Teeline Shorthand

Teeline Shorthand
Type	semi-script abjad Stenography
Languages	English
Creator	James Hill
Time period	1968–present
Child systems	-

Teeline is a shorthand system accepted by the National Council for the Training of Journalists, an organisation for training journalists in the United Kingdom.^[1] It was developed in 1968 by James Hill,^[2] a teacher of Pitman Shorthand.^[1] It is adaptable to a variety of languages but is mainly used within the Commonwealth, though it works in a variety of Germanic languages (including German and Swedish). It was created so that the basic alphabet can be quickly learned, and from then on all it requires is practice. Speeds of up to 150 words per minute are possible.^[3] It is common for people to create their own word groupings, increasing their speed.^[1]

Writing style

Teeline shorthand is a streamlined way to transcribe the spoken word quickly by removing unnecessary letters from words and making the letters themselves faster to write.^[1] Vowels are often removed when they are not the first or last letter of a word, and silent letters are also ignored.^[1] Common prefixes, suffixes, and letter groupings (such as "sh" and "ing") are reduced to single symbols. The symbols themselves are derived from the old cursive forms of the letter and the unnecessary parts are again stripped leaving only the core of the letter left.^[1] Unlike Pitman, Teeline is a spelling based system, as opposed to one based on phonetics. The advantage is that it can be learned straightforwardly.

Alphabet

The Teeline Alphabet

Teeline differs from many shorthand systems by basing itself on the alphabet as opposed to phonetics, making it simpler to learn but also carrying the speed limitations of the alphabet when compared to other systems.^[1] However, it is common to find some phonetics spellings used. For example, ph is often just written as an f, so the word phase would be written as if it were spelt fase. This coincides with the creator's intentions of streamlining it as much as possible.^[1] As with many shorthand systems, there are few strict rules on how to write it, so it is common for users to make personal adaptations for their own use.^[1] Certain letters also have specific meanings as well as their traditional alphabetic value, as shown in the table below.

Note: there may also be some regional, dialectal, and linguistic additions to these as well.

Letter	Meaning	Notes
A	auto, after, able, able to, ability	Can also be used as an outline for "Blood Group A". There is also an indicator A for words ending in "Ang", but indicators can be used for word beginnings.
B	bee, be	Can also be used for "blood group B". It can also be mistaken for a number 6, so all numbers 0-99 are circled
C	Local, locals, because, (if below the line)
D	Do, Day	T & D are parallel lines, but T can be dropped in certain cases. T goes at the top of the line and D goes to the bottom.
E	Electricity	Also used as an indicator for words spelled with "eng"
F	From
G	Go, Gentleman
H	He	Written on the line, so it's not mistaken for a "P"
I	I (singular), Eye	Also used as indicator I and words spelled with "Ing"
J	None	Can be given a meaning
K	Kilo, Kind, Like
L	Letter, Lady, a lot, a lot of	Upwards L can be used as an outline for facilities. Sharp "L" used before a G,M and N, upwards L afterwards.
M	Me, May
N	Non, Nation, National, Begin, Beyond	Begin/Beyond are written below the line but Non, Nation and National are special outlines that use a special N (looking like an upside down Q). Also used in the T position to denote words ending in "ion", such as "junction".
O	Blood, bloodspot, pint of blood, or	Outline for "Blood" derived from blood groups, meaning that A, B and O can be used as an outline for each blood group. Also used as an indicator for words spelt with "ong" and "ology", so sociology would be written as "S,C, disjoined O".
P	Page, Pence, Police	Can be blended with H to form word groupings with "At The post office" or "in the post", "In the Past"
Q	Queen, question, equal
R	Are, authority
S	South
T	to, too
U	You	Indicator used for words ending in "ung" and beginning in "un"
V	Very, Evidence, evidently	"Evidence" and "Evidently" are written below the line
X	Accident, accidentally	Can also be used for "Christ", "Christian", etc. Cf. X for "Christ"
Y	Your, Why
Z	Zoo	Can be replaced with an S
SH	shall, shell	represented as a longhand letter S and can be used in words like "special" or "social".
CH	Chair(man/woman)
TH	The, Thousand(s)	Can be used in word groupings like "At The", "in The", etc., by putting the "At" or "in" in the T position.

Writing technique

Words in Teeline are written by connecting letters together, as opposed to writing each individually. This allows for a faster writing speed. However, in abbreviations, letters can be written unconnected.

References

1. Bowers, Meriel; Clarkson, Jean; Hall, Stephanie; Osborne, Celia; Parkinson, Ulli (1991). Teeline Gold (The Course Book) (1 ed.). Oxford: Heinemann Educational. ISBN 0-435-45353-X.
2. Hill, James (1968), Teeline: a method of fast writing, London, Heinemann Educational, OCLC 112342
3. www.pressgazette.co.uk, Reporter breaks shorthand record