Take A Letter

Long before “LMFAO” and “BRB” freed us from tiresome longhand, there was Gregg shorthand. Useful in a number of settings, perhaps the most iconic that comes to mind is the office.  The boss would pace and pontificate aloud in a necktie while his secretary sat primly before him, scribbling his every word on a pad atop skirted knee.

Few secretaries will still “take a letter;” even fewer practice shorthand, once a highly marketable skill.  After all, in the space between the late 19th and 20th centuries the boss, as a general rule, did not type.  His business was thinking.  It was the secretary’s business to record the gems that tumbled forth from his tongue.   She’d then translate her scritch-a-scratch via typewriter and present him with a draft for correction.  This cycle continued, draft by draft, until he was satisfied with the final result. 

These days, the cost effectiveness of team-based letter construction is debatable.  Ostensibly, his time in thinking up thoughts was worth more than hers in recording them.  As she typed, he could be thinking up clever new thoughts. The whole scenario only has utility if we accept this suggested hierarchy, this basic separation of value and skills. 

Thanks to the Dictaphone, the days of “take a letter” are largely behind us.  And, thanks to the personal computer, we now know that bosses can indeed type.  In fact, some can out-type their secretaries.  We always knew this in the same way we always knew some secretaries could out-think their bosses.  Let’s face it.  The practice of dictation brought women to the feet of men, close enough for him to smell her perfume, to admire her legs, her stockings, her neckline, and all the while she would, as protocol dictated, hang on his every word. 

Today, the female executive is commonplace. Perhaps office skills like shorthand and typing offered women backdoor passage to our most hallowed men’s club – the professional space.  And while he paced and pontificated and peeked at his lovely, humble secretary, she quietly absorbed not just his words, but a sense of business acumen.  She took a letter, and she ran with it. 

Nancy Wyland is a Defunct staff reader and contributor to Ye Olde Blogge.