#in pitman shorthand

[comradeprozac]

I know now the span of my life. God help me!

-Johnathan Harker

[general-sleepy]

Just plain babbling about shorthand

Since reading Dracula might be the first time or one of the first times that people have heard about shorthand, I thought I'd take this thin excuse to infodump. Because I find it fascinating and want to share. (Warning ahead of time, watch out for how many darn times I say "for example" in this post).

For some background, shorthand systems of writing have existed for millennia, but in the English-speaking world, the two most common and well-established systems of shorthand are Pitman and Gregg. Odds are that the Harkers are writing in Pitman. It's the older system (created in 1837) and is to this day more common in England and the Commonwealth. Gregg is more common in America and was introduced in 1888, either only a few years after or a few years before Dracula takes place. There were also numerous other less popular systems floating around at the time.

Pitman and Gregg and most other shorthand systems are phonetic. (Teeline is a more modern shorthand system based on a simplified alphabet, which is also quite popular). Simply put, each sound is reduced to one stroke of the pen. In Gregg, for example, the sound "k" (which includes the letter "c) is a medium-sized forward arch, "a" is a large circle, and "ch" is a short, downward diagonal line. So, instead of writing "catch" you just combine the symbols for "k-a-ch." Instead of "become" you just write "b-k-m." (These "words" are known as outlines).

Some shapes represent multiple sounds. For example, a small circle stands for the vowels in "bit," "bet," and "beet." A large circle stands for the vowels in "cap" and "cape." This might sound like it would be confusing rather than simplifying, but it's generally clear from the context.

There are a bunch of other means which allow you to write more quickly. Common words are further shorted into "brief forms." For example, "the" is represented by "th," "after" by "a-f," and "were" by "e-r." Some common endings or beginnings are also abbreviated, so that "sh" at the end of a word can stand in for "-tion" and "f" can mean "for-" or "fore-" at the beginning of a word. Thus, "Permission" is "p-r-m-sh" and "forgive" is "f-g-v." Common phrases can be combined into a single outlines. For example, for "to be" you can write "t-b" instead of "t-u[space]b." "I have not been able" can be "a-v-n-b-a." (The large circle "a" is the brief form for the word "I" in one of the rare quirks of Gregg that isn't basically intuitive).

Pitman Shorthand is very similar to Gregg (or, more accurately, Gregg is similar to Pitman). Other than using different symbols (for example, in Pitman "k" is a short forward line) Pitman differs from Gregg mostly by its use of the thickness of strokes to differentiate sounds. For example, "g" is also a short forward line, with the only difference being that the line for "g" is drawn thicker than "k."

I learned shorthand absolutely because of Dracula, though for convenience I learned Gregg. As of right now, I'm pretty out-of-practice, and honestly I was never particularly fast. (At my best, I probably was on average as fast writing shorthand as cursive longhand; I think faster than printing, though).

If you're at all interested, I really recommend learning some form of shorthand. It's useful in note-taking or when you don't want people to be able to read your writing (if, you know, you're kidnapped by a vampire or trying to write fanfic at work). It's also just a fun hobby and a nifty skill to be able to say you have.

In my opinion, if you want to learn shorthand, Gregg Simplified is a solid option, because the materials are accessible and the system is a good middle-ground between easiness to learn and quickness to write. I taught myself just following along with the Gregg Shorthand Manual Simplified. The book is broken up into 67 short "lessons." I did one or two lessons a week, maybe a few hours of work, and I was "fluent" in less than a year. I also bought a Gregg Simplified Dictionary, but all you need is the Manual.

(Note that the manual is written both assuming you're probably some kind a secretary and in the fifties. So, you'll learn brief forms for super-useful phrases like "dear sir" or "remit." For practice, they have you read and copy these sample letters in shorthand, and it's almost hilarious how almost all the letters to men are about business matters and the letters to women are advertising sales. There is one spectacular letter that's a man writing to a newspaper to cancel his subscription, because he's moved into a house in the suburbs with another man who gets the same paper. I'm legit tempted to go through the manual again just to find that letter.)

Fun fact! The fastest shorthand stenographer ever recorded wrote faster than the fastest typist.

