HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Pitman shorthand is a system of
shorthand Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to longhand, a more common method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek ''s ...
for the
English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...
developed by Englishman
Sir Isaac Pitman Sir Isaac Pitman (4 January 1813 – 22 January 1897) was a teacher of the :English language who developed the most widely used system of shorthand, known now as Pitman shorthand. He first proposed this in ''Stenographic Soundhand'' in 18 ...
(1813–1897), who first presented it in 1837. Like most systems of shorthand, it is a
phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
system; the symbols do not represent letters, but rather sounds, and words are, for the most part, written as they are spoken. Shorthand was referred to as phonography in the 19th century. It was first used by newspapers who sent phonographers to cover important speeches, usually stating (as a claim of accuracy) that they had done so. The practice got national attention in 1858 during the
Lincoln–Douglas Debates The Lincoln–Douglas debates were a series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois, and incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate. Until ...
which were recorded phonographically. The shorthand was converted into words during the trip back to Chicago, where typesetters and telegraphers awaited them. Pitman shorthand was the most popular shorthand system used in the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...
and the second most popular in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
. One characteristic feature of Pitman shorthand is that unvoiced and voiced pairs of sounds (such as /p/ and /b/ or /t/ and /d/) are represented by strokes which differ only in thickness; the thin stroke representing "light" sounds such as /p/ and /t/; the thick stroke representing "heavy" sounds such as /b/ and /d/. Doing this requires a writing instrument responsive to the user's drawing pressure: specialist
fountain pen A fountain pen is a writing instrument which uses a metal nib (pen), nib to apply a Fountain pen ink, water-based ink to paper. It is distinguished from earlier dip pens by using an internal reservoir to hold ink, eliminating the need to repeat ...
s (with fine, flexible nibs) were originally used, but
pencil A pencil () is a writing or drawing implement with a solid pigment core in a protective casing that reduces the risk of core breakage, and keeps it from marking the user's hand. Pencils create marks by physical abrasion, leaving a tra ...
s are now more commonly used. Pitman shorthand uses straight strokes and quarter-circle strokes, in various orientations, to represent
consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced w ...
sounds. The predominant way of indicating
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (len ...
s is to use light or heavy dots, dashes, or other special marks drawn close to the consonant. Vowels are drawn before the stroke (or over a horizontal stroke) if the vowel is pronounced before the consonant, and after the stroke (or under a horizontal stroke) if pronounced after the consonant. Each vowel, whether indicated by a dot for a short vowel or by a dash for a longer, more drawn-out vowel, has its own position relative to its adjacent stroke (beginning, middle, or end) to indicate different vowel sounds in an unambiguous system. However, to increase writing speed, rules of "vowel indication" exist whereby the consonant stroke is raised, kept on the line, or lowered to match whether the first vowel of the word is written at the beginning, middle, or end of a consonant stroke—without actually writing the vowel. This is often enough to distinguish words with similar consonant patterns. Another method of vowel indication is to choose from among a selection of different strokes for the same consonant. For example, the sound "R" has two kinds of strokes: round, or straight-line, depending on whether there is a vowel sound before or after the R. There have been several versions of Pitman's shorthand since 1837. The original Pitman's shorthand had an "alphabet" of consonants, which was later modified. Additional modifications and rules were added to successive versions. Pitman New Era (1922–1975) had the most developed set of rules and abbreviation lists. Pitman 2000 (1975–present) introduced some simplifications and drastically reduced the list of abbreviations to reduce the memory load, officially reduced to a list of 144 short forms. The later versions dropped certain symbols and introduced other simplifications to earlier versions. For example, strokes "rer" (heavy curved downstroke) and "kway" (hooked horizontal straight stroke) are present in Pitman's New Era, but not in Pitman's 2000.


