How Does a Stenograph Work?

The Stenograph

The stenograph is the most successful and well-known stenotype machine currently on the market. In fact, the stenograph is so popular that it is somewhat mistakenly often used as a synonym for stenotype machines in general.

All vocabulary nuances aside, the stenograph performs exactly the same function as any other stenotype machine, namely to dramatically increase the rate at which spoken words can be recorded by a typist. Court reporters, closed captioners and several other types of professionals use stenographs to record over two hundred words per minute.

Instead of individual keys for each letter, as found for instance on the QWERTY keyboards of a home computer, stenographs only have 22 keys. Additionally, whereas in the written English language the same sound can be produced through multiple combinations of letters, as for instance the first consonant in the words "Cat" and "Khat," on a stenograph machine each phonetic sound has been reduced to either one letter or one combination of letters. In all cases where a particular sound or syllable are recorded, the spelling is the same, regardless of the proper English spelling of the word being transcribed. This simplifies and streamlines the process of recording spoken words.

Stenographs also enable the typist to become more efficient through a technique known as "chording." In chording, multiple keys are pressed simultaneously, rather than individually and in sequence as in normal typing. Pressing multiple keys at once forms a "chord," which can stand for a syllable, a word or even an entire phrase. Each chord entered by a stenograph typist occupies one line on "steno paper," a special type of paper used in stenograph machines. Each row of steno paper contains 22 columns in which a particular character will always be printed, one for each key on the keyboard.

There are multiple basic theories about different chord abbreviations, or "briefs" as they are called, that typists can use to optimize their performance. However, most stenograph users develop their own particular system of abbreviation over time. Regardless of any particular system, all chords and briefs, are designed to reduce the number of keystrokes the stenograph user has to make in order to transcribe a word or sound, thereby increasing the number of words they can transcribe in a certain period of time.