Pitman shorthand was designed using circles and lines to represent the consonant sounds, with dots, dashes and a few other squiggles to stand for the vowels.

Notice that the shapes stand for sounds, not letters. Pitman is written phonetically. The word shapes record the sounds of the words, not the spelling.

So, for example, a diagonal line written from top left to bottom right stands for the sound of "P". A heavy dash near the end of a line stands for the sound of "oo" (as in rUde, or crUde, or Woo-hooo!).

So, if you combine them, with the "oo" stuck to the left of the "P", you get this...

"Oop" - which is, of course, the singular of "oops".

If the "oo" symbol is on the other side of the "P", we are thrilled or disgusted to see this:

"Poo".

Next... Some consonants