Is this any help?

Thanks, ill give it a try.

What a sweet memento.

“The orchid, the white tie and tails…”

I would love if the shorthand reads: ’ I was so glad to get home and get my shoes off’

Hope somone can translate for you.

My mom knew shorthand, about a million years ago. 😄 I remember her saying it could be very hard to read someone else's because it was easy to customize...? No clue if that's accurate.

I miss her.

Sweet momento, no matter what.

Wow, thanks, Orchid! I love it. My parents were so in love with each other. They were high school sweethearts.

Too bad the love didnt last becasue they were divorced in their early 60s.

Glad Orchid could help. I checked with my friend and she says she never learned shorthand and I had to admit that I must be losing my mind!! lol

I got ”man” right!

Oly, you’re funny.

bpath, yes you did!

Yes, that's what I read too. Used to take dictation at 140 wpm...

Interesting as it must be older than the 1970s when I learned it as there are brief forms used in the note that were no longer in use when I learned shorthand.

My oldest sister learned it but I bet she doesn't remember.

Such a charming sentiment. Too bad it did not last but so it goes.

I took Pitman, and the symbols used are above the writing line, on the line and below the line. These all appear to be written 'on the writing line'.

Edited to add: That was 61+ years ago, so symbols may have changed from what I learned.

I was trying hard but just not remembering. I could read and write shorthand from a high school office procedures class. I'm not going to tell you how many years ago that was and my first summer job everyone dictated into machines for transcribing at a typewriter anyway, they didn't dictate directly to staff. I don't think I ever used it other than some very few college notes.

Gotta love the wisdom of crowds 😀

And 40+ years isn't what I'd call failing.

Sweet thread. I still have a full steno notebook from my dear mom who was a wiz at it. (born 1921).

I have no clue though to offer, but this brought up such a sweet recollection for me of her.

The shorthand above is what I learned which is Gregg which needs no lines as Pitman does.

When I was in college, I was a good student and often asked by others if they could borrow my notes. I always responded sure if you can read them...they were intermixed with lots of shorthand. They'd smirk and walk away like I was cheating or something.

This was one of my favorites in shorthand:

Sorry it's rough as I drew it with my finger.

I have not yet been able.....

I’m trying too - I have 6 college credit hours in Gregg shorthand from approximately a million years ago.

The last two symbols are definitely The Man. It’s probably ”and last but not least, the man” with the ”t” left off the symbols for the words last, but, and least. As I learned it, anyway.

My mom graduated high school in 1935. She never had the opportunity to go to college or secretarial school She went straight to work. I dont know where she learned shorthand. She could type like the wind, too. Maybe they had business classes in her high school. I dont know. One of many things i wish Id asked her.

I guess shorthand is one of those lost skills, like cursive writing will be soon. Now i want to learn more about shorthand. Thanks for your help with this.

Someday people will be trying to transcribe cursive writing this way.

I agree that we are losing cursive writing - not just the skill of doing it but also of reading it. I think that someone should do a modern version of the Rosetta Stone for cursive writing and maybe shorthand should be added to it along with the "no vowels used" texting.

I was thinking that shorthand would make an interesting tattoo. I see tattoos in arabic and Chinese all the time. Shorthand is both mysterious and pretty. Maybe I'll get my first tattoo —- or not.

I came up with a very pretty design for my wedding invitation...didn't end up using it though...it was 'his name' loves 'my name' in shorthand making a border. It was a great skill to have all through school. I was able to work as a sec'y when I was in high school making 3x what my GFs made at the luncheonette.

ded, your Mom probably learned it in high school. My mom was able to learn all kinds of business skills in high school that they just don't teach any more. Mom became a bookkeeper with just her high school education. Of course back then they also had business schools where you could go for a year or two.

When i was in hs,you could choose the academic track or the business track. The business students, all female, took typing and stenography and bookkeeping. We academics studied useful stuff like earth science and algebra, subjects I only used in college and pretty much never again.

Do secreterial schools no longer exist?

Like Solvana, I couldn't bear to toss one steno notebook of my mom's shorthand notes. She was born in 1920 and took a common track for women of that time. No money for college during the depression and after, for her.

Oh ded, that is a lovely thing to find. And find out what it says. So sweet. Sorrow that the zing did not last though. It must have been nice for you to have a moment to remember how in love your parents had been, at one time.

