ANCIENT SHORTHAND.

Shannon News, 14 March 1924, Page 4

ANCIENT SHORTHAND.

FIRST PRACTICAL USE.

Plutarch mentions the speech on the conspiracy o-: Catiline as the only one of Catd the Youagec'3 speeches that has been preserved. On tlio 'lay that • Cato miatle it Cicero had disposed in various'parts nf the Sonata several of the most expert rapid writers whom he had taught "to make figures comprising numerous words in a few short strokes." Plutarch adds that it was then that .shorthand writers made the first practical use of the art. But according' to a writer in the Century Magazine the earliest use of an abbreviated form of writing goes back to/200 BC when the Roman poet Quintus Erm'us used a system of eleven hundred -signs that he devised. Tiro,, the reporter of the orations of Cicero, was in early life a slave, but, having acquired an education, lie found favour with his master, who gave him his freedom and made him his secretary and confidant. Tiro was evidently a capable stenographer, for once during his absence from Rome Cicero wrote to >a friend complaining that his work was delayed because, whereas he had been able to dictate to Tiro in periods, he now had to dictate to others in syllables. The system of 'pothooks that Tiro invented came to be known as Tironian Notes, and was the basis of all the shorthand used during the days of the Roman Empire and the Dark Ages. It was, however, merely a sys- | tem .of thoughts-represented by'different characters that had to be labour- J iously memorised. Shorthand systems j based oh phonetic characters were not ] invented until after the Reformation.