Just saw this on the BBC news. Being British, they don’t mention Gregg shorthand, but I still thought it was interesting.
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The Gregg Group was founded 22 May 2004, prompted by the lack of online shorthand resources. As the primary use for shorthand — business and legal recording — has waned in recent decades, we generally acclaim the skill as a hobby or personal tool. The purpose of the group is to promote the use of Gregg systems of shorthand by providing advice to beginners, support for students, and an association of users of this efficient, attractive, and enjoyable method of writing.
Just saw this on the BBC news. Being British, they don’t mention Gregg shorthand, but I still thought it was interesting.
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Gregg *is* mentioned, though only in passing:
"Irish-born Robert Gregg was 18 when he invented his own phonetic system, Light-Line Phonography, in the 1880s, which gradually supplanted Pitman in the US."
On a related note, on January 4th the Times of India did an article about the shorthand situation in Bangalore. (Apparently Pitman is the dominant type of shorthand there.) "There are just 80 institutions teaching shorthand in Bengaluru, down from over 400 in 2000." Apparently there is still some demand for pen stenographers in government and private business but fewer people are willing to learn it.
short link to article> http://tinyurl.com/h7aotq4
Still 80, down from 400 shorthand schools? Wow! I'm surprised there are any at all! Too bad they're not around here. Since Pittman is still alive and somewhat well in some parts of the world, dare we ask if there are found any Gregg schools anywhere?
Teri, back in May of last year the DailyGregg blog said this:
"A recent NY Public Library blog article about shorthand mentioned that Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn offers Gregg Shorthand classes.
"This inspired us to do some googling and we found traces of current or very recent Gregg classes at Community College of Baltimore County (Maryland), Chabot-Las Positas Community College (California) and Chemeketa Community College (Oregon)."
It looks like Kingsborough Community College offered several shorthand classes as late as 2013-14 (see course catalog on pg. 87) but I couldn't find anything more recent:
http://www.kbcc.cuny.edu/sub-registration/Documents/2013-2014_Catalog.pdf
Chabot-Las Positas Community College does offer quite a few shorthand classes this year (scroll down):
http://bw7.clpccd.cc.ca.us:700/clpccd/2015/cat_busn.htm
I wish there was an adult continuing ed class here. It would be fun to take shorthand again.
I'm always surprised to see any current events at all about shorthand since they're so rare these days… yet here we have 2 already for the new year! Thanks for posting! Cheers!
On nations with interest in shorthand:
YouTube analytics gives the following watch-time percentages for views on my shorthand videos.
US – 60
Philipines – 6.8
UK – 5.9
India – 4.4
Canada – 3.5
Australia – 3
Numerous other countries are listed but their viewing percentages are all less than 1%.
This is from a current total watch time of 177,000 minutes.
That's quite fascinating, that most of the viewers came from the U.S. That's a lot of viewing time, too– it shows shorthand is not dead! Yay!
Another brief article popped up today entitled This Forgotten Language Is More Efficient Than Typing. The author was particularly fascinated by the old novels that were rendered in Gregg shorthand.
But for some odd reason, the author chose a PITMAN plate!
Not only is this Pitman, but it is _old_ Pitman with the vowel system used before 1857, or perhaps the system of Benn Pitman (who retained the old vowel system).
As a non-Pitman user how do I know this? Because it's possible to use the King James version of the Bible as a pony to the passages from Sermon on the Mount, and the word "meek" is written with the vowel in first position. (For those of you who know no Pitman at all, this outline is in the sixth line of the passage, toward the right, and looks like Gregg "gm", written above the dotted line and with a dot under it on the left.) In modern Pitman that outline would be read "mahk"; a long e would be written in third position. But before 1857 the vowel positions were used the other way round.
When Isaac Pitman made the change in his vowel system it caused some chaos among users, and his brother Benn, teaching shorthand in the U.S., refused to accept the change. Since the U.S. did not at that time recognize British copyright, Benn Pitman could continue to use the old vowel system with impunity.
This article also came up in the "open source stenotype" forum that I subscribe to, and I provided an indignant response.
Open stenotype project main page:
http://www.openstenoproject.org/
Link to my forum post:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/ploversteno/S4GYoOxcK_M
I have been dabbling in plover for a couple years, but haven't put enough time in to get up to speed yet. I was running around 20-25 wpm text-text transcription last time I checked, but I switched my quite-intermittent efforts to shorthand mostly for the last year. The project has lots of great learning tools for stenotype, and it's all free!
I admit I am excited about synergies between shorthand and stenotype! 😉
Intriguing! Thanks for sharing these stenography links. The Open Steno Project looks very interesting indeed.
While on the topic, you might like this silly video called The Inconvenient Stenographer by Studio C:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvBj0QNdjpU&feature=em-subs_digest-wl
Hehe, that's a funny video. I like the idea of having a hidden bluetooth lapel mic with a stenotypist on the other end, realtime-tweeting everything being said in a conversation. I wonder if that would count as illegal recording of a conversation in one-party-consent states… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_recording_by_civilians#Voice_recording
XD