Help with translating from shorthand

August 21, 2016 1:45 PM

My friend came into possession of a 100-year-old maths textbook, and the front page contains handwritten text, apparently written in shorthand. Neither he nor I can read any form of shorthand, and Googling has proven fruitless, but he would love to get some idea of what it says.
posted by littlegreen to Writing & Language (5 answers total)

That's definitely Pitman shorthand. Maybe someone else can translate it.
posted by pipeski at 2:09 PM on August 21, 2016

Best answer: My Pitman is rusty, but the first line says (I think) "I bought this with my own money so for anyone ..." then I lose the plot.
posted by essexjan at 2:48 PM on August 21, 2016

I learned Gregg shorthand, not Pitman, but the problem with shorthand in general is that the differences between words can be extremely subtle or even nonexistent. If you look at the consonant chart on the Wikipedia page, for instance, you'll be hard pressed to see the difference between P and B sounds. Add in the variations in handwriting, and it can be almost impossible to read if you don't have a general idea of what it's saying to start with. When I was taught shorthand, the basic idea was that you wrote something down, then typed it up in the next day or so while your memory was still fresh.

But maybe you'll get lucky and someone will be able to read it.
posted by FencingGal at 3:20 PM on August 21, 2016

Best answer: Well, I am like a dog with a bone sometimes. I learned Pitman 2000, but this is Pitman New Era. So I hunted around online and found this wonderful woman, who has translated the inscription.

Tracey's email to me says:

Hi Jan,

Your snippet says ..

" I bought this with my own money so if anyone tries to appropriate (deleted outline) it they will be thieves and big ones too. But I did not pay the (deleted outline) whole amount for it. "

I think the deleted outlines were mistakes by the writer. As you can see they are very similar. The second deletion seems to be because she/he was not thinking of the word phonetically and started with a WH rather than H, even though the word is spelt WHole.

I hope this helps, Have a good evening.

Best regards,

Tracey

posted by essexjan at 12:52 PM on August 26, 2016

Response by poster: Thanks SO much, essexjan! It's very cool of you to go to so much trouble! My friend & I much appreciate it :)

Thanks to all the other responders, too!
posted by littlegreen at 8:07 AM on August 27, 2016