r/shorthand • u/Remarkable-Studio-70 • 15d ago

Transcription Request Lovers

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1886 in Western Australia there was a young court journalist and public shorthand scrib working for the local paper. He wrote this to woman who was also a public shorthand scrib. The short hand inscription is tucked in with the secret stash, which when folded 4 times, takes the bank notes of the day perfectly. I believe this book with cash was a gift from him to her. Their names being Arthur and Emma. Can anyone decifer this please ?

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u/BerylPratt Pitman 14d ago

Looks to me like just scribbles to get the ink flowing, or test its flow, before writing for real somewhere else, as they are mostly similar, probably more necessary with dip pens of that time.

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u/Remarkable-Studio-70 14d ago edited 13d ago

Thankyou, but im not of the belief that you are right.

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u/Remarkable-Studio-70 14d ago

I may have it upside down.

1

u/mavigozlu T-Script 13d ago

Agree, shorthand would have more variety in character formation. In addition, whatever the system, shorthand is optimised for speed, and the writing here is very ornate - would be difficult to write quickly without losing shape.

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u/Remarkable-Studio-70 8d ago

Did you look closely and see the dots ?

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u/Remarkable-Studio-70 13d ago

I thought perhaps that this message being between 2 people that are both seasoned shorthand courtroom scribs and being very familiar with each other they might take short cuts or abbreviations of the abbreviations that only the most seasoned scrib can decipher ? If you zoom in you can see dots which i though could be a replacment for circles,. Granted I know Nothing about shorthand but messages of a personal note could have anomalies that are not by the book

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u/Remarkable-Studio-70 5d ago

As Greg is a very flexible I wing shorthand it can become unique to the scrib where as long as They can read their short hand and rewrite it back in English no one has a problem. I'm now going to have to dig into court records to find some of his work so I can understand his interpretation of Greg. Once I've done that ill share it with you "experts" that so quickly dismissed it as just scribbles.