SHORTHAND IS OLDFASHIONED.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16905, 2 December 1922, Page 9

SHORTHAND IS OLDFASHIONED.

Shorthand is much older than many people suppose, for it has been iu use for hundreds of years’ Dr Timothy Bright was the inventor of the first system to be used in this country, in 1588. This system became very much used, and some of Shakespeare's plays are supposed to have been transcribed from it. Gradually i many more systems were invented, and j some of them discarded. To-day the ! most popular method is that invented ! by Isaac Pitman in 1837. j The Willis system, in which Pepys ) kept his diary, is now out of date, hut '• a,n eighteenth-century system is still i used by official reporters at the Houses 1 of Parliament and at the Old Bailey, j This is called the Gurney system. I Gurney was first official reporter at • the Old Bailey in 1737 and invented | this system some years previously, j Although Pitman’s system is mainlv j used nowadays, there are several much j simpler ones also in vogue. In France j and Italy the Taylor shorthand. inI vented in 1786, is used almost everv- : where. In other parts of Eurone another verv old system. the Gabelsberg«?r. is still in use.