" is "lz," but if I used a capital "L," I would be (erroneously) putting in an "r" sound.  For that reason, it's usually best to spell out proper names.  Nevertheless, it is an easy system to use.  I always say the most useful thing I ever studied was Latin (even though nobody speaks it), but Speedwriting is pretty useful too.

Thanks for the extra info girls!

LIZZER, huh?

Diana, when you replied I pictured you always a little behind the VOICE, therefore you would hold the Memory of the Voice's NEXT words always in front of you?  It did seem that what you described was an auditory memory, else how would you remember the next words to transcribe, when the voice is actually in your writing Future, while you are in the writing Present?  ---I can't imagine self-taught speedwriting or shorthand!

Does that make any sense?
I find this fascinating.  I guess it gives me an idea of how the mind works.

Edisto, I wish that I had been taught Latin.  After 6 years of parochial schools my older BROTHER got Latin, but I got Spanish.  I would have preferred Latin...I think it would be SO useful, plus I enjoy the meaning of words, their roots, their mysteries...

Sorry, Edisto -- I don't know why I thought you'd said you were self-taught. I re-read your postings and you were very clear about your course.  Did someone say something somewhere else on the board about teaching themselves shorthand or speedwriting? I wonder where I got  that idea.

You make good points about the time lag between dictation and transcription being important.  And context is definitely key!

OK -- while I was posting my message -- Kat came in with hers.  So, I'm back. 

You're right, Kat.  That would be an auditory memory.  I would have been holding words other than what I was writing in my echoic memory (auditory sensory memory).  Information in sensory memory has a very short decay period ... and is quickly forgotten if it is not passed on to short term memory.  And I seem to remember from my cognitive psych course that information in short-term memory is lost in about 30 seconds if it is not repeated or encoded semantically, in terms of its meaning.  (Sorry to wax on about this -- but how the mind works fascinates me, too.)

As far as self-taught speedwriting goes.  I'm sure it was nowhere near as effective as Edisto's course.  I learned from a book I bought in a used bookstore. It WAS the official text of the School of Speedwriting -- but I think I only had one volume in a set of three, or something.  I made up a lot of symbols myself ... but it was easier to learn than Pitman shorthand -- which I also tried to teach myself.  At least speedwriting uses some letters.  Pitman is all symbols. That was a hopeless cause!

Wow.  I'm impressed. I knew Nothing about any of this...but I do have an active imagination.  I forgot about the value of "in context", too, which you both stressed.

If you were from, say, Texas, would it be a lost cause, or at least a long time, before you could become acclimated to another regional accent, like Massachusetts, to become proficient again in your specialty?  Or would you be able to adapt by modifying or customizing your personal symbols...those you created yourself?

Well, as I mentioned, I worked for the army, and we had people from all over the place.  I knew one guy who was in the U. S. Army but had been trained in the Hitler Youth!  That was also true of my instructors in college.  (I mean they were from all over the place, NOT that they were in the Hitler Youth.  Hmmm...now that I think about it, Madame, the French instructor did seem like a Hitler Youth alum.)  I never found accents, per se, to be a problem.  I guess, theoretically, one could take shorthand notes of a conversation that was in a foreign language, but there would be a definite context problem when transcribing them!  I keep coming back to the incident in which Bridget said "keys," and what got transcribed was "case."  However, because of her brogue, Bridget actually did say "case," or what sounded like "case" to a speaker of American English.  What it really sounded like was probably "cays."  However, the steno most likely thought of the context, and "case" made about as much sense as "keys," as in, "He put his keys (case) on the mantel."  It's pretty unlikely that he put any islands on the mantel!

O.K. I think I "get it" now.

CONTEXT   CONTEXT   CONTEXT

AND that's one thing I was disregarding, not having the experience.  Thanks!

Aha!  I might be able to get this thread actually on topic, believe it or not.  Last night, I was rereading David Kent's "Forty Whacks" (an eye-opening experience in itself).  He said that at the actual Borden trial, a number of male stenographers were employed.  Each one worked only five minutes at a time.  He would then get up from his seat and immediately his place would be taken by another stenographer.  The first steno would then take his notes to a typing pool, where they were transcribed by a female typist.  As steno #1 was going to the typing pool, he would be met by steno #3, heading for the courtroom to be ready when steno #2 was finished with his five minutes.  Using this "bucket brigade" approach, the transcripts were completed and in the hands of the principals very rapidly.  It's fairly incredible that the people who were transcribing the notes weren't in the courtroom and weren't the same people who took the notes.  So, they didn't have the benefit of context!  I'm impressed!

That's fascinating stuff,Edisto!  Can you please provide a page number in Kent's book? 

I wonder where he got that information?   

My memory isn't that great, and I don't have that book by Kent handy.
Weren't the stenographers for the newspaper reports? They needed it for this very publicized story. (As I remember it.)

I can see why you would remember it that way, rays.  I found the section in Kent's book and will reprint it verbatim -- so you can see why you remember the transcription and the reporters as a related issue.

     "The reporters bolted the courtroom to flash the news to their papers.  The stenographers scurried downstairs to their cramped quarters to type the official transcript.
     Henry Ford may have taken his cue from the assembly line of stenographers and typists who set down the record of the Borden trial.  The on-duty stenographer, one of a troop of like men, sat at a desk in front of the witnesses, working a five-minute shift.  As soon as he approached his limit of time, another man moved in beside him, nudged, and took over like the hand-off runner in an Olympic relay race.  At that, the on-duty stenographer sped from the room, raced down the stairs, and delivered his steno pad to one of a battery of young lady typists.  In the meantime, a third stenographer was making his way up the stairs.  The system was so efficient that one hour after a witness had testified, both counsels and the judges had before them a typed transcript neatly bound and stitched."
(Kent pp152-153)

We really were on topic the whole time, if we called this thread "Stenography Thru the Ages".

And I just Knew if it kept going long enough Edisto would pop out with something Brilliant!

Thanks you two...

That Kent has been used a LOT lately...has anybody noticed?  Maybe we should ALL go back for a re-read!

Kent's book has always been a favorite of mine.  I guess I like it because it's one of the few that don't come down hard on Lizzie as a wild-eyed, axe-brandishing maniac.  However, on this reading, it was somewhat off-putting, within the first few pages, to find that Andrew was 72 years old when he was slain!  Especially interesting, because a few pages later his age is correctly given.  There are also quite a few places where I asked myself, "How did he know this?"  It would have been good if he'd used footnotes or explaied what his sources were.  I think he relied heavily on newspapers.

Isn't it highly unusual for so many stenographers to be so employed?
I suspect these changes were for the benefit of the newspaper reporters so they would get fast and accurate facts.
Was this used anyplace else on low publicity trials?

Thanks for the quotes.