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My aim is to encourage you if
you are thinking of learning shorthand, or relearning from rusty,
and to make available my own experiences.
Shorthand belongs in your life, not just in the office, and this was
Sir Isaac Pitman's primary intention when he invented the system.
When you want to write something, there has to be a very good reason
not to do it in shorthand. For the novice, it's the quickest way to
make it totally familiar and stress free. Even when you are
proficient, shorthand never runs out of interest, as there is always
something to learn and new words to find the outlines for.
I
learned Pitman's New Era Shorthand in 1973-4 at Woolwich College for
Further Education in London, under the skilled guidance and gentle
encouragement of Miss Jefferson, who retired several years later.
She showed no partiality to slow or fast learners, and everyone was
encouraged equally. My classmates were there because they chose to
be, and every one of them wanted to learn and earn. The practicality
of our secretarial/business training was the complete opposite of
the lessons that one enjoys or endures in compulsory schooling,
where there is often no obvious reason to remember any of the facts
beyond passing exams.
I obtained a Teach Yourself Shorthand book and briefly read up on
the subject, several weeks ahead of starting at the College. This
took away the strangeness of the shorthand, and made the first
lessons much easier. We used the New Course book in the classroom.
We were taught Business English by Mrs Bravery, another lovely lady,
who also did some shorthand with us. Our typewriting teacher Mrs
Trimnell was very friendly and efficient, and I remember one lesson
when she stood in for Miss Jefferson: she expected and insisted that
we write fast, and it was our first taste of rapid dictation, two
words to be repeated along the line until she said stop. There were
no concessions to our delicate novice status, it was like constantly
running after your hat in a gale. We had gone from drawing outlines
to writing outlines in one lesson, from walking to running, and
never returned to our previous more leisurely frame of mind. Speed
was no longer just a word, it was our goal, and I am sure Miss
Jefferson noticed the change in our demeanour on her return.
My "speed mate" was a left-hander, and together we made a matching
pair, using both hands between us on the higher speed dictations. It
was disconcerting to see shorthand written so quickly with a left
hand, but no doubt she was more used to watching people use the
"wrong hand".
Sometimes Miss Jefferson would dictate something for both of us
without telling us what the speed would be. "Would you like to have
a go at a really fast little piece?" she would ask, realising that
students tend to give up when something appears impossible. We
struggled through that 30 seconds of dictation, relieved only by the
thought that it was a super-stretcher, done for fun. She gave the
rest of the class their dictations and came back to us. "Did you
manage to read anything back?" "Only about 10 words." With relish
she told us it was 200 wpm and although we were shocked, her eyes
were beaming with delight. The others were delighted too, because
they had been invited to have a go as well. I think they assumed it
must be faintly possible, otherwise the teacher would not ask them,
and on this premise some of them duly wrote what they could,
although gasps were heard after about 3 seconds. A glow of
satisfaction filled the room, because of the attempt rather than the
results. The most important point is that, because of that attempted
high-speed spurt, the rest of that lesson's dictations for all of us
seemed very slow, and Miss Jefferson certainly knew what she was
doing.
At the end of the 9-months course, I obtained 120 wpm Royal Social
of Arts certificate, and 130 wpm Pitman Examinations Institute
certificate. At the time the PEI exam was considered to be slightly
easier to pass than the RSA.
Teeline
had just been invented, which I viewed as a greatly simplified way
to write condensed longhand letters of the alphabet. Compared with
what I was learning, the outlines struck me as being very much
longer, more angular and less flowing. It was clearly aimed at those
who preferred something similar to longhand, and it could be
incorporated into longhand writing while being learned, thus
bringing the benefits of shorthand to even more people.
When I
started work as a typist, one of the ladies wrote Gregg shorthand,
just as fast as the rest of us did our Pitman's, so I spent a short
time investigating that, to see how it compared. Interesting as it
was, I quickly decided that those hours could be better spent
speeding up my own shorthand. I attended evening classes and in 1980
I gained a Royal Society of Arts 140 wpm and a Pitman Examinations
Institute 150 wpm. After that I ran out of energy for further speed
learning and the tiring evening classes after a full day's work,
although I always maintained the habit of looking up and practising
outlines that I had stumbled over. The evening classes were mainly
dictations, and a lot of practice at home was also necessary, to
work on the faults and omissions shown up by the dictations. Classes
alone are not sufficient to get the speed up. It is well worth
taking exams at various speeds, and not letting everything rely on
one exam at the end of the course.
This quote from a
shorthand book by Bates Torrey sums up my own endeavours to present
Pitman's New Era. Although I have not watched lots of students work,
other than my classmates at college and various evening classes in
subsequent years, I do vividly remember all the difficulties that we
eventually (and cheerfully) overcame as we went through the college
year, the evening classes and the examinations:
To the Student:
This book has been made especially for you after watching a great
many of you work, and inspired by your work, appreciating your
needs. Likewise your discouragements have been noted, and a
mitigation sought for and found. The aim has been to render
shorthand study interesting. If interest can be awakened early, and
maintained continuously, good work and tangible results will follow.
Assuredly work is necessary in shorthand study; but it would be
unreasonable to expect it to continue with stolid doggedness when
all the conditions were unfavorable. We have endeavored to make them
favorable by divesting the subject of disagreeable and useless
features, and clothing it with pleasanter ones. We trust that
success has attended our efforts. At any rate may it attend yours.
Therefore work - win! Bates Torrey, Instruction in Practical
Shorthand, 1893 (Graham version of Phonography)
I always enjoyed writing and drawing, playing with paper and ink,
and almost stumbling across shorthand, when I saw school friends
writing it. Learning it, was the best thing I ever did. I discovered
something I thoroughly enjoyed, that was practical and artistic at
the same time, and one hundred per cent useful all the time. The
skills we all learned on the business course required attention,
thought, work, application, determination and practice, which
everyone undertook with enthusiasm, mainly because the skills were
in great demand in office work. We all acquired varying
shorthand certificates and went out with the tools of the trade
literally in our hands. At the time I rather thought that even
attempting a shorthand speed exam deserved a medal for bravery,
whether one passed or not.
Beryl Pratt
London UK
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