Also fun fact! It's not uncommon for individual people to invent their own brief forms based on words that they use commonly. So, Jonathan might have been writing "c-a-r-p" (or the Pitman equivalent) for "Carpathian" or Mina writing "t-b" for "Whitby" or both of them writing "v-a-m" for vampire. And I'll bet credits to navy beans they had specific brief forms for their favorite trains.

[snapcracklepop-myjoints]

Not to be a bitch or anything but. Since people are reading Dracula daily again: if the shorthand tag becomes filled with non-shorthand Dracula content again I’m gonna start biting I’m so serious.

If Dracula is your intro to shorthand, and you’re thinking about learning it, cool ! Have fun ! But I’m literally begging you to stop tagging content that is only tenuously related to shorthand as “shorthand”. Please I’m so tired it’s such a small tag and it’s so easy for it to get completely overrun

[ashey-did-owt-wrong]

Sounds like a plan

[fatehbaz]

The use of English shorthand and typewriters expanded towards the end of the 19th century in clerical work in the major cities of the subcontinent. The use of shorthand in Indian languages, however, developed not in the context of office work but to meet the requirements of the new public sphere, particularly the quick notation of public speeches for reporting in newspapers. This led to the invention of new speed scripts, atitvarene lihiṇyāchī paddhatī (very speedy writing) or laghulekhan (shorthand) in Marathi, which relied heavily on Pitman and Munson’s English shorthand. Arguably the first use was in 1874 by RB Gunjikar [...]. Gajananbhau Vaijya, an English shorthand writer and reporter with the Indian Statesman, invented another speed script expressly for the quick notation of speeches [...]. Notably, Indian-language shorthand remained in the sphere of handwriting, as typewriters for non-Latin scripts did not become widespread in the subcontinent until the mid 20th century. [...]

[I]t is actually Bhujangrao Mankar, inventor of a third shorthand script with the book Laghulekhankalā (1897), who announced himself on the title page as the creator of Marathi and Gujarati shorthand. Mankar was a well-known English shorthand reporter for the press and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in Bombay for all manner of political meetings in the early 20th century. [...]

---

As Bernard Bate noted, Tamil shorthand came into its own when the colonial government attempted to acquire written transcripts of possibly seditious speeches during the Swadeshi movement.

In Bombay, too, shorthand found widespread application in CID surveillance with the growth in nationalist meetings and activity in the 1920s. Sub-inspectors could learn Marathi shorthand as an optional subject in the Central Police Training School; the usual practice was to pass a test in the office and regularly test for speed.

In the trial of the Ali brothers in Karachi following the Khilafat movement, speeches by Mohamed Ali and Shaukat Ali were entered as evidence of their seditious activity.

Similarly, charges against Communist leaders SA Dange, RS Nimbkar, and others in the Meerut conspiracy case (1929–33) were also based on their public speeches.

The cross-examination of witnesses turned on the accuracy of the transcripts and the methods used to obtain them and provides a rich window into the work of memory, notation, and translation involved in producing a speedy verbatim transcript of a public speech, and the issues of legibility, authenticity, and transparency that linked scribe, script, and language to state surveillance.

---

Police reporters usually translated the shorthand transcripts of speeches in various languages into English longhand as soon as possible. In Karachi the Ali brothers’ Urdu speeches were recorded in Urdu shorthand. In Belgaum in June 1921, however, sub-inspectors of the Pune CID took down their Urdu and English speeches in Marathi shorthand. During a meeting in Bagalkot, also in northern Karnataka, Shaukat Ali’s speech in Urdu was orally translated sentence by sentence into Kannada as he spoke [...]. There was thus much processing of sound, meaning, and sign across languages, scripts, memories, and individuals, all at high speed. [...] The inspector [...] Deshpande mentioned a critical aspect of Pitman-based shorthand writing: since the signs matched specific sounds, he did not pay much attention to the content of the speech; he just noted down the sounds as best he could, even if he didn’t know the meanings of words. Gaps between sounds and meaning, it would appear, were filled in either during transcription through memory recall or by the CID itself. [...] These practices of notation, translation, and judicial discourse grappled with a spectrum of textual reproduction of oral utterances, from gist to verbatim.

