VMs: Re: Qoteedy nine

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi GC,

> I know I've said this before, but I reiterate that I think we're
> looking at some sort of coordinate system here.  Given that the
> alphabet has its origin in shorthand, and coordinate systems of
> notation are a standard feature of shorthand systems, I do not
> find this too unlikely.    Systems ranged in coordinate notation
> up to 12 points of the compass, so a simple system of four compass
> points 50-80 years before the publication of the first coordinate
> system is not out of range.  Variations on a coordinate theme were
> also covered by Porta in 1568, and I'll have to check but I think
> the idea came up even earlier.

Whatever's going on here, making inferences about shorthand pre-Bright is a 
hazardous area, for sure. :-/

My current shorthand hypothesis is fairly restrained: that Timothy Bright's 
characterie was patentable (in the modern sense, ie, as the result of a 
novel and inventive step).

As with all patents, it rested on prior art - which, in this case, I 
believe to be single-stroke wax-tablet alphabets... though whether Bright 
observed such alphabets in England (on such wax tablets as found in 
Swinegate in York) or on the continent (as he certainly visited Paris in 
1572) really isn't possible to say ATM.

What, then, was Bright's inventive step? It was the codification of 
*abstract* ideas as a series of shapes - Tironian notae (apart from a 
handful of sign fossils) were well and truly lost by that time (it would 
appear that even Trithemius didn't recognise them), and, anyway, they 
formed a set of codifications of *concrete* ideas, which is fairly 
conceptually different.

In the period 1400-1588 (to which most of us would be fairly comfortable 
dating the VMS), I would therefore argue that any shorthand or tachygraphic 
system, to be effective (ie, one that stood any chance of keeping up with 
the spoken word), would almost certainly rest on (up to) four principles:
(1) single-stroke characters - for writing fast
(2) abbreviations of words - for writing less per word
(3) code-book indices - quite possibly expressed as numbers
(4) extra symbols signifying commonly used words or phrases

Certainly, (2)-(4) all had their place in the (numerous) ciphers of the 
time, though to my eyes there appears to be little solid evidence of (4) in 
the VMS. But if code-book indices were used in the VMS, where are the numbers?

Hmmm.... I continue to be tantalised by the absence/presence of numbers in 
the VMS: the whole gallows-as-multiples-of-10 theory seems extremely 
plausible, and fits in very well with the idea of an underlying shorthand 
alphabet... I just wish I could prove it one way or another... bah! :-(

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....