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What is a hobby you enjoy, but seems too quirky or obscure to bring up in most conversations? (lemmy.sdf.org)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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Mine would be creating pen and paper ciphers for my made up secret communication needs.

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[โ€“] 31 points 3 years ago (8 children)

I was learning Gregg Shorthand at some point just for the fun of it and every time I brought it up people had no idea what I was on about.

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  • [โ€“] 13 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    I'm old enough to remember when shorthand was a required course for women in secretarial schools. I always though it was black magic and very cool.

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  • [โ€“] 5 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Wow. How old are you?

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  • [โ€“] 8 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    In my 60's. According to Internet sources, shorthand was taught in schools until the 1990's. It's likely that shorthand use declined as PCs became common in offices.

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  • [โ€“] 5 points 3 years ago

    I think it was still taught to business students up until the mid-90's in my country. That's also how I got my hands on an old Gregg shorthand textbook. That, and typing (via a typewriter) which was the one I learned when I was in high school.

    Had I had a choice, I would have chosen to learn shorthand instead.

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  • [โ€“] 6 points 3 years ago

    I only know about it because of my fountain pen hobby; back in the mid 20th C, Esterbrook made fountain pens with replaceable nibs and offered a wide variety including a Gregg shorthand nib. I guess the Gregg shorthand people licensed the name for marketing. It was basically a normal non, but branded.

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  • [โ€“] 5 points 3 years ago

    Hey! Someone left an old Gregg Shorthand textbook (anniversary edition, if I remember it correctly) in our house back when I was a child, and I tried learning it. Still kinda interested in it up until now.

    Tried learning it again back during the lockdown days, but it went nowhere unfortunately.

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