As daily users of ink, paper and plastic, should we as shorthand practitioners be more considerate for the impact our work/hobby has on Mother Nature?

Well, what can we do?

First off, 100% recycled paper has to be the way forward. Next up is pens. Throwing used biros away has got a be a naughty thing to do, and I’m not sure they can be recycled everywhere. I’ve seen ballpoint pens which have been recycled from old CD cases and the like. But what do you do with them afterwards? Can they too be recycled? I haven’t got an answer to that yet.

So I’m thinking a refillable fountain pen has to be the answer because then you’d not be throwing anything away. And if you veer towards non toxic plant-based inks then perhaps we’re being as green as we can be. I’m going to try and it and I’ll report back as to how I get on.

What’s your view?

This fascinating article told how Woodrow Wilson’s seal ring carried his name in shorthand and how this would be used to stamp the American leader’s name onto the treaty document.

Here’s the article:

Shorthand news story about Woodrow Wilson

There are a great many sources of excellent information about Wilson out there. I understand he used a form of shorthand called Graham, which was derived from Pitman and now virtually extinct.

The film tells the story of Bertie, who has suffered from a debilitating speech impediment all his life, who is suddenly crowned King George VI following the abdication (amended thanks to Laura!)  of his brother. What follows in the movie is the story of the King’s quest to find his voice.

So what’s all this got to do with shorthand, I hear you ask.

Well, quite by accident I came across an old cutting The Portsmouth Times in Ohio which tells how shorthand students at Sciotoville High School in 1937 were set the challenge of taking down George VI’s coronation speech in shorthand.
According to the article “A radio was connected in the classroom at 2pm.

“Miss Lillick (the shorthand teacher) tuned in on the coronation ceremonies. Students took down the speech of the king as their dictation for the day. Some students went even further and took the speech of Premier Stanley Baldwin.

“Miss Lillick said that the king spoke at a speed which was not difficult for the students to take, though some had difficulty in understanding the clip speech of the English.”

To read the full text of the article please click below.

“But what about data protection?” she asked.

“Erm…” I replied.

“It’s just I’ve got so many people’s names and telephone numbers and personal details and their stories in mine,” she said.

I thought about the law and remembered once being told that Data Protection didn’t really apply to work as a journalist or, and I thought for a second, law enforcement. And that was what I said to my colleague.

“That’s true,” she said, gently. “But that part of the law is to do with the use of information, not its disposal.”

“Erm…”

Now then, I’ll be honest. The connectedness of the disposal of a shorthand notebook and the Data Protection Act is not something I’ve ever thought about before. But I think my colleague is asking a legitimate question. What should we do with old notepads to ensure those notes which relate to the personal lives of others are correctly disposed of?

Apparently at her old newspaper they had a room where old notepads went to die. Nobody knows what happens after that. Perhaps the “room” was hermetically sealed like a nuclear waste deposit.

We’ve not got an industrial notepad reduction vat. We’ve got a cupboard. And it’snot very large. And it is filling up fast.  In the past, as I’ve said, I’ve recycled the pads when it gets full. My workmate is considering shredding the next cupboard-load. But that will take a very long time and will probably burn anything but a branch shredder.

Before we head and out and buy some heavy-duty paper ripping machine I have to ask all trusty SW readers what they do with old notepads.

His deification appears to have happened in the Indian city of Chennai. In his fascinating article for The National, reporter Samanth Subramanian tells how: “The entrances to many buildings in this southern Indian city are graced by small shrines, miniature temples, almost, to one or the other of the Hindu pantheon’s gods and goddesses.

“Among the most extraordinary of these sits in the courtyard of a building in the crowded neighbourhood of T Nagar. Resting on a plinth is a garlanded, foot-high bronze statuette of a lushly bearded 19th-century Englishman named Isaac Pitman.

“The building houses the headquarters of the Stenographers’ Guild, which explains the devotion to Pitman, a vegetarian and teetotaller who was knighted in 1894 and died aged 84 in 1897. In 1837, he developed the most widely used form of shorthand, a system of strokes, hooks, dots and squiggles, based on phonetics, which enabled stenographers to transcribe speeches with great speed and accuracy.”

Please check out the rest of this great article for the full story. The honour paid to Sir Isaac appears to be well supported. Responding to the article, Ramesh Menon said: “It was a fitting tribute to thousands of stenographers world-wide, who once ruled the administrative part of private and government offices and establishments.

“Just three decades away, we were in a world when aspiring students rushed to numerous short-hand and typewriting institutes and pass out from there improving their English skills as well as a handy tool to start their career away from home. The short-hand learning methodology rightly provided the person a correct grip and grasp on the language as well as enabled him to concise what is dictated or heard in person.

“In addition, those days, it proved an opportunity to read English literature and learn more about the nuances of the language and its grammar requirements. This field of technical education produced several eminent administrators who silently and efficiently supported great leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and JRD Tata.”

Perhaps Pitman Training in the UK might consider something similar…???

His main points are that shorthand is a less trusted means of capturing what was said than a tape/digital device, that shorthand is a pain to learn and that people develop their own shorthands as they use it (to the extent that, he says, most shorthand users gradually develop a “personal shorthand that only they really understand”).

I think he is right on all three points. Shorthand is less respected than it once was. That’s partly because it is less prevalent in society per se and, in a world of increasing, rolling, 24-hour visual media, our relationship with the written word has changed. It is difficult to learn. Teeline is far easier to learn than Pitman, but it’ll still take about four months to get to 100wpm. And yes, we all develop our own “shorthands” (though most people can read the shorthand of others and work out the idiosyncracies as they go).

Given all this, Greenslade asks the central question thus: “In this age of sophisticated recording devices, is shorthand any longer worth all the time and trouble it takes to learn it?”

He appears to be saying no, and calling on the courts to allow reporters to sit in with digital/tape devices.

I’ve seen lawyers and judges sitting in court with laptops for a few years now and cannot really understand why us reporters cannot do the same. Neither can I understand why, if the second compnonent of justice is that it is seen to be done, why the courts would not allow for every means of capturing what is said in court to be used – visual or sound recording etc.

However, I do not, and never have, seen the tape vs shorthand question as an either/or issue. I use shorthand because it is useful, quick, simple and not susceptible to the vagaries of electronic circuitry. It has helped me do my job quickly and efficiently for many years. For most general reporting purposes shorthand is absolutely the perfect means of taking a note of what is said, what has happened etc.

When a story is more sensitive or the interviewee potentially more difficult (potentially litigious) I have used tape as well as shorthand. Why? Because impuning a journalist’s integrity with claims of being misquoted is one of the most common fall-back positions of the caught out. It makes sense, where problems are foreseen, to use tape as well.

I would not want to use tape for every interview because I would struggle to get my job done. Listening back over reels of tape and taking down the words needed is an uneccessary doubling up of the reporting process.

So, yes, I’m with Greenslade on encouraging the courts to allow journalists to use whatever recording devices they choose. I however, would probably still use shorthand for 99% of the time.

What do you think?

I’m really interested to find out what we, as a shorthand community, choose to write with. I did have a poll set up but it doesn’t seem to work. Please post a comment saying what you write with or drop me a line instead!