my alternate future

For the literally hundreds of people Googling for a steno machine image and getting this post — if you’re considering court reporting school, please, I beg you, read this post,too.

WHAT THE HECK IS THIS, YOU ASK?!

STENO MACHINE

UP CLOSE “KEY” TO A STENO MACHINE KEYBOARD

*********************************************************************

BUT STILL, WHY IS THIS ON MY BLOG?!

Well, betcha didn’t know I studied to become a court reporter, did you? S’true, I’m afraid. And I’m going to be revisiting this grand and glorious chapter of my past right here on this blog.

I thought I’d do a few posts on the mysterious, little-understood field of court reporting — because as it happens, I do know a LOT about it. I thought maybe I’d explain it a bit, share some stories from the trenches, and confess my reasons for never ultimately pursuing it as a career — and won’t that be tremendous fun?!

(And I cite M@ as the inspiration for this dredging of my past, mainly because I thought he might find it interesting. Perhaps some of the rest of you will, too. So I expect myriad comments, M@, in which you “ooh” and “ahh” and express astonishment, even if you have to fake it!)

Now, I say this will be “a few posts,” but let’s face it, I thought I could do the whole drama camp finale in ONE post and we all know how that turned out. So, honestly, I don’t know how many I’ll write. I may get caught up in it. Or I may get bored. I can’t say, but at least I’m saying that up front.

All right. Because I’m a rather lazyish blogger and because I thought it would amuse (me, at least), I’m starting with a non-court reporter’s explanation of what court reporting is. This is a recent article by David Engber at Slate on “what court reporting is all about.”

Of course, I chose this so I can make blatant editorial comments on his “expertise.” My comments in parentheses.

What’s That Thing Court Reporters Are Always Typing On?

(Oh, dear, Davey. Right off the bat, you’ve gotten it wrong and any court reporterish person reading your article would be somewhat offended by your use of the word “typing.” Court reporter types call it “writing,” quite haughtily, really, so I don’t know who you interviewed, because I simply can’t believe that person wouldn’t have made that QUITE clear, again, with a twinge of snobbery, as I just did. So please don’t call it typing. Or spelling, either, for that matter. It is in no way related except that fingers are used. So hmmphh!)

It’s called a stenotype machine, and it’s also used for captioning television broadcasts and general office stenography. (Huh? “General office stenography”? No. That’s a rare occurrence, indeed. It’s used for recording court proceedings, pre-trial depositions, and captioning, as mentioned above. I just love using the caption function on my TV. It’s fun to see what those captioners are trying to do and to be able to read through the “junk.”) The stenotype works a bit like a portable word processor, but with a modified, 22-button keyboard in place of the standard qwerty setup. Modern stenotypes have two rows of consonants across the middle, underneath a long “number bar.” Set in front of these are four vowel keys: “A,” “O,” “E,” and “U.”

How does it work? Court reporters can type (write!) entire words all at once by striking multiple keys at the same time. The left hand (called the initial side) spells (WRITES!) out the beginning of a syllable, while the right hand (called the final side) spells (AGAIN, argh!) out the end; all keys are pressed at the same time, and the machine produces an alphabet soup that’s incomprehensible to anyone who’s not trained in machine shorthand.

(A court reporter must attain 225 wpm to pass state boards. Some rare reporters — freaks, really — can write speeds of nearly 300 wpm.)

Court reporters spell (!?#!@?!) out syllables phonetically, but there aren’t enough keys on each side of the keyboard to cover every sound. Certain combinations of adjacent keys correspond to the missing consonants: For example, there’s no “M” anywhere on the keyboard, so you have to press “P” and “H” together to start a syllable with that sound. There is a “B” on the right side of the board, but none on the left—that means it’s easy to end a syllable with “B,” but for words that begin with “B” you need to hit “P” and “W” together.

Each court reporter might use different conventions to represent homonyms or other ambiguous words. At court-reporting school, you can learn one of at least half a dozen machine shorthand “theories,” which teach different approaches and general rules. But any experienced court reporter will work out his or her own abbreviations, especially for words and phrases particular to a given job. “May it please the court,” for example, could be shortened to a quick stroke, as could, “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury.”

(Ah, yes. Strokes like these are called “briefs.” Or as I used to call them “sweet, sweet briefs.” And here’s a little keyboard lesson that ol’ Davey isn’t giving you. Ready?

Home position for your hands: The fingers of the left hand rest along the gap between the two main banks of keys to the left of the asterisk (pinkie finger on the “S” to forefinger on the “H” and “R”). These fingers are used to stroke initial consonants. The fingers of the right hand lie in the corresponding position to the right of the asterisk (forefinger on “FR” to pinkie finger on “TS” — oh, and pinkie finger also controls the “DZ”.) This side is used for final consonants. The thumbs produce the vowels, so your left thumb rests on the “AO” and your right thumb rests on the “EU”. You’ve got it now, right?)

In the old days, everything the court reporter typed (did you even interview a court reporter, Davey? erghh!) would print to a roll of narrow paper tape. Later on, the court reporter would translate the notes back to English, and sometimes another court reporter, called a “scopist,” would check the translation. Now the translation is done by computer, and the fancier stenotype machines translate as they go. The paper tape still records the original notes, but an LCD display on the machine itself shows the words in regular English. (Ah, yes! But those paper notes are oh-so-important! They are the ultimate fail-safe if something else malfunctions technically. This is how important they are: Reporters are required to keep them for 7 years.)

A court reporter typically saves the spellings and abbreviations he uses into a personal dictionary on his home computer. These personal dictionaries can then be transferred to stenotype machines, most of which have floppy-disk drives or USB ports. Machines can be further customized, down to the sensitivity of each individual key. These changes reflect the relative strength of each finger: The “L” key under the scrawny right ring finger is often made less sensitive, since that finger is more likely to sag and touch the key by accident. (Oh, all right. That’s true. My scrawny little ring finger was weak.)

Almost all court reporters have their own customized machines, which they take with them on specific jobs. (Make that all jobs, Davey. Showing up for a job without your machine is generally frowned upon.) A brand-new, top-of-the-line stenotype costs up to about $4,500. Cheaper training models are a bit over $1,000.

****
That’s the rather abrupt ending to the article, so let’s just say that’s it for our little intro. Any questions? 😉