"Shorthand reporting goes back to ancient times and was among the most hazardous of professions in Rome, where in the early 3rd century, the emperor Severus went so far as to command that any shorthand writer reporting a court case and making a mistake 'should have the tendons of his right hand severed and be banished from the empire for life'. There is no record of such drastic punishment being meted out to the reporting staff of the Houses, but then again we have not had any reports of errors."
The Ceann Comhairle, Séamus Pattison, July 2001