Oh, this is a type of shorthand!
There are 3 main types, but from my research, this looks to be American Gregg Shorthand.
As you can see, there are set symbols for every letter.
Let’s break one of the words down:
Using the Gregg Alphabet as reference, we can see most of the letters in “atrophied” are present. But why no “o” vowel, and why is “ph” written as “f”?
Simple. In shorthand, you cut out all vowels in a word when writing it down, with the exception of words that BEGIN or END with a vowel (hence the “a” at the start being present), or like in the “i” in “atrophied”, to make it more readable when the sound could be harder to distinguish if it isn’t written. In “atrophied” if the the “i” isn’t written, it could be hard to tell if the writer meant a “fud”, “fad”, “fod” or “fid” sound, for example.
Also, since Shorthand is a phonetic writing system, you are encouraged to write down the phonetic sounds of words rather than the actual letter blends - in this case, write an “f” instead of a “ph”.
So in actuality, these aren’t just meaningless scribbles - it’s Gregg Shorthand, a writing system developed to take down notes more quickly than when written out in full, which is very useful in a medical or journalistic environment.
Some people can even write over 100 words in a minute! And, it’s been in use since John Robert Gregg invented it in 1888! Wow! So old!
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