Man has always been obsessed with keeping written records of the spoken word. In ancient Roman times, Marcus Tullius Tiro became the secretary to Cicero and in the year 63B.C. used metal stylus to report a speech by Cato. To keep up with the speaker he wrote using abbreviations of well known words and he omitted words that could be filled in later from memory or by context. Eventually, after studying the speech habits of well known orators, he devised a shorthand system by which a single sign stood for an entire sentence. He even used his students as backup when recording the speeches of new and unfamiliar speakers. He could then use his notes and theirs to prepare an accurate record. While his primitive system has disappeared, the ( & ) ampersand sign remains as a legacy to his vision.

In 1180, the monk John of Tilbury, devised the first system of abbreviated writing for English speaking peoples, an alphabet of vertical lines differentiated by short lateral strokes. In 1588, Dr. Timothie Bright dedicated his shorthand system to Queen Elizabeth. It had no alphabet and consisted of 500 characters which had to be memorized. Over the next few hundred years, other men devised their own methods of shorthand reporting, including the two most successful systems, Pittman in 1877 and Gregg in 1893. All of these were handwritten methods, and as the industrial age advanced, so did man's progress in technology.

In 1879, Miles Bartholomew invented the first American Shorthand Machine, an advance over handwriting but still writing one letter per stroke. Ward Stone Ireland advanced the science of machine writing more than any other using a high-speed keyboard, still in use today, eliminating unnecessary keys, allowing reporters to write entire words with a single stroke, and thus increasing the productive writing speed of reporters exponentially.

With the advancement of the computer and of computer programming, Professional Shorthand Reporters now find themselves armed with sophisticated writers and software which enable them to capture the spoken word in realtime, translating shorthand strokes in English and broadcasting those very same words to laptop computers and viewers across the conference table or the country instantly.

* historical facts from The NCRA