prog: (Default)
prog ([personal profile] prog) wrote2009-04-29 06:43 pm

Shorthand

This is a curious image of a reporter writing in shorthand, found by [livejournal.com profile] 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!

[identity profile] ahkond.livejournal.com 2009-05-01 02:10 pm (UTC)(link)
There's a new volume of the Complete Peanuts out, and it includes a running gag in which Snoopy and Woodstock play "office". Woodstock is Snoopy's "secretary" and takes dictation, and there are often shorthand symbols in the air to show you what Woodstock is doing. You can even find them by looking up "shorthand" in the index.

Woodstock says

[identity profile] prog.livejournal.com 2009-05-01 02:35 pm (UTC)(link)
||| |||||| ||| |||!