Deanna McKay, age 12, of Merrillville, Ind., for her question:

WHO INVENTED SHORTHAND?

Shorthand is a system of writing rapidly, using special letters or symbols to represent the sounds of words. Shorthand is used chiefly to take dictation.

Hundreds of shorthand systems have been developed. The Gregg and Pitman methods are the best known systems using symbols. John Robert Gregg, an educator who was born in Ireland, came up with his system in England in 1888. The symbols are based on longhand strokes and flow along in the same smooth style as longhand writing. An Englishman named Isaac Pitman invented his method in the 1830s. Here shading of strokes is stressed with some drawn light and others heavy.

Marcus Tullius Tiro, a secretary to the Roman orator Cicero, invested a shorthand system about 50 B.C. The system was revived in England in 1588 by a man named Timothy Bright.