The surprising connection between journalism and flex nibs
Back in the day before journalists could record interviews electronically, they would have to take notes on paper. People speak much faster than words can be written down, and thus standardised shorthands were invented, with simplified letterforms and phonetic transcriptions allowing people to jot at speeds of hundreds of words per minute.
Does shorthand require special stationery? Well, it varies. I know a little Teeline shorthand, which requires you to write on lined paper because the meaning of a letterform changes depending on its position within the lines. For example, T is written as a horizontal line (hence the name) near the top of the space, while D is an identical line drawn at the bottom. (Teeline is an especially easy shorthand to learn because it isn’t written phonetically but with normal English spellings–at minimum all you need to learn are new versions of the 26 letters of the alphabet, plus a handful of variations.)
The Teeline alphabet. Vowels in the middle of words are usually skipped.
My interest was piqued recently by Pitman shorthand, which once claimed to be the most commonly used system in the English-speaking world. Apart from being phonetic (so words are written according to how they sound, not how they are spelled) its letterforms are notable because the thickness of a line also helps determine its meaning.
The Pitman consonants - heavier lines indicate the consonant is voiced. Vowels are indicated by dots when necessary.
While Teeline stipulates the paper you write on, Pitman stipulates the pen: while a pencil or ballpoint would be able to produce the varying widths, a regular fountain pen would not. Indeed, I discovered that fountain pens with flex nibs used to be created especially for the purpose and marketed as ‘shorthand nibs’–Esterbrook even produced nibs marked specifically for Pitman or for Gregg shorthand!
Here is a nice blog post on the topic written by a user of shorthand pens, and here is a video of Pitman being written with a Noodler’s flex pen.
When I posted about this on my Mastodon account, kby let me know that German shorthand also makes use of line weights and that it was the original purpose of this beautiful Brause ‘Blue Pumpkin’ dip pen nib.
The zigzag on the left says ‘Stenografie’ in Deutsche Einheitskurzschrift, the official German shorthand.
Quite a contrast from the usual perception of flex nibs as calligrapher’s tools!