I took 5 years of Spanish in school but there is another language I spoke that no one talks about anymore. I doubt if my 19-year-old nephew has ever even heard of it. It is the language of lines and squiggles: SHORTHAND.
My mom took it in the early 1950s, her Gregg Shorthand Dictionary is shown below. I would follow in her handsteps in the 1980s. In high school I was a member of the FBLA (Future Business Leaders Of America) and competed at the state level in shorthand, coming in 3rd. I won the shorthand award at my school, it came with a plaque and a $100 bank CD. I even had a t-shirt back then that, in shorthand, said, “I am tired of being dictated to.”
For many years I would take notes in church to practice, or shorthand the news broadcast at night or even songs on the radio to keep my skills sharp.
Use it or lose it.
My first job was as a secretary (administrative assistant, kids) and I would be called into my boss’s office on the daily to take dictation. He would speak and I would take down in shorthand on a steno pad what he was saying. I would then go to my typewriter (computer with no screen, kids) and type up what he had said. Since you could not save your document, edits would have to be made with white-out (liquid, in those days, kids). On occasion, a full re-type was required. It was only a few years of my career that this process took place, the dictaphone soon arrived and the need for shorthand became less, then eventually obsolete. I, however, all these years later, still find myself resurrecting it all the time. When I’m taking notes during a call or a meeting and when I edit Sister Rain stories, I organically begin writing in shorthand. My Spanish is now limited to being able to ask you where the bathroom is or what color clothes you are wearing today. But I can “say” just about anything in lines and squiggles.
Shorthand is a lost art . . . except to those of us who use it.
#sisterrain #alittlesightalotofheart #legallyblindwriter #shorthand #iam5foottwoandshorthandisoneofmybestfeatures
