Can you write as fast as you can speak? Almost nobody can. But very often it is necessary to take down the words as someone speaks them in order to have a record. One way of doing this is writing in shorthand. Shorthand is the art of writing by means of signs that can be made quickly. These signs, which are not the same as words, can be read later by a person who knows the system. Today, the word shorthand is used to describe this method, but it has also been called stenography (which means little or narrow writing), and tachygraphy (which means swift writing), and brachygraphy (which means short writing).