Preface

‘Current Shorthand’ is intended to supply the want of a system of writing shorter and more compact than ordinary longhand, and at the same time not less distinct and legible.

Compared

Brevity vs. Efficiency

None of the three systems most in use at the present time — Pitman’s in England and America, and the German systems of Gabelsberger and Stolze on the Continent — can be said fully to meet these requirements. When the learner finds he has innocently made ‘blue eyes’ into ‘boiled owls,’ and hears of experienced reporters writing ‘nature is not so kind,’ to have it read ‘common sand was gone,’ he hesitates to use his hard-won accomplishment except for rough notes which he can transcribe while still fresh in his memory. The German systems are better, but even they are not perfect: many a German student who proudly exhibits his beautifully written shorthand notes of Professor A.’s lectures has to confess he can no longer read them!

The reason is simple enough: all these systems sacrifice efficiency to brevity, the brevity being often only apparent.

Geometric Systems

This is especially the case with the geometric systems, of which Pitman’s Phonography is a familiar example. These systems are made up of straight lines and curves sloping in four different directions, and joined together directly without any connecting stroke, which naturally results in angularity, jerkiness, sprawliness, and hand-cramping movements generally. Another defect of the geometric basis is that it does not provide enough distinct letters, so that the vowels generally have to be omitted altogether.

Script Systems

Current shorthand and the German shorthands are on a script basis, that is, they are fired on the model of ordinary longhand, reduced, of course, to its simplest elements: they consist of characters formed mainly by down-strokes and joined by up-strokes, an important result of which is that the writing is essentially linear — that is, the mere joining of the characters forms district lines of writing. They may therefore be described as one-slope (or, if we count the up-strokes, two-slope), indirect-joining, linear systems, as opposed to the many-slope, direct-joining, sprawly geometrical systems. The script basis also supplies a much greater variety of distinct, easily-joining elementary characters, which is especially important as regards writing the vowels.

Semi-Script Systems

That the script basis is the only sound one is a conviction that is steadily gaining ground in this country. But most of our so-called script systems are really only half-script. Callendar’s Cursive is the best type of these systems. They may be described as imperfect attempts to imitate the lineality of the script systems on a mainly geometrical basis. This can evidently be effected only by writing the characters as much as possible on two slopes only. These systems may therefore be described as limited-slope, partially linear, geometric systems flavoured with cursive elements. They necessarily retain many of the defects of their geometric basis. But, nevertheless, it must be admitted that Callendar’s Orthographic Cursive¹ is remarkably simple and regular in structure, although, of course, still on its trial.

Vowel Representation

The weak point of the German systems is that they sacrifice efficiency to brevity by attempting to do away with the necessity of writing the vowels in full. Vowel-representation has, indeed, always been the great problem of shorthand. I am now convinced that all attempts to express vowels by modification of the shape, size, and position of the adjoining consonants must be failures as long as we have to content ourselves with our present imperfect writing-implements, and that the only solution of the problem is to express the vowels by joined characters, as is done in Current.

Sham Distinctions and Sham Brevity

Experience has shown that not only the vowel-indicating devices of the older systems, but also many other distinctions made by them are liable to break down in practice. Such a distinction is that of thick and thin strokes, which is employed by all our three systems. Some enthusiastic shorthand-inventors have even gone so far as to use a distinction of three degrees of thickness, which, of course, according to them ‘does not offer the slightest difficulty,’ just as some people maintain that there is not the slightest obscurity in Browning’s verse, and that it is uniformly melodious. Even the practical Gabelsberger distinguishes between uniform and ‘sharp’ (wedge-shaped) thickening, and has many other impossible distinctions, which, however, look pretty enough in an engraved plate or elaborate lithograph. The weak point of Stolze’s system is is excessive use of ‘position,’ two-thirds of the words in a sentence being sometimes written above and below the line! This is an example of how a distinction perfectly legitimate in itself becomes worse than useless when carried to excess.

In the construction of Current all these ‘sham distinctions’ have been rigorously eliminated. The inevitable result of this is that Current when written in full is considerably longer than the other systems. Nothing has been more prejudicial to shorthand than this reckless competition for sham, inefficient brevity at the expense of that legitimate brevity which appeals to the hand of the writer, and is not attained at the expense of ease of writing and legibility.

