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[ESC]>> Stenography Primer [02] //
Hello again.
This is part two of the article series about stenography. Now it's time to about how a steno machine works.
Let's dig in.
// The Steno Machine
The steno machine has 22 keys. This is fewer keys than there are letters in the English alphabet, and, for that matter, the steno machine repeats some letters. Why is that?
The standard keyboard layout assigns every individual key a specific finger, with the keyboard having one key for each letter of the alphabet. This makes sense because, as I mentioned previously, we type on a keyboard by pressing and releasing one key at a time.
The steno machine does not work like that.
// A brief history lesson
To understand the difference between keyboards and steno machines, it helps if you think of where keyboards come from: typewriters. When using a typewriter, each key is assigned a lever that slaps a letter on a piece of paper when that corresponding key is pressed.
But letters on the typewriter will all strike the same exact point on the paper. So how do we write words? The solution is that when releasing the pressed key, the typewriter has a mechanism that will physically move the paper over to create just enough space for the next letter to be slapped on the page. And once the paper is physically out of space to type, you reset the paper's position and start again.
When computers were invented, they adopted the typewriter key layout (the famous QWERTY layout) and typing style (one letter per key stroke).
Steno machines in their modern layout and typing style began back in 1913, and just like the keyboard, they haven't changed much. But remember, unlike a keyboard, we press multiple keys at the same time to create what we call a chord (a pattern of keys that are stroked simultaneously).
A typewriter can't do that because each lever strikes the same exact spot on the page. There's a speed limit to typing on a typewriter that's inherent to waiting for the levers to fully press and then return to their stationary position so the levers don't collide with one another.
Steno machines have no such speed limit because all of the levers are designed to take up a specific spot in a line across the paper, with each row of letters representing a single stroke. So after stroking a chord on a steno machine and releasing it, the paper moves UP a full line rather than a letter-width to the right. The resulting steno printed on paper looks like this:
You'll notice that the letters are at odd spaces apart from each other. Why is that?
// Reading and Writing Steno
Here is the steno keys and their corresponding letters and the hand positions for the steno machine.
The arrows in the second image show what we call steno order, or the order in which all letters are read. If all keys were pressed at the same time, it would look like this on steno paper:
STKPWHRAO*EUFRPBLGTSDZ
If you compare this with the steno paper example above, those empty spaces between the letters are the keys that were not added to the stroke. Every stroke is a line, so you can see what keys were pressed. We use this steno order so that we can quickly read words at a glance, but also because it's important to how we form words. I'll explain more about this later, but for now, just know that steno order is important.
But notice how some letters are repeated and other letters are omitted entirely from the steno layout. This is for a few reasons.
- Reason 1) Stenography is written phonetically, meaning we transcribe words based on how they sound rather than how the look. We don't need a letter "C" because the C in CAT has a K sound, and the C in Cedar has an S sound. However, this doesn't explain ALL of the missing letters. But I'll get to that shortly.
- Reason 2) Stenographers don't move their fingers much. Everything to the left of the asterisk is assigned to your left hand, and everything to the right is assigned to the right hand. Each finger typically takes a column of keys, pressing the top key, the bottom key, or even between the top and bottom keys to hit both at the same time to form a new chord combination.
The right hand is a little different, where the index finger is responsible for *FR, and the pinky is responsible for TSDZ.
- Reason 3) We use chording to make up for letters we don't have keys for if we ever need them (again, we write phonetically, so we try to avoid spelling). The chords we use differ from stenographer to stenographer, generally by the theory they learn (more on theories later), but here is an example from my theory:
On the left hand,
PW = B
TK = D
TP = F
TKPW = G
SKWR = J
HR = L
PH = M
TPH = N
KW = Q
SR = V
KP = X
SKR = Z
The right hand does not have all of the missing consonants, however.
// Beginnings and Endings of Words
As I said, we use steno order because we write in chords by pressing a bunch of keys down at the same time. Without the steno order, reading this would be very difficult. But this comes with an interesting consequence:
All syllable and word beginnings are formed with the left hand, and all syllable and word endings are formed with the right hand.
Take the word SAT, for example. A simple word, but how would you write it on a steno machine? If you look at the steno layout you'll see how we do it. For one, we use the S on the furthest left of the machine, written with our left pinky. SAT begins with S, so we start there.
But right next to S in steno order is a T. We don't use that to write SAT, however, because it breaks steno order. We still have an A to write, correct? So after S, we skip that first T and press the A button with our left thumb. Finally, we use the T on the far right side of the steno machine and hit that with our right pinky finger.
Steno order is important because it makes words legible. If we had just used the beginning T, we would be writing STA, not SAT.
I'll end this article here for today. This is a lot to digest and a lot to cover. I hope this was illuminating, and I'll be back next time to continue this with what we call briefs and theories.
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