Is Pinchord Steno?

In the Lost room of the Loft, Created June 12, 2026.

I just put all the Pinchord stuff in Lost, so now seems like time to explain why I don't call Pinchord a steno theory :p

Really, it's for marketing reasons. I think a lot of people, justifiably, have their pre-conceived notions about steno being hard to learn or impractical or whatnot, and I wanted to distance Pinchord from this.

But I think this desire to separate Pinchord and steno comes from the systems really being different.

"Steno" means shorthand, and Pinchord isn't a shorthand. You don't have to press a key for every letter, but you do have to write every letter using its chords, unlike steno. This is really what Pinchord is all about, so I think it's a difference worth highlighting. Steno is all about the (phonetic) shorthand aspect, and Pinchord is all about the simple chording.

You can call Pinchord a steno theory though, I will probably just annoyingly correct you :p