shorthand - is it still taught?

[ethandron]

anyone learning it? is it still used in an office situation or has technology taken over?
i learned pitman a long, long time ago but i'm not aware of anyone learning it these days.

[askyourgran]

We were taught Pitmans shorthand and typing at school, I used to enjoy doing that, I was a junior clerk for a director in my first job, but dropped the shorthand later doing computer work. I think they started to do speedwriting (missing vowels) I seem to remember that journalists do it instead of shorthand.

[ethandron]

interesting answers :)
i too learned shorthand and typing in the 60s as part of an OND in business studies although i never quite got the hang of shorthand, still remember some outlines though. yep, you can always recognise a trained touch typist, we learned to type to music - william tell if i remember rightly, all 30 of us hammering away in time to the music. we had a male tutor too, and my first boss in a press and public relations firm was a former journalist who also knew and used shorthand, really quick he was too.
being a typist comes in really handy using the computer doesn't it :)

[grasscarp]

You have jogged a distant memory ethandron. I think we maybe learnt the typing to music as well. We thundered away on heavy olivetti typewriters and if you went too fast all the keys jammed together in the middle. The training typewriters were all blank keys. Also in those days if you made a mistake it was rubbing out, and all the carbon copies too. Does anyone remember those useless round rubbers with a hole in the middle to keep them handy on a length of string?