---

Text by: Prachi Deshpande. Scripts of Power: Writing, Language Practices, and Cultural History in Western India. 2023. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

[vickyvicarious]

I should be careful what I wrote, for he would be able to read it. So I determined to write only formal notes now, but to write fully to Mr. Hawkins in secret, and also to Mina, for to her I could write in shorthand, which would puzzle the Count, if he did see it.

Seems to imply that Mr Hawkins doesn't know shorthand. iirc when he sneaks letters later to him and Mina, only Mina's is in shorthand (and it pisses Dracula off)

Yeah, definitely. In fact, I don't think any of the cast outside Jonathan and Mina can read/write shorthand at all.

If I recall correctly, while shorthand had been around for a while - well, okay, various forms of shorthand have existed for a very very long time. But Pitman, which is the style they're likely using, was first introduced in 1837, and the book seems to be set in the 1890s. So, a few decades. Certainly enough time for Mr. Hawkins to have learned if he wanted to. But he wouldn't have necessarily needed to himself.

I don't have the time at the moment to go and look this up in detail, but I believe shorthand was typically used by people like reporters or clerks, who might be expected to want/need detailed notes of real-time speech. Professionally, at least. I believe I've also heard about people using it to help them to eavesdrop on others and steal their work, and that there was a bit of a fad earlier in the century with more casual use. But by this point, the typewriter may have been more exciting for those who wanted to be fast writers, and the phonograph was an even hotter new thing... so I don't think most people who didn't need it for their job would be casually learning it.

[see-arcane]

Hi!! I have a question about dracula and im not sure who to ask but i thought you would be a good person to start with...

What kind of shorthand do you think the Harkers would use? I think Pitman's system was the most common one when Dracula was published, but i also totally see them using a super obscure system no one else knows lol, so which system do you think they would use?

Alas, I am not the best person to start with, being a big old oblivious fool when it comes to shorthand nuance!

In a general sense, I do think the Harkers would stick with a more readily used form of shorthand due to them both picking it up for the sake of workplace needs. This would likely be the version they scribble in most often.

But, because these two are the Biggest Nerdiest Saps, I also see them putting together their own form of shorthand just for funsies (and secret love notes to each other that any other prying eyes wouldn't have access to, xoxo).

That being said, I think Jonathan writes most things in the general shorthand. The better to have others (victims or friends) able to have a better chance at translating.

The parts he writes regarding Mina while in Vampire Hell, and about his secret vow to join her in (un)death, I imagine he writes in their secret cipher.

[cthulu-in-a-ballgown]

What makes a good writing system? I have been thinking quite a bit about this so here’s a list.

When mesopotamia got clay tablets, cuneiform was rotated to be easier to write. Arabic was originally inscribed in stone, which is why it’s left to right, but came to be written on paper, which is why it’s flowy and calligraphic. It’s gotta be easy to write on the first medium it was written on and any subsequent mediums. 

All featural writing systems are cool. Hangul, Zbalermorna, Pitman Shorthand, Ditema tsa Dinoko! Mostly, it’s achieved by rotation, which as a dyslexic person I absolutely hate, but Pitman Shorthand used stroke heaviness, and Ditema tsa Dinoko used curved vs straight, parallel vs perpendicular, etc. (Ditema tsa Dinoko is my favorite writing system)

When the writing system denotes multiple levels of language at once. Combining phonology and morphology? This is how you get Я, لا, and all of Ithkuil. Phonology and semantics? Egyptian hieroglyphics, Mayan hieroglyphics, aUI. . . Japanese is a prime example of phonological/syntactic information (hiragana) coexisting with semantic information (kanji). Latin is phonetic but has a rich system of pragmatics: capitals, italics, question marks and exclamation points.

[popculturelib]

Type of the Times: A Journal of the Writing and Spelling Reform vol. 11 (1858) by the Longley Brothers

Spelling reformists seek to standardize spelling and orthography to make learning written language easier. Although there have been English language reformists for centuries, spelling reform as a movement grew in popularity in 1800s United States. Reformists of this era include Noah Webster of Merriam-Webster fame, who developed an early American English dictionary, and Isaac Pitman, who developed the Pitman Shorthand for writing efficiently in English.