History

Pitman was asked to create a shorthand system of his own in 1838. He had used Samuel Taylor's system for seven years, but his symbols bear greater similarity to the older Byrom system. The first
phonetician Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...
to invent a system of shorthand, Pitman used similar-looking symbols for phonetically related sounds. He was the first to use thickness of a stroke to indicate voicing (voiced consonants such as and are written with heavier lines than unvoiced ones such as /p/ and /t/), and consonants with similar place of articulation were oriented in similar directions, with straight lines for
plosives In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), li ...
and arcs for
fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in ...
s. For example, the dental and alveolar consonants are upright: = , = , = , = , = (as in ''thigh''), = (as in ''thy''). Pitman's brother Benjamin Pitman settled in
Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line w ...
, in the United States and introduced Pitman's system there. He used it in the 1865–67 trial of the conspirators behind the assassination of
Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation throu ...
. In
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...
the system was introduced by another Pitman brother,
Jacob Jacob (; ; ar, يَعْقُوب, Yaʿqūb; gr, Ἰακώβ, Iakṓb), later given the name Israel, is regarded as a patriarch of the Israelites and is an important figure in Abrahamic religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. ...
. Jacob Pitman is buried in
Rookwood Necropolis Rookwood Cemetery (officially named Rookwood Necropolis) is a heritage-listed cemetery in Rookwood, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is the largest necropolis in the Southern Hemisphere and is the world's largest remaining operating ...
,
Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mounta ...
. His epitaph is written phonetically:
IN LUVING MEMERI OV JACOB PITMAN, BORN 28th NOV. 1810 AT TROWBRIDGE ENGLAND, SETELD IN ADELAIDE 1838, DEID 12TH MARCH 1890. ARKITEKT, INTRODIUST FONETIK SHORTHAND AND WOZ THE FERST MINISTER IN THEEZ KOLONIZ OV THE DOKTRINZ OV THE SEKOND OR NIU KRISTIAN CHURCH WHICH AKNOLEJEZ THE LORD JESUS CHRIST IN HIZ DEVEIN HIUMANITI AZ THE KREATER OV THE YUNIVERS, THE REDEEMER AND REJENERATER OV MEN. GOD OVER AUL, BLESED FOR EVER.
At one time, Pitman was the most commonly used shorthand system in the entire English-speaking world. Part of its popularity was due to the fact that it was the first subject taught by correspondence course. Today in many regions (especially the U.S.), it has been superseded by Gregg shorthand, developed by John Robert Gregg.
Teeline Teeline is a shorthand system developed in 1968 by James Hill, a teacher of Pitman Shorthand. It is accepted by the National Council for the Training of Journalists, which certifies the training of journalists in the United Kingdom. It is ma ...
has become more common in recent years, as it is based on spelling, rather than pronunciation.


Writing

Like Gregg shorthand, Pitman shorthand is phonemic: with the exception of abbreviated shapes called logograms, the forms represent the sounds of the English word, rather than its spelling or meaning. Unlike Gregg, pairs of consonsant phonemes distinguished only by
voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound producti ...
are notated with strokes differing in thickness rather than length. There are twenty-four consonants that can be represented in Pitman's shorthand, twelve vowels, and four
diphthong A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...
s. The consonants are indicated by strokes, the vowels by interposed dots.


Logograms (Short Forms)

Common words are represented by special outlines called logograms (or "Short Forms" in Pitman's New Era). Words and phrases which have such forms are called grammalogues. Hundreds exist and only a tiny number are shown above. The shapes are written separately to show that they represent distinct words, but in common phrases ("you are", "thank you", etc.) two or three logograms may be joined together, or a final flick added to represent ''the''.


Consonants

The consonants in Pitman's shorthand are pronounced ''bee, pee, dee, tee, jay, chay, gay, kay, vee, eff, thee, ith, zee, ess, zhee, ish, em, el, en, ray ar, ing, way, yay,'' and ''hay''. When both an unvoiced consonant and its corresponding voiced consonant are present in this system, the distinction is made by drawing the stroke for the voiced consonant ''thicker'' than the one for the unvoiced consonant. (Thus ''s'' is and ''z'' is .) There are two strokes for ''r'': ''ar'' and ''ray''. The former assumes the form of the top right-hand quarter of a circle (drawn top-down), whereas the latter is like ''chay'' , only less steep (drawn bottom to top). There are rules governing when to use each of these forms.


