Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century English Shorthand Systems Skip to main content
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Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century English Shorthand Systems

Eclectic_shorthand_by_cross
The Lord’s Prayer written in a variety of nineteenth-century systems, including Gregg and Pitman

The nineteenth century saw shorthand become an increasingly vital skill for all kinds of secretarial work. As it came to be treated as a professional secretarial skill, shorthand came to be used more by men than women, in contrast to the seventeenth century when shorthand was publicly discussed as a useful skill for both genders. During the twentieth century, however, shorthand became increasingly associated with women as the nature and status of secretarial work changed.

Though earlier systems continued in use during the nineteenth century (especially Taylor and Gurney, which passed through many new editions and versions) and a variety of new systems continued to be invented, two new systems in particular came to predominate: Pitman and Gregg.

Pitman

Despite Taylor’s popularity, its lack of vowel markers made it difficult to read. To solve this problem and create a more phonetic system, Sir Isaac Pitman developed his own system inspired by Taylor which he published in 1837.

Pitman’s system was focused on speed and phonetics. For legibility, he restored vowel markings, using both the position of the word relative to the line and optional dots or dashes. An even more important development was Pitman’s use of shading. Reflecting his deep interest in phonetics, Pitman used stroke thickness to indicate whether a consonant was voiced or unvoiced. For example, the symbol \ when thinner represents “P,” while a thicker \ represents “B.”

A master advertiser, Pitman marketed his system widely on both sides of the Atlantic and began teaching it via correspondence course, allowing it to quickly become the most commonly used shorthand system in the English-speaking world. The system was revised many times, with major revisions in 1922 (Pitman New Era) and 1975 (Pitman 2000) further developing the system’s rules and altering the symbols used.

Gregg

Influenced by the Duployan shorthand system for writing in French and several script-like systems for writing German, several shorthand inventors during the late nineteenth-century developed more fluid, cursive-looking systems in contrast to the more angular systems developed by Pitman and his predecessors.

The most popular of these systems was first published by John Robert Gregg in 1888 and further developed in subsequent editions. Like the French system that inspired it, Gregg uses hooks and circles to represent vowels. Gregg shorthand became especially popular in the United States, where it was used in court reporting and business. Major revisions were published in 1916 (the fifth edition, commonly called “pre-Anniversary”), 1929 (Anniversary), 1949 (Gregg Shorthand Simplified), 1963 (Diamond Jubilee), 1978 (Series 90), and 1988 (Centennial), each of which uses the same alphabet but has different levels of abbreviation.

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