What is a shorthand?

Shorthand is a system of writing words quickly by using symbols that stand for sounds or for whole words or phrase.  Can you write as fast as you can speak?  

Most people can’t.  people talk faster than they can write in long hand or ordinary writing.  But often it is necessary to take dictation, or record what someone says. 

Symbols

One way of doing this is to write in shorthand.  Shorthand is a method of writing words quickly by using little marks, or signs, instead of the letters of the alphabet.  A person trained to take down shorthand is often called a “stenographer.”  

A stenographer writes by sound.  He omits all letters of a word that are not actually pronounced.

For example, the word “knees” becomes “ne” in shorthand.  Other shortcuts include writing whole words and entire phrases of several words using a single symbol, or sign, without lifting the pencil, from the paper.  

Expert stenographers can write more than 250 words a minute, faster than most people can talk. – Dick Rogers