Vowels

The long vowels in Pitman's shorthand are: . The short vowels are . The long vowels may be remembered by the sentence, "Pa, may we all go too?" , and the short vowels may be remembered by the sentence, "That pen is not much good" . A vowel is represented by a dot or a dash, which is written with either a light stroke (for a short vowel) or heavy stroke (for a long vowel). For example, ''sate'' is written as ")•, ", but ''set'' is written as ")·, "; ''seat'' is written as ")., ", but ''sit'' is written as ")., ". Vowels are further distinguished by their position relative to the consonant stroke – beginning, middle or end – for a total of 12 possible combinations. Another feature of Pitman's shorthand allows most vowels to be omitted in order to speed up the process of writing. As mentioned above, each vowel is written next to either the beginning, middle or end of the consonant stroke. Pitman's shorthand is designed to be written on lined paper and when a word's first vowel is a "first position" vowel (i.e. it is written at the beginning of the stroke), the whole shorthand outline for the word is written above the paper's ruled line. For a second position vowel, the outline is written on the line, and for a third position vowel, it is written through the line. In this way, the position of the outline indicates that the first vowel can only be one of four possibilities. In most cases, this means that the first and often all the other vowels can be omitted entirely.


Diphthongs

ie \;\;\; ^\lor \qquad oi \;\;\; ^\mathfrak \qquad ow \;\;\; _\land \qquad ew \;\;\; _\cap There are four diphthongs in Pitman's shorthand, representing , , , , as in the words "I enjoy Gow's music." The first three appear as small checkmarks; the "ew" sound is written as a small arch. Both "ie" and "oi" are written in first position, while "ow" and "ew" are written in third position. In the same way, the whole outline is placed above, on or through the paper's ruled line. If the diphthong is followed by a neutral vowel, a little flick is added.


Other shapes

;Circles: Circles are of two sizes – small and large. A small circle represents 's' (''sing'') and 'z' (''gaze''). A large circle at the beginning of a word represents the double consonant 'sw' (''sweep''). Elsewhere it represents 's-s': a sequence of two 's' or 'z' sounds with a vowel in between (''crisis'', ''crises'' or ''exercise''). The vowel in the middle may be any of the vowels or diphthongs, though any vowel other than 'e' must be notated inside the circle. ;Loops:Loops are of two sizes – small and large. The small loop represents 'st' and 'sd' (''cost'' and ''based''). The large loop represents 'ster' (''master'' or ''masterpiece''). The 'ster' loop is not used at the beginning of a word; i.e, it would not be used to notate the word ''sterling''. ;Hooks :Stroke-initial hooks. For straight strokes, an initial hook may be written in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. A clockwise initial hook represents 'r' after the stroke (''tray'', ''Nichrome'', ''bigger''). A counter-clockwise initial hook represents 'l' after the stroke (''ply'', ''amplify'', ''angle''). For curved strokes, the hook is written inside the curve and a small hook represents 'r' while a large hook represents 'l'. :Stroke-final hooks. For straight strokes, a final hook may be written in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. A clockwise final hook represents 'en' after the stroke (''train'', ''chin'', ''genuine''), while a counter-clockwise final hook represents 'eff' or 'vee' after the stroke (pave, calf, toughen). For curved strokes, the hook is written inside the curve and it represents 'n' after the stroke (''men'', ''thin''). :'Shun' hook. A large hook written at the end of a stroke represents the sound 'shun' or 'zhun', as in ''fusion'' or ''vision''. The 'shun' hook is written either to the left or right depending on the positions of other attachments and vowels in the stroke.


Halving and doubling

;Halving: Many strokes (both straight and curved) may be halved in length to denote a final 't' or 'd'. The halving principle may be combined with an initial or final hook (or both) to make words such as "trained" appear as a single short vertical light stroke with an initial and final hook. There are some exceptions to avoid ambiguous forms; for example, a straight-r stroke can't be halved if it's the only syllable, because that might be confused for some other short-form (logogram) consisting of a short-stroke mark in that direction ("and" or "should"). ;Doubling: If a word contains 'ter', 'der', 'ture', 'ther', or 'dher' — for example, in ''matter'', ''nature'', or ''mother'' — the preceding stroke is written double the size. There are exceptions to avoid ambiguous forms; for example, "leader" is not written as a doubled-l but as l plus a hooked-d representing "dr". In contrast, "later", for example, is written with a doubled-l. Straight strokes at the beginning of a word are not doubled unless they have a final hook or attached diphthong.