Phonetic and Orthographic

It is now generally acknowledged that the most efficient shorthands are those on a phonetic basis. But, on the other hand, having to master phonetic spelling is a serious hindrance; and it is often desirable to transcribe spelling rather than pronunciation, as in writing proper names and quotations from foreign languages. I have therefore worked out two ‘styles’ of Current, one orthographic, simply constructed and of moderate speed, the other phonetic, in which brevity may be carried to its utmost legitimate limits. These two styles can be used concurrently, so that orthographically written words can be inserted in a phonetically written passage without confusion. Those who are deterred by phonetic spelling and do not aim at the greatest brevity may confine themselves to the Orthographic system. Others may find it advisable to master the Phonetic system thoroughly before looking at the Orthographic. These will find a preliminary study of my Primer of Spoken English (Clarendon Press) a great help.

Contraction

No shorthand, however brief its basis, can dispense with contraction. Current affords an excellent basis for contraction, because of the accuracy of its spelling and distinctness of is elementary symbols, especially the vowels. In this way a system which is comparatively lengthy when written in full may be when contracted not only more legible but actually shorter than one whose basis is briefer.

The usual method of shorthand contraction is to provide a limited number of fixed contractions (‘logograms’ or ‘signs’) for the commonest words, and to let each writer frame his own contractions for the other words. The objection to this is that the writer cannot generally tell beforehand whether his extempore contraction may not cause confusion by being mistaken for some other word of similar sound. It is of course possible that on meeting such a word as ingenious he may be on his guard against its being confused with ingenuous, and may hit on a contraction which will prevent then from clashing. But in most cases he will fail to hit on the best contraction. It is therefore desirable that all such difficulties should be dealt with deliberately and systematically, and the best way of writing each word determined. In working out Phonetic Current I have not shrunk from this, the most tedious part of my task, and have gone through the greater part of the English vocabulary word by word many times over. In this way I have been able to establish inductively some general principles of contraction which dispose of a good many words at once. As many words do not required to be contracted at all, there remains only a residue of words which have to be dealt with in small groups or one by one. I must say that my experience is that the principle laid down by some shorthand theorists that ‘the rules for contraction must be comprehensive and admit of no exceptions’ cannot be carried out in practice, being quite incompatible with efficiency and distinctiveness, to which there is no royal road.

As I have no practical experience of reporting, I am unable to express a decided opinion as to the fitness of Current for that purpose. But I see no reason why it should not do as well as the older systems. One thing I know is, that of those who learn enough of any system to write and decipher it with tolerable ease — and how many fail even in this! — not five per cent. ever do or can acquire the power of using it for reporting purposes.

Characteristic Features

The characteristic features and merits of Current may be summed up as follows:—

1. It is the first workable pure script shorthand that has been brought out in England.
2. It affords the first satisfactory solution of the vowel problem, by providing separate symbols for them, which, though joined to the consonants, are subordinate to them, so that the vowels can be omitted without altering the general appearance of the word.
3. It is the First system which makes systematic use of projection above and below the line of writing to indicate the different classes of consonants.
4. It provides a purely orthographic and a purely phonetic style of writing for concurrent use.
5. It discards not only thick and thin, but all other sham distinctions.
6. It is rigorously linear, so that it can be used for all purposes of ordinary longhand.
7. It could be printed from movable types with comparative ease.

It may also be observed that Current is on a strictly alphabetic and syllabic basis.

Development

It may now be worth while to give a brief sketch of the development of my system.

1869: Bell’s

When Bell’s Universal Steno-phonography came out in 1869, I learnt it, and wrote it for many years.

1883: Modified Bell’s

In 1883 I devised a modification of it which partially solved the problem of joined vowels, and in which I unconsciously introduced several script elements. At the end of the year I became dissatisfied with the geometric basis of Bell’s shorthand, and knowing there were German systems on a script basis, I looked through the plates in Zeibig’s well-known History of Shorthand without knowing anything about the details of the German systems; and set to work the same day to collect th all the elementary forms I could find in the different systems of writing then accessible to me, especially Bell’s script Visible Speech, with which I had been familiar ever since 1868. I at once hit on the device of using projection to indicate the different classes of consonants, and of writing the vowels small. The next day I showed my scheme to my friend James Lecky, who strongly approved of it, and suggested the distinction of two vowel levels, and made many other suggestions both then and afterwards, some of which are still part of the system, such as the use of the low stroke for h.

