82. One of the greatest aids to a stenographer in reading his notes is context. Frequently it illuminates a sentence which otherwise would be hopelessly obscure. It is one of the commonest and most useful means by which the practised reporter distinguishes words whose outlines are to the eye precisely similar. The assumption is often made that two or more words embracing the same consonants must be in all cases distinguished by differing methods of shorthand representation. But the danger of using a single sign with two or more different significations is often exaggerated. If it were the business of the stenographer to report isolated words, with no connection in sense, very different systems of shorthand from those now in vogue would be required. But practical reporting is the reporting of words as they stand in sentences - words connected by grammar and sense - in short, words with a context. Whilst theoretically it may seem desirable that no stenographic sign should in any case have more meanings than one, the reporter finds that in many cases a character having two or more significations may be in practice as unambiguous as if it had but one; because, generally, in sensible sentences, as they actually occur in reading, writing and speaking, the possible significations of a particular character or word, if they have been properly assigned, cannot be substituted one for another and still "make sense."

Word-Distinctions

In ordinary discourse the listener very rarely has difficulty in giving to each word the sense intended (though words of multiple meaning are constantly employed), because the context gives the key. So it is not strange that the shorthand representatives of words should admit of similar latitude of signification.