Type of the Times was a newspaper in Cincinnati, Ohio, during the mid-1800s that advocated for a spelling reform that used Cincinnati Phonotypy, an alphabet based on English phonemes. Elias Longley, the publisher, believed that a standardized orthography would increase written literacy and lead to a more democratic society. In addition to advocating for spelling reform, Type of the Times published articles on education, abolition, women's suffrage, and other reformist topics.

Type of the Times was published in a mix of traditional English orthography and Cincinnati Phonotypy. A sample of articles in the phonotype are included below. Can you read them?

("Michigan Phonetic Convention" pg. 66, "What is Slavery?" pg. 93, "The Love of Home" pg. 35, "A Word to the Wise" pg. 130)

To find out more on Cincinnati Phonotypy and spelling reforms, check out:

English Phonotypic Alphabet Wikipedia article

Elias Longley's First Phonetic Reader (1851)

"Spelling Reform, Phonetic Type, and Woman Suffrage" by Katherine Durack (2020)

The Browne Popular Culture Library (BPCL), founded in 1969, is the most comprehensive archive of its kind in the United States.  Our focus and mission is to acquire and preserve research materials on American Popular Culture (post 1876) for curricular and research use. Visit our website at https://www.bgsu.edu/library/pcl.html.

[ll-underestimated-ll]

Handwriting Comparison/Details of the Gang

Prince Lehmann

Leo's personal writing tends to be small quick, cursive, letters blurring together without t's crossed and i's dotted in order to save space - habits from times of limited paper and ink carried forward to make sure if he needs to burn it then it won't take long. If he's the only one reading it then it needs not be legible and he can even fall back on a bit of 16th/17th secretary script within it.

His writing outside of that changes completely depending on who he's writing to and the context he's contacting them under. Formal social letters are typically written with a fountain pen and narrow round-hand cursive with minimal flourish - as he attempts to put across a sense of authority, and professionalism while maximising legibility regardless of reader. Simultaneously precise yet flowing. Although, those to know him well have picked up that his mood upon writing such correspondence can be accessed from the flick of the descending part of letters. Sometimes intentionally but also subconsciously the last one of a sentence will be more harsh, more sharp, in indication of a foul mood.

Memo's written with the intent of providing instruction to others who are outside of his inner circle, and therefore not to be trusted to understand a tidier form of his personal handwriting tend to get written in all capitals. This was not always the case however and has been a more modern change of practice for him.

Beyond this he will change up how he writes to fit expectations of an audience.

Danny / Fish

Danny writes in what to some would appear a very neat cursive, and to others - a very lazy scrawl. He learned to write from a mix of his time at a workhouse and from Leo. Both of which had an influence on him towards writing a touch small and condensed - something that was then compounded on by his writing surfaces often being quite small. He learned both pitman and gregg shorthand initially for taking notes when eavesdropping and as a result peppers it into his writing in place of words. (He prefers gregg since he doesn't have to concern himself with line thickness and it flows more similarly to the rest of the cursive he's writing in). This is especially prevalent if he doesn't know how to properly spell a word.

When he writes something he wants to make sure someone else can read he makes a conscious effort to make his lettering larger and more legible - but it still remains in cursive.

Wart

Has been improving since he woke up due to Leo wrangling him and Lachlan into tutoring from a ghoul! (So, over the last 3 years).

If you get him to write out by hand I think he's got that child's cursive going on. Where the letters are all rather large and evenly spaced as he's having to deliberately think about what he's putting down still and can't just do it on instinct. It's simply not something he has an interest in utilizing if it's not writing insults on walls in blood. In which case he is going with all capitals as it easiest to do.

Lachlan

Has improved far quicker than Wart. Partially because computers hate him so if he wants to write up notes or messages it's far easier to do by hand. He now writes with a very slanted cursive where the ascenders and descenders of letters are far longer than the main body and interfere with the lines both above and below. He thinks it looks very pretty. (Wart fucking hates it passion because it makes reading it when he's asked to type things very difficult.)