1884: Version 1

By the beginning of 1884 I had fully elaborated the first stage of Current, which, for brevity, I call C¹. In this stage I aimed at universality and theoretical symmetry, which led me to keep up the distinction of thick and thin, and to provide characters for many sounds which do not occur in English.

After writing C¹ for more than a year, I began to doubt the soundness of the distinction between thick and thin, though I shrank from cutting down the number of my characters by one half. However, one day early in 1885 I tried by way of curiosity whether I could not construct a purely English system without thick and thin. The result was so much better than I expected that I at once discarded C¹ and set to work to elaborate C².

1885: Versions 2 and 3

C² proved much more flowing and easy than C¹, but there was in it an awkward predominance of ‘down-curves,’ which made me try a re-arrangement on purely practical and statistical grounds. I thus in April, 1885, evolved the final stage C³, characterized by the complete subordination of theory to practice.

Meanwhile I had made myself acquainted with a variety of other systems, especially Gabelsberger’s and Stolze’s, from which I derived some useful hints, although my system is really independent of theirs, most agreements in detail being the Result of accident or of the common script basis. But lest I should seem to depreciate the work of my predecessors, I hasten to add that I have a great admiration for the originality of Gabelsberger’s system, of which Stolze’s is really an adaptation — to some extent, a simplification.

The alterations made in the groundwork of Phonetic Current since 1885, though continuous, have been slight. Indeed most of the innovations that have suggested themselves in the last three years were rejected after a short trial; and I think the system has now reached its highest point of development, although I feel that many of the details of contraction are still unsettled.

1888: Orthographic Current

The orthographic system was devised towards the end of 1888, and has been modified but slightly since then.

Conclusion

In criticizing such a system as Current, it must be borne in mind that the same basis may be worked out in various ways; although each basis has its own natural development. Thus those who are advanced enough to see the superiority of the script basis generally accept instinctively and without question a number of other principles, such as adequate vowel-expression and syllabic structure. Hence, in accordance with this last principle, such combinations as st, sp are in Current used only in such words as still, apt, not in sit, put, &c., as they would be in a geometric system. But they could be so used, and, if they were, Current could be made as brief as any geometric system — that is, if recourse were also had too thick and thin, unlimited position, ‘halving,’ and the other treacherous devices of the popular ‘Pitfall’ system. So also it would be even easier in Current than in other systems to shirk the difficulties of contraction by reducing it to a few simple and comprehensive — though ineffective — rules.

In my exposition I have sought to combine brevity on the one hand with clearness and fulness of illustration on the other. The greater part of the book consists of a photographic reproduction of my own handwriting; the result, though not elegant, has the merit of showing how the system works in practice as opposed to copperplate.

In conclusion, I wish to emphasize the fact that this shorthand, whatever its merits may be, is not an embodiment of crude theories hastily thrown on the world, but is the result of long practical experience, and incessant testing and revision, extending over nearly ten years. It was begun originally because I could not find that the existing systems were of any use for my purposes. And although necessarily imperfect, it certainly has fulfilled its purpose. Thus I wrote out the whole of my New English Grammar, which contains many isolated words in a great variety of spellings, in phonetic, interspersed with orthographic, Current; and the result was as legible as ordinary print, so that I was able to copy it out in longhand with perfect ease and accuracy.

I therefore make my system public in the hope that it may be of the same use to others; also that I may perhaps benefit by their criticisms.

In Memoriam

But the satisfaction I feel in having at last accomplished what has often seemed a hopeless task is marred by the loss of my fellow-worker, James Lecky, whose untimely death in March, 1890, has deprived us of one of or most promising phoneticians and Celtists. And of the few others who took an interest in my enterprise nearly all are gone: of those disinterested workers at shorthand and phonetics, A. J. Ellis, W. R. Evans, and J. B. Rundell, not one survives.

HENRY SWEET.

South Park, Reigate, Sept. 24, 1892.

1. ‘A Manual of Orthographic Cursive Shorthand’: London, C.J. Clay & Sons, 1891. ↩