Writing has existed for at least 6,000 years, with script alphabets developing about 1,400 years ago. Traditional cursive writing was standardized only about 200 years ago. Cursive writing was faster and more elegant, but it was actually only about 10% faster than printing - much too slow to keep up with the business needs of the late 1800’s. In response, various shorthand alphabets were invented during the early 1900’s, but Gregg’s shorthand was by far the most widely adopted.
Why shorthand? Longhand writing suffers from two problems. First, the individual letters are actually quite complicated, with most requiring at least four individual pen strokes to complete. Second, the English language has about 32 sounds, but longhand has only 26 letters. Even worse, English includes words from many other languages. On average, there are at least 13 different ways to spell each sound. What we need is an alphabet with simple symbols for each sound. Bonus points if the result is pretty. Gregg’s shorthand is the result.
By the way, Gregg’s shorthand wasn’t just a phonetic script alphabet. It was designed for dictation and transcription, so it was designed to be FAST. It included a great many abbreviations, contractions, and replacements for common words. Vowels were often deleted when the word meaning remained clear. The dots and slashes distinguishing the EE in "bee" from the E in "bet" were also left off whenever possible. As a general rule, if you can read it, it’s written explicitly enough :)
Here are two quotes in Shorthand. Use your very own Shorthand Decoder to read them.
