Stenography by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · May 21, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 20.

Stenography.

By Editor

BROTHER E. P. DANIELS has opened a class in stenography in Oakland of fifty members. He is preparing the cards to which Brother Haskell referred in the last SIGNS. We have been asked our opinion of the different "systems," and whether it is desirable to be "eclectic," and unite all that is good of all systems.

1. Phonography proper belongs to Pitman, and to him alone. There is no system but his. In this there is a separate character for every distinct sound in the language. This constitutes it phonography, that is, writing by sound. When we come to reporting, there are so many abbreviations or modifications, and compensations, that it passes from phonography to stenography. Instead of having a character for each articulate sound, a single character is made to represent a word or even words. Yet it is inductive and therefore legible, the only style of stenography now used being based on Pitman's phonography. In regard to "systems," that of Graham is just what it is termed—"Standard." No other is now used to any great extent as far as we know.

2. It is impossible to unite different systems. In common writing, different systems—if they existed—might be amalgamated, because it is so "long" that a few flourishes, more or less, make no difference in the letter or word. But not so in phonography, where every movement of the pen, every dot, and every extension or contraction of a character, has a distinct signification. In this it is impossible to unite different systems, and retain the legibility. A character at a certain angle or position with a certain meaning in one, would mean something altogether different in the other. An effort to unite them would be to render both useless. They who would be able to read stenography as generally written, will do well to confine themselves to Graham's "Standard."