« The writing is in shorthand, with occasional words (mostly personal and place names) in longhand. […] The art of shorthand is an old one […] and although it did not become a widespread accomplishment until its use in business in the later nineteenth century, it was in demand in England from Elizabethan times onwards […] (with the growth of Puritanism) as a method of taking notes of sermons. Pepys learned it as an undergraduate and used it throughout his life for his office work. In 1680, he used it to write down at the King’s dictation the story of his escape after the battle of Worcester in 1651. Isaac Newton employed the same system. […] The symbols are clear, but not always easy to interpret because they may represent only the first syllable of a word. Usually all forms of certain common verbs (e.g. “ have ”, “ give ”) are represented by the initial letter : whether Pepys meant “ has ” or “ hath ”, “ give ” or “ gave ”, has to be determined from a consideration of his linguistic habits at the time […]. Similarly his longhand words are often abbreviated and have to be filled out by a process of informed guesswork. […] Occasionally in both the longhand and the shorthand the writing is obscure and two or more readings are possible. No transcription can claim to be absolutely accurate : all are reconstructions rather than copies. »