Sea sea, orchidrain translated it ” and last but not least— the man”

I worked at a public community college for many years. It offered a one-year certificate in secretarial science (which included shorthand) 50 years ago but that secretarial certificate was discontinued at least 30 years ago. Shorthand went by the wayside when computers started coming into common use. 40 years ago or so.

I had a somewhat different experience, littlebug. I started my career in the 1970s in a profession that involved a fair amount of written correspondence and file memos. This was before computers, before most word processing machines.

To do a unique, one-off item, we used dictation machines. I'd dictate the letter I wanted and give the recording media to the typing pool. They had foot operated play/rewind/stop pedals used to keep hands on the keyboard. They'd prepare a draft for review and then finalize it when corrected and approved.

So-called standard letters would be submitted by taking a copy of one used for the same purpose but with a different client. Words and data on the copy would be crossed out and additions or individual-specific info would be written in.

I once had a very experienced secretary who was skilled with shorthand and preferred it to using the recording equipment. That was fine, it was easier for her but it was harder for me because it took more time, so we rarely used her shorthand skills. She'd use it for herself to take notes when I was describing something I wanted her to do, but not for correspondence.

Littliebug, even the word secretary is no longer commonly used. Now we have administrative assistants. I had an admin for many years but honestly i could write and edit my own letters and documents quickly and easily.

I just checked and the community colleges near me still offer a certificate course.

I agree with dedtired, that term has been out of use for decades. At the time, more than 35 years ago, that was her job title.

I remember reading that Charles Dickens learned shorthand, and he worked as a court clerk. I fantasize that he wrote all the novels with so many pages because he was just whipping through the writing using his shorthand skills. No basis for truth, but it makes sense to me.

I'm always amazed at the cleverness of shorthand. The symbols that represent letter sounds are similar by shape so if you miswrite something, it still will sound similar enough to be readable. For example a large left parethesis is a "b" sound and a medium sized one is a "p". A large right parenthesis is a "v" sound and a medium one is an "f". A medium upside down u is a "k" and a large upside down u is a hard "g". A short dash is an "n", a medium is an "m" and a long one is a "men/mem" sound.

I was a secretary for a few years. Sometimes my manager used a dictaphone which was interesting. Mostly we had form letters that I retyped, customized for the client. (in my first month I corrected several errors on the model form letters, from the previous secretary.) This was pre-word processors.

I found the change to ”administrative assistant” to be meaningless. Secretaries are their own job, it is a profession. They can often be the ones who know and handle more than the people they are ”assisting”.

My mom was an excellent secretary. She took such classes in high school and local business college, and when she moved to the big city she worked in the admissions department at a university and handled the influx of GIs returning from WWII. She took certificate classes at Northwestern University! and was the secretary to the head of another college. Later, she also was secretary of many volunteer and community organizations.

I can’t read her shorthand. There are some notes I’ve come across that would be very helpful to be able to read, judging from the ”English” that accompanies it.

As to being able to read cursive, I have some letters from long-gone family members where the cursive style is so different that I can’t even tell if it is in Danish or English, likely to be either, or both!

Bpath, Ive been finding old letters and documents as I go through family stuff.. The handwriting is so fancy, full of loops and scrolls, that i can barely read it. It is beautiful to see, though . Imagine being taught to write that way.

Here is an inscription from the family Welsh bible. Its not only beautiful, its funny. William was not an educated person, so I guess he was taught to write this way while in grade school.

Somewhere up in the attic I have my FIL's engineering notebooks he did back in the 20s...each page is a work of art. If I dig them up sometime, I'll be sure to share a pic or two.

When I emptied my parents’ basement, there was a packet wrapped and tied in brown paper.. When I finally untied it, it contained my great-grandfather’s drawings from his bricklaying training in Denmark, and another of my grandfather’s sketches from architectural school in fhe US. Of course, the lettering on those is iimpeccable.

I have copies of some letters that my great-grandfather wrote in German using German handwriting (Sütterlinschrift) from 19th Century Prussia, and I am the only one of my relatives who can begin to read them. German handwriting is mostly straight lines and sharp angles, which makes a lot of letters look the same or similar, and so it is difficult to read, especially if you do not understand the meaning from context. The letters were correspondence with an agent in Prussia who was handling real estate transactions for the sale of the estate there, and so they were not that interesting.

