There is a website that has spent more than a quarter-century insisting that pen shorthand is not dead, and it has the practice dictation to prove it.
Visit Shorthand Shorthand Shorthand
The site was launched in 1999 and is devoted to systems including Gregg, Pitman, and Speedwriting. Its host identifies as a Gregg Anniversary writer but explicitly welcomes users of other systems. The home page explains shorthand as rapid writing and places it in the office culture where stenographers and secretaries took dictation, transcribed letters, and made business communication move before word processors made that workflow largely invisible.
The useful material is practical rather than merely nostalgic. There are sections for learning shorthand, identifying which Gregg version someone writes, comparing shorthand with recording devices, building writing speed, and understanding modern systems. The dictation section provides practice material at 60, 80, 100, 120, and 140 words per minute.
That last section is particularly good Web archaeology because it preserves not just information about shorthand but the training process itself. The site reproduces old-style business dictation and explains testing conventions: valid pieces needed to run for a minimum amount of time, older Gregg tests could last five or ten minutes, and students were expected to check outlines and drill them before attempting speed work.
It is easy to treat shorthand as a quaint pre-digital office technology. The site resists that framing. It describes pen stenography as a personal note-taking tool, a hobby, and—in some countries and professions—something still used seriously. Its continued updates reinforce the point. This is not a museum page abandoned in 2001; the site was still being updated in 2026.
The design is old enough to feel like part of the subject. It is mostly text, simple links, small graphics, and pages organized around what a shorthand student actually needs. There is no account system, no course funnel, no “AI note assistant.” You click a link and practice writing faster.
For researchers, the site is useful because it bridges office history and living practice. It preserves terminology, teaching assumptions, speed-building exercises, and the distinctions between shorthand systems that broad historical summaries often flatten away.
It also demonstrates something modern web publishing routinely forgets: useful reference material does not need to be visually reinvented every three years. If the audience knows what it wants, durable navigation beats fashionable furniture.
CacheRat’s 1,967 Ancient Web Domains research list keeps surfacing sites like this—small specialist resources that remain useful because somebody never stopped caring about the subject.