VMs: RE: More shorthand trivia

["GC" <glenclaston@xxxxxxxxx>]

Well, the search for information on shorthand is rather
frustrating.  There seems to be a very large gap in history
between the Tironian Notes and Timothy Bright's publication.
German, French and Spanish books on stenography are even later
than the English, and most incorporate the earlier English
notations.  Once again, English engenuity dominates the food
chain.  Somewhere in all this is the makings of a paper on why
such a tiny island homeland came to dominate the social,
intellectual, scientific, cryptologic and military sphere.

Archeological reports demonstrate that many of the ships in the
Spanish Armada went down with guns loaded, because much smaller
English cannon had a greater distance, allowing them to stay out
of range.  Vellum was still used and expensive paper imported from
Switzerland and the Netherlands because the forests were being
used almost exclusively for ship building and weaponry.  It wasn't
until 1612 that the first royal patent was assigned to a paper
mill, and even then it didn't get into operation until around
1615.  Shakespeare's First Folio was printed on medium grade paper
from the Netherlands, with the exception of a few sheets borrowed
by the printer from the Fleur-de-leis around the corner, which
were fine grade Swiss.  The source of these pages are known
because of the watermark from the Fleur-de-leis that was already
imprinted on the stationery at the time.

This might seem like a bit of a rambling, but I am ever in awe of
what was accomplished in the 15th and 16th centuries by the
English.  When it wasn't invented or first written about by the
English, it was certainly capitalized on by them, never missing an
opportunity to advance themselves.

For those interested in shorthand, there is a book on EEBO (soon
to be in the private section on my site) by E. Cole, entitled "The
Newest, Plainest, and Shortest Short-hand", 1674, that provides a
graphic synopsis of all systems in print up to that time.  In his
book he provides a very necessary table, entitled "The Table of
Symbolicalls".  This table demonstrates that not just words, but
common phrases many words long, can and were represented by a
single symbol.  Something religious like "Fear God and keep the
Sabbath Holy" could indeed be represented by a single symbol,
since it was common to the subject.  Bright published the first
book on this subject, and had hundreds of single symbols for words
and phrases in his system.  "Symbolicalls" are assumed to be the
basis of the Tironian notes, and such a system of notation is
probably the underlying system imitated by the Voynich author.

Again, simply to avoid misconceptions, I do not believe the
Voynich to be written in shorthand.  I believe the script to have
its foundations in shorthand notes, giving it its appearance.  The
origins of the script are not necessarily a key to the VMS, but
are important in its history.

GC