Shorthand was an abbreviated style of writing used on Earth throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.
In the 21st century in particular it was implied to be a skill known by specific individuals whose work would necessitate them to have such skills. Donna Noble could do shorthand at one hundred words per minute as part of her job as temporary secretary. (TV: The Stolen Earth) In the 2000s,[nb 1] Larry Nightingale took notes while he and Sally Sparrow were watching a DVD while being pursued by a Weeping Angel. (TV: Blink) In 2009, Lois Habiba took shorthand communication between John Frobisher and the 456 when she was assisting Torchwood. (TV: Children of Earth: Day Three) By 100,000,000,000,000, when Martha Jones joked with Professor Yana about shorthand, he appeared bewildered at the reference. (TV: Utopia)
Footnotes[]
- ↑ While Blink itself uncontroversially sets its main setting in 2007 and "twenty minutes to Red Hatching" a year later in 2008—as Kathy Nightingale's letter describes taking "one breath in 2007 and the next in 1920", and the Tenth Doctor's side of his conversation with Sally Sparrow in 1969 happens 38 years before Sally says hers—these are contradicted by heavily conflicting dates in the Redacted audio series later on regarding both Kathy's disappearance and the Red Hatching. In Angels, Abby McPhail identifies 2008 as the year of Kathy's disappearance, which suggests 2009 as the year of the Red Hatching. In Salvation, the Thirteenth Doctor recognises the Red Hatching as the cause of death of Andy Proctor, who was last seen by his daughter Cleo "nearly 20 years" before 2022 according to Recruits.