Put it down to age, never seeing one, similar to the ones used in courts before recordings became a thingy. Stenographer always sat in front of Judge attacking the machine in designated table, a form of shorthand. I learned called Pitman shorthand at school, I was shit at it too.
Ended up using a dictaphone where 'boss' could talk into the machine, hand it over, I typed using a left or right foot peddle to move forward or back at pretty good speed... Everything in carbon copies three to be exact white original, blue for alphabetical filing, then pink in date file, nothing left to chance, no typing errors allowed or start again!
Long before work life for you me thinks....
Never heard of his either, but shorthand rings a bell. What class was that in?
Typing was for the girls back in my school days, the lads would not be seen dead in those classes. It was Metalworking for us, crafting Kung Fu stars.., at least that is what I did 😀
Shorthand was squiggles and wiggles, twirls and whirls you then had to decipher after you had written it?
Schooling was old system grade 1 to standard 5, then high school standard 6 and 7 (when boys went to metal/woodwork, girls cooking classes), I moved to Commercial high standard 8 to senior certificate, where the typing and shorthand came into play, subjects like mercantile law and commerce came into line to prep you for working years in an office.
They offered Typing in my school, but no boys ever did it. That was far too girly. I still only type with 2 fingers, it would have done me well.
The Kung Fu stars were terribly made and failed with stick in the local garages I threw them at. Not all all like Master Po 😒
Handful of guys opted for commercial high and did typing, little did they know it was a good thing to learn back then.
Kung Fu..., most definitely not a master with sticks, we used clay at the end of flexible stick to whip off at each other, similar, did the trick when you learned to flick the wrist properly. 😂