[shosta]

reading Dracula (and taking years and years of classes requiring tons of transcription) made me want to learn shorthand!! (i went with Gregg Simplified, but honestly I'm making up a fair amount of it for myself)

it's been speculated that Jonathan and Mina probably would have used Pitman, but i wanted something I could also use digitally :)

[general-sleepy]

Seemed like a good time to post my Dracula tattoo! They're quotes from the epilogue in Pitman shorthand: "through the flames" in red text and "the happiness is well worth the pain" in black.

[ID: A photo of a pale wrist and open palm. On the wrist is a short row of red shorthand text and below it a longer line of black shorthand text. END ID]

[kroashent]

Val-Cula Daily - May 12

Back to Jonathan's terrible AirBnB experience in the Carpathian mountains.

Dracula and Jonathan discuss legal matters as the solictor's mental wellbeing deteriorates. For a deep dive on what Dracula's legal schemes actual entail, check out Dracula and the Law here: https://www.tumblr.com/kroashent/717129768043167744/dracula-and-the-law-the-laws-of-agency?source=share

After a long discussion of Dracula's legal plans, the Count suddenly declares that Jonathan should write a letter to his superior, Mr. Peter Hawkins of Exeter, to inform him he will be staying another month to assist the Count (which comes as a surprise to Jonathan). Jonathan decides to comply, but suspects the Count is planning something, and decides to also write in secret of his growing plight, using shorthand as a code, which he has begun keeping his journals in.

---------

I mentioned before that some have posited Dracula as a Victorian techno-thriller, including a surprising one here. Shorthand, a writing system of shortened words, smashed letters and abbreviation, has been around for quite some time, but formal systems became popular in the 1800s. Two that Jonathan might have been familiar with, but Dracula would not be, would be the Pitman Method (1837), the Graham Method (1854) and its cutting-edge successor, the 1888 Gregg Method. As you can see below, these would actually prove quite troublesome for Dracula to read, but quite easy for stenographer in training Mina, all the while matching non-hidden examples of Jonathan's writing the Count has seen.

Jonathan tries to read some of Dracula's other letters, but is interrupted by the Count giving him a grim warning to remain in his room and a few others for the night, not to venture outside them.

Jonathan chances to look out the window at the great expanse before him and happens to see something quite unnerving...

---------------------

Vampire Power #3! - Wall Climbing!

What I saw was the Count's head coming out from the window. I did not see the face, but I knew the man by the neck and the movement of his back and arms. In any case I could not mistake the hands which I had had so many opportunities of studying. I was at first interested and somewhat amused, for it is wonderful how small a matter will interest and amuse a man when he is a prisoner. But my very feelings changed to repulsion and terror when I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over that dreadful abyss, face down with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings. At first I could not believe my eyes. I thought it was some trick of the moonlight, some weird effect of shadow; but I kept looking, and it could be no delusion. I saw the fingers and toes grasp the corners of the stones, worn clear of the mortar by the stress of years, and by thus using every projection and inequality move downwards with considerable speed, just as a lizard moves along a wall.

I've seen this one in some vampire films and comics, but Dracula's Spider-Man impersonation honestly doesn't come up a lot.

[nevergoesout]

reading dracula and watched the weeping angels ep of dr who w housemates the other day which mentioned it, so decided last night i should actually try to learn shorthand for fun . today at work literally the next day spoke to a lovely old lady who mentioned she writes it and then we had such a nice chat abt it and she recommended i learn teeline because it’s way better than pitmans. absolutely have to now !!!! ( •̀ᴗ•́ )و

[unhindercd]

!!

[ Haul Update(?) video, no words, no indication of the location, he’s clearly been in something as hands leave dark soot like marks on what he handles, at the end he unscrunches a piece of paper that has some scribbles on it, if anyone understands pitman shorthand they’ll probably be able to figure out it’s a to-do list with ‘who for’ prefacing each ]

[havingastrangeinterlude]

Which system of shorthand is Mina* using?

What's the most likely candidate in England in the 1890s? Pitman?

___ *(And also Jonathan, but let's be real Mina is the most important one here and also the one who is doing the majority of the shorthanding)