The process of writing shorthand is called stenography, and it is traditionally used by those working in secretarial trades and at public meetings and in law courts, where full notes are necessary. Shorthand is also commonly used by journalists to take notes when attending events or conducting interviews. The abbreviated notes can then be reread so that an accurate version of proceedings can be quickly transposed into a news story or report. There are three main types of modern shorthand in the English language.
Teeline shorthand is a relatively modern form of shorthand. It was developed in 1968 in the United Kingdom and is adaptable into many languages, as it relies on notes that represent each letter of the alphabet. In Teeline notation, vowels can be removed from words to speed the process of writing, common suffixes and prefixes are represented by symbols, and individual words can be grouped together to further increase speeds. Individual letters can also represent common words in this form of notation.
Pitman shorthand was developed in the United Kingdom more than a 150 years ago and is a phonetic system in which, unlike Teeline, the symbols taken as notes do not relate to specific letters or words, but to sounds. Pitman uses straight and curved strokes to denote consonant sounds as they are spoken, while vowels are usually denoted by a series of dots and dashes. It also relies on the thickness of the line notes to denote "heavy" and "light" sounds.
Gregg shorthand, like Pitman, is a phonetic system of note-taking that is more commonly used in the United States. Unlike the Pitman system, Gregg does not use the thickness of notes to denote sounds. Instead, it uses the same thickness throughout and relies on the length of the stroke to denote sounds.