Shorthand

[prog]

This is a curious image of a reporter writing in shorthand, found by dougo.

My whole life I understood the word "shorthand" as a synonym for "abbreviation", not a complete and formal writing system that looks like alien script to the uninitiated. But the commenters on that photograph say it's so, and Wikipedia agrees, with yet more graphic evidence. Very interesting!

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

You may also have been thinking of the peculiar machine shorthand systems used with chorded keyboards, which use letters from the regular alphabet but in strange ways.

[karlvonl.livejournal.com]

When I was in college, I worked for a while as the IT guy at a company of stenographers, so I got to see these machines being used and marvel at the weird output they produced.