When I was in high school in the 1960s, I had to get special permission to take typing, and I was the first boy at my high school to be allowed to do so. I was still forbidden from taking shorthand, even though I tried. I was also the first boy not to take the second year of vocational agriculture, but it was impossible for me to get out of taking the first year of that. That was the most useless class I ever had to take, I think.

dedtired, the form of writing done by your ancestor in the family bible is known as 'Copper Plate' which would have been taught to every child in England/Wales/Scotland/Ireland probably well into the 1900's. My late Father born 1911 was no scholar but had beautiful handwriting . .. an art sadly on the way out with the use of ball-point pens.

Vee , that is very interesting! I will make a note of it and enclose it with the bible. Thank you.

I am old enough to remember desks with inkwells, although we never used them. Getting an ink pen in school was quite eventful. As i recall, they had ink cartridges in them. I think it’s sad that fine handwriting is no longer taught.

Lars, I have some letters from previous generations but not far back and very few of them. I guess people tossed letters like we delete emails.

We all took typing in middle school. Later, in high school, it was only for girls, as was cooking and sewing. Boys took shop, which was wood and metal working. I thinkmimwojld have enjoyed agriculture!

Lars, my father took typing in high school. He graduated in 1945, so of course his next step was the US Army. He was asked if he had any special skills, he gave his typing speed and became a company clerk-typist in the Philippines and Japan.

In our high school personal typing was for all ... a freshman year course. Later typing classes, shorthand and business machines were all girls. Probably by choice. It wasn't that girls couldn't take shop and boys couldn't take home ec, but more that they didn't. I doubt they teach any of that any more as I suspect kids are so keyboard oriented by the time they are 5!

If not used and rarely looked at, why retain paperwork from ancestors? It's not unlike needlessly keeping kid's elementary schoolwork. As if some rule or trust were violated by disposing of them. If one's offspring have no interest in having them (most don't), why postpone the inevitable?

I took typing in high school. Two things I recall from it - the female to male ratio was about 2 to 1 and the teacher was seriously strange and acted very oddly with female students.

Younger people I see using laptops or PCs too often are not using the optimal (suggested) hand and finger positions.

Here's a trivia question- the "home positions" for one's hands on a keyboard be found without looking. How?

The little ridges on the F and J do not exist on a virtual keyboard, such as I am using right now.

I can still touch-type on this, for the most part, partly because the home keys are automatic for me. But some special character keys vary among my virtual keyboards, which can be quite annoying.

If not used and rarely looked at, why retain paperwork from ancestors?

Well clearly you wouldn't make a very good archivist! ;-) Without retaining such 'paperwork', historians would have a much harder time learning about the lives of ordinary people. Scanned copies and the like might not be readable in the future, but most paper remains in good condition if stored properly. It's not like these things take up a lot of space for most people.

And for some of us, having the originals means much more than having scanned or transcribed copies. I have letters from my great-grandmother to my grandmother and mother, written from the Kovno ghetto before it was liquidated. Unfolding the pages and seeing the Yiddish in her handwriting brings the tragedy much closer than reading the typed English translations I have on my computer. And my 30something children are both very interested in their family histories.

Bookwoman, I'm imagining a smile on your face with your first comment. If that's not the case, don't tell me it's otherwise.

I'll speculate that 99% or more of familial clutter will never be seen by a historian or someone else whose work and interest would concern such things, and is disposed at the death of the holder. If keeping items ultimately discarded makes someone an archivist, are hoarders "collection curators"?

I'm not sure I'd instantly equate an interest in family history with an interest in holding family papers but that's fine if you see it that way. My own kids have no interest in either. My wife and I feel the same way, that could be the source of their attitudes. We've fortunately offloaded most of such stuff, retained by my wife and not by me.

I'm sorry for the tragedy in your family history that your comment alludes to.

Thanks, Elmer. And yes, it was with a smile.

I'm with Bookwoman as to the value of original source materials. i have very little (as in almost none) inherited “stuff” from my parents. So their naturalization papers and passports and the few surviving mementos are very precious to me. We have digitized these items, but there's nothing wuite like touching the same document that they did.

BTW, @Bookwoman, my husband's family left Kovno in the early 1900s, fortunately. My mother's family, from Velky Berezny, were wiped out entirely, except for my mother.

So their naturalization papers and passports and the few surviving mementos are very precious to me.

Amen. So much was lost, an entire civilization.

Our Welsh bible is huge and heavy. It must have been incredibly important to the person who brought it over by ship. Imagine toting that across the ocean when I am sure they were quite limited in what they could bring. The woman who brought it ( Harriet) had a passle of kids, so Im sure it was extremely important to her. She arrived in America in 1871.

I can almost feel her hands on it when I touch it.