The practice got national attention in the United States in 1858 during the Lincoln–Douglas Debates which were recorded phonographically.

The shorthand was converted into words during the trip back to Chicago, where typesetters and telegraphers awaited them.

Doing this requires a writing instrument responsive to the user's drawing pressure: specialist fountain pens (with fine, flexible nibs) were originally used, but pencils are now more commonly used.

The predominant way of indicating vowels is to use light or heavy dots, dashes, or other special marks drawn close to the consonant.

The first phonetician to invent a system of shorthand, Pitman used similar-looking symbols for phonetically related sounds.

He was the first to use thickness of a stroke to indicate voicing (voiced consonants such as /b/ and /d/ are written with heavier and lighter lines than unvoiced ones such as /p/ and /t/), and consonants with similar place of articulation were oriented in similar directions, with straight lines for plosives and arcs for fricatives.

His epitaph is written phonetically:[4] IN LUVING MEMERI OV JACOB PITMAN, BORN 28th NOV. 1810 AT TROWBRIDGE ENGLAND, SETELD IN ADELAIDE 1838, DEID 12TH MARCH 1890.

GOD OVER AUL, BLESED FOR EVER.At one time, Pitman was the most commonly used shorthand system in the entire English-speaking world.

Unlike Gregg, pairs of consonant phonemes distinguished only by voice are notated with strokes differing in thickness rather than length.

Common words are represented by special outlines called logograms (or "Short Forms" in Pitman's New Era).

The shapes are written separately to show that they represent distinct words, but in common phrases ("you are", "thank you", etc.)

The consonants in Pitman's shorthand are pronounced pee, bee, tee, dee, chay, jay, kay, gay, eff, vee, ith, thee, ess, zee, ish, zhee, em, el, en, ray ar, ing, way, hay, and yay.

/pɑː | meɪ wiː ɔːl ɡoʊ tuː/, and the short vowels may be remembered by the sentence, "That pen is not much good" /ðæt pɛn ɪz nɒt mʌt͡ʃ ɡʊd/.

Vowels are further distinguished by their position relative to the consonant stroke – beginning, middle or end – for a total of 12 possible combinations.

Another feature of Pitman's shorthand allows most vowels to be omitted in order to speed up the process of writing.

There are four diphthongs in Pitman's shorthand, representing /aɪ/, /ɔɪ/, /aʊ/, /juː/, as in the words "I enjoy Gow's music."