Pitman Shorthand, part 1 of 3 (Revised)

GO TO PART 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poflfNa543I
GO TO PART 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK82XqaPIDk
WEB SITE:
http://pitmanshorthand.homestead.com

I made an unpolished little video to illustrate some basics of Pitman shorthand, a system of rapid writing which can even be done at the speed of speech with practice. At the time, I couldn't find anything else on YouTube, but here are two new videos by others:

A woman writes a religious text in Pitman Shorthand, though it is mostly vowel-less:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3OyEzl8ZkM

A man writes a text in Spanish Pitman. Abbreviations are different, of course, assigned to common Spanish words, but the consonants are all the same:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMyNvZeWJOM

(More links to Pitman and other shorthand sites can be found by clicking the "Books and Links" button on my web site.)

Also good is this guy's site, heavy in diagrams explaining the Pitman strokes:

http://www.shorthand.mkz.com/ ("Pitman for Geeks")

Pitman Shorthand was actually used to represent the written language of the Vogons, the bureaucratic and ugly aliens in the movie version of the science-fiction comedy books, THE HITCH-HIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY (2005). Those fortunate enough to know Pitman will recognize phrases in the movie like "Presidential Release Form", "Demolition Order", "Information Deleted" and a Vogon poster saying "Depressed? Try Destruction Therapy!"
http://www.onrec.com/content2/news.asp?ID=7440


For the Gregg shorthand system, go to:

http://www.shorthandshorthandshorthand.com
http://gregg.angelfishy.net

MUSIC: Music is from "Transfer Orbit" which is my own composition. The full version is on a music-only video at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF6kjfbBARY

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Pitman
• shorthand
• speed writing
• stenography
• tachygraphy

[OwenNicolaou]

This is really helpful, thank you :)

I've been trying to learn this for a while, but to no avail :'( The internet written guides confuse me :(

Just so you know, I'm British, and I pronounce the letter 'Z' 'zee' because otherwise the alphabet song wouldn't rhyme... and that would make me sad :(

[Dracopol]

@OwenNicolaou I offer an overview of how Pitman shorthand is done, but there is no substitute for a total textbook such as the Teach Yourself series, which is available in the current Pitman 2000 method or the older Pitman New Era (up to 1975?) method.

Also you can check a site named "Long Live Pitman Shorthand" where the author wrote out all the theory with illustrations, a monumental task I was not willing to do on my site! But a lot of practice is needed on this theory.

[squirell1952]

DEAR SIR OR MADAM: Is there such a thing as electronic shorthand? I don't mean this stenography. What I mean is: there are tablet things that recognise your handwriting. But are there ones that recognise, say, your PITMAN shorthand script? Or Gregg? Or Speedwriting? I would be very interested in finding out more. Bur not stenography, please! Thanks very much.

REGARDS, DES, SATURDAY, AUGUST 13, 2011.

[Dracopol]

@squirell1952 Shorthand systems are more than just an alphabet, but a system of tricks and short-cuts to layer meaning. It would be very difficult to make a computer understand what's going on. The Palm Pilots use the Graffiti system to simplify alphabet writing and make it quicker. Even quicker is Quikwriting, where the direction of single or double strokes is important and you don't have to lift your stylus off the pad to start a new letter.

[Envergure]

Thank you very much for postint this series. It appears to be the most comprehensive Pitman course on the entire Web.

[Dracopol]

@Envergure No, I don't go into that much detail. A web-site called Long Live Pitman's Shorthand gives all the details now these days.

[NathanielChristopher]

I'm a journalist and I would dearly love to know shorthand but nobody in my city (Vancouver) teaches it anymore! Tape recorders are great as backup but for most of my stuff I'd rather take actual written notes as tape recorders can (and do) fail and it's rather time consuming to transcribe audio. Pierre, thank you for uploading these videos and sharing this valuable skill to us younger folk! :)

[ilovemovie1968]

@mozart20dlubos This is only one of those skills you needed to get a job, it added value, you may not use it nowadays, because upper level executives are very young now and they would properly do the typing themselves on computers, only a few industries would still use it currently, properly in the law offices, but audio typing is the replacement skill for shorthand, people only required to put on their headphone to listen to the tape and transcribe the documents, it is relatively easier.