On today's chat, I happened to mention Tironian Notes during a discussion of medical abbreviations with Kalleh. Shufitz wanted a little more information. Basically Tironian Notes are the first recorded instance of shorthand (or tachygraphy). They are named after a slave belonging to Cicero, named Marcus Tullius Tiro, who worked as that lawyer's scribe. They consisted of about 4K signs, but owing to their popularity during the Middle Ages the inventory more than tripled. The ampersand seems to have originated in this system. There are some extant examples of the notes amongst the Vindolanda writing tablets.

Thanks, jheem! It reminds me; do they still have stenographers, like they used to, to take shorthand? I haven't heard of stenographers (and those funny little notebooks they used to use) for a long time. I never learned shorthand. Is the shorthand we see today related?

BTW, I had to get off the chat quickly because my daughter visiting from college was nudging me to go to lunch with her. However, as it was ending arnie was talking about a prescription he had once had where it said to take the pills bd, and he thought it said pd. He took them once a day, and in fact should have taken them twice daily. Unfortunately, I had to leave right then. However, I was surprised that prescriptions in England have those abbreviations on them. Here, the nurse or pharmcacist might read "BID" (twice daily), but the prescription directions for the patient would read "twice daily." I am wondering, did I get that right, arnie? Did your prescription actually say "pd" or "bd" (I can't remember which). If so, that is really dangerous.

Court reporters use steno machines which look like crazy typewriters but with more piano looking keys. Last time I was on jury duty I chatted up the lady who was our court reporter. Of course, everything hooked up to computers now for transcription from the steno machine tape (where letters have fixed positions, chords of two or more letters stand for letters that don't have akey, and words are read vertically from bottom to top, kind of). Many court reporters also do closed captioning live for news broadcasts etc. and the software translates to the text you see on the TV screen. Cool stuff.

Yes, Kalleh, the prescription did use "bd" to indicate "twice daily". It was really my fault, because I (mis)read the prescription, rather than the label on the packet affixed by the chemist (your druggist) which clearly said "Take TWO twice daily".

It was really my fault, because I (mis)read the prescription,

Ohhhh, that's a relief! I was envisioning the whole world not understanding how to take their medications!

Here is a link to some of the medical abbreviations available...and it is not at all conclusive. That is a problem in medicine today, especially pharmacology. Experts working to decrease medical errors have found that abbreviations are a big cause of them. Beyond the bid or tid used in pharmacology, oftentimes orders will be written as, for example, IVP stat. While the M.D. meant "intravenous pyelogram" (a kidney test), in this particular situation I recall that the nurse misread it as an intravenous drug (there were some scratches that he/she had thought indicated a dosage.) It can be quite confusing, especially since the abbreviations in one specialty are often completely different in another.

As far as twice daily, we always use bid, not bd, and here is a link that gives some of the Latin (best I could find quickly) for the abbreviations. The Latin for bid is "bis in die." I suppose it could be shortened to "bis die;" I just have never seen it.

jheem's link says, "According to tradition a set of abbreviations created by Cicero's amanuensis (Tiro) to facilitate the taking down of dictated text."

Am I the only one who had to look up 'amanuenis'? amanuensis: someone skilled in the transcription of speech (especially dictation)