Cultural references

Linguist
Henry Sweet Henry Sweet (15 September 1845 – 30 April 1912) was an English philologist, phonetician and grammarian.''Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language'', as hosted oencyclopedia.com/ref> As a philologist, he specialized in the Germanic l ...
dubbed Pitman's Shorthand "Pitfall Shorthand" in his 1892 ''Manual of Current Shorthand''. In the preface to his 1913 play '' Pygmalion'',
George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
cites
Henry Sweet Henry Sweet (15 September 1845 – 30 April 1912) was an English philologist, phonetician and grammarian.''Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language'', as hosted oencyclopedia.com/ref> As a philologist, he specialized in the Germanic l ...
's "Pitfall Shorthand" comment. The Christian devotional text "
My Utmost for His Highest ''My Utmost for His Highest'' is a daily Christian devotional by Oswald Chambers (1874–1917) that compiles his preaching to students and soldiers. Chambers' widow self-published the book with Alden in Oxford circa 1924 (Lukabyo, "From a Ministr ...
" (1924) was originally copied down by Rev. Oswald Chambers’ wife, Gertrude "Biddy" Chambers, in Pitman Shorthand. An example of a journalist's use of Pitman Shorthand can be found in ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...
'' newspaper's GNM Archive, Clyde Sanger notebooks from the mid-20th century, donated to the archive in 2018, and in late 2020 undergoing a transcription process. In the 1959 spy comedy film
Our Man in Havana ''Our Man in Havana'' (1958) is a novel set in Cuba by the British author Graham Greene. He makes fun of intelligence services, especially the British MI6, and their willingness to believe reports from their local informants. The book predates ...
a British agent dictates a secret cable to a secretary, who records the text in Pitman Shorthand. The protagonist of
David R. Palmer David R. Palmer (born 1941) is an American science fiction author. His works have been nominated three times for Hugo Awards. Biography Palmer was born at Chicago and studied at Highland Park High School. He is married and lives in Florida, w ...
's novels ''
Emergence In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence occurs when an entity is observed to have properties its parts do not have on their own, properties or behaviors that emerge only when the parts interact in a wider whole. Emergenc ...
'' (1981) and ''Tracking'' (2008) purportedly writes her journals in Pitman Shorthand, declaring it the "best, potentially fastest, most versatile of various pen systems". In the 2005 film version of ''
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (sometimes referred to as ''HG2G'', ''HHGTTG'', ''H2G2'', or ''tHGttG'') is a comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally a 1978 radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4, it ...
'', The Vogons use a blockier form of Pitman 2000.
In ''
McDonald & Dodds ''McDonald & Dodds'' is a British television crime drama series, based in the English city of Bath, that stars Tala Gouveia and Jason Watkins as mismatched detectives, DCI Lauren McDonald & DS Dodds. Created and principally written by screenwr ...
'' (2020), season 1 episode 2, the victim scribbles a note on the back of a door in Pitman shorthand which DS Dodds recognizes as meaning Thirteenth Step.


Notes


References

* *


External links


Long Live Pitman's Shorthand
– A wealth of material and advice for learning Pitman's New Era
The Joy of Pitman Shorthand
– Brief explanation, list of links, and video in 3 parts demonstrating writing (linked to YouTube).
Pitman for Geeks
– An introduction to the basics of Pitman, with some information on its history. * eyscript Shorthand: https://keyscriptshorthand.com/ & https://cassyjanek.webs.com/ an alphabetical system based on Pitman's {{DEFAULTSORT:Pitman Shorthand Shorthand systems Abjad writing systems Abugida writing systems 1837 introductions Transcription (linguistics) Writing systems introduced in the 19th century