SHORT-HAND, a very useful art, by means of which writing is made almost as expe ditious as speaking. In ordinary long-band, many separate motions of the pen are required to form each single letter: thus m requires seven motions, k requires six, le, five, t four, I three, etc. But as syllables include vowels as well as consonants, and often two, or even three, and sometimes four consonants occur before or after a vowel, the number of motions requisite to write syllablei iu long-band is very great. The monosyllabic words long and short, for instance, require respectively fourteen and seventeen motions of the pen ; while such syllables as strewn, splints, strength, etc., require from twenty-one to twenty six motions. Abbreviated writing is thus a necessity in all cases where language has to be written from ordinary delivery. Some stenographers make use of the common alphabet, and merely contract words by the omission of letters. They would, for instance, write the last seutence thus: So. stenog. ma. u. of th. corn. alph & me. contr. wo. by th. om. of let.
This is not properly short-hand; the latter term is limited to writing which is both abbreviated. in spelling, and simplified in the forms of the alphabetic characters. Much attention has been paid to this art in Britain during the last 300 years, upward of 200 systems having been published within that period. The older systems were chiefly founded on orthography, the ordinary spelling of words being represented simply by a set of more convenient symbols for letters. The highest brevity attainable in this way was, however, altogether insufficient for reporting; and consequently, arbitrary signs for words and phrases, and distinctions in the value of characters, dependent on their relative position on, above, or below the line of writing, were largely used. The more modern systems have all been to a greater or less extent phonetic, or representative of sounds instead of letters, the number of sounds into which syllables may be resolved being considerably smaller than that of orthographic elements.
Of the two classes of elements, vowels and consonants, the latter are the more impor tant' for the recognition of words; and these are generally written without lifting the pen, vowels being supplied by dots and other interpolated symbols. In some systems
no attempt is made to discriminate one vowel from another, but only the places where vowels occur are indicated by a general sign; in others the five vowel letters have dis tinctive symbols; and in others an accurate representation of the varieties of vowel sound is aimed at. The degree in which words are recognizable without vowels may be judged of by the following specimen: Cbmbrzz nselpd a dcshnr v nvrsl nlj fr th ppl n tit bss v th list dslin v th jrmn enyrsslinzleSell.
An indication of where vowel sounds occcur—without showing what vowels—will be found to give increased and sufficient legibility to a reader who is acquainted with the language. Thus: Ch-mb-rz-z -ns-c1-p-d- - a d•csh-n-r- -v -n-v-rs-1 n-l-j f-r th- p-pl -n th- b-s-s -v th l-t-st -d-sh-n -v th- j-rm-n c-nv-rs-01-nz Members's Encydopedia, a Dictionary of Universal Knowledge for the People, on the basis of the latest edition of the ,German Conversations Lexicon.
Short-hand alphabets consist of simple straight and curved lines, to which hooks, loops, or rings are added. These elements of writing are common to all systems, but the powers associated with the symbols are, of course, different in different systems. Much ingenuity has been shown by various authors in developing the application of -the simple radial and segmental lines of a circle, and the positions of a dot, for the representation of language; lint, in many cases, while a wonderful amount of apparent brevity has been attained—as by Nvriting on a staff of lines, each of which gives a dif ferent value to the same sign—the systems are all hut impracticable, from the multi tude of details with which the memory of the learner has to be burdened. The prevailing fault of such systems of short-hand is that they arc long in short. Reporters must abbreviate even the simplest possible form of alphabetic writing, but the mastery of a short-hand alphabet for other than reporting purposes is a very easy matter; and the acquisition will he found valuable in enabling a writer to save four out of every five motions of the pen in private memoranda, correspondence, etc.