On Wednesday, March 6, the University Libraries will be hosting a lecture by Michael Mendle, professor of history at the University, entitled “Absolutely the Most Important Thing You Know Nothing About: Shorthand and Civilization in the 17th Century England.” The lecture will explore a now little-known writing technique known as shorthand.
“I am going to take something that is scarcely known and show how it was extremely important to the culture of the time,” Mendle said.
Mendle said shorthand began in a pious manner but was quickly picked up by others, who expanded the discipline and its meaning for us today.
“It began as a way for pious Puritans to take sermon notes, but eventually lawyers, brainiacs and academics picked it up. The way it was designed it really required people to be intelligent to even use it. Famous people such as Isaac Newton, John Locke, Samuel Pepys and other famous people used shorthand,” he said. “Very smart people engaged in it because it enabled people to be successful.”
As to why it is important today, Mendle explained the heavy bearing shorthand had on a number of modern technologies and techniques as diverse as news reporting and texting.
“It is fun and people know nothing about it. It used to be taught in schools and girls learned it in secretarial schools, but not anymore,” Mendle said. “It is important to think of in terms of information transmission and it has a bearing on things as diverse as texting. It also has very much to do with news culture. For the first time people could read firsthand accounts of what people had said on the scaffolding before they were executed. People could read quotes of what people had said on trials. It is very important to news gathering.”
Mendle’s lecture will take place on Wednesday, March 6 beginning at 3 p.m. in Room 205 of Gorgas Library.
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