Glossary
Dictaphone
A Dictaphone is a machine that records a speaker's voice so that another person can play it back and type it later. The name began as a brand, and it became the everyday word for dictation machines.
Updated October 16, 20268 cited facts, each traced to its source
Also called dictation machine.
A Dictaphone is a machine that records spoken words so that another person can play them back and type them up later. The name started as a trademark, and it became the common word for any dictation machine. A trade-magazine account says the company dominated the market so thoroughly that its name became the generic term for the machines 1. That is a description of common usage, not a measured market share.
A Dictaphone separates the speaker from the typist
A dictation machine has a microphone for the speaker and a playback unit for the typist. The author dictates into the microphone at normal speaking pace, and the typist listens and types. From the earliest machines, typists used playback units with foot pedals that controlled the speed and let them reverse and repeat a passage 2. The pedal is covered in our guide to dictation foot pedals.
The effect is that the author never types. Normal speaking speed is about 125 to 150 words per minute 3, and the machine lets that speech be captured in full while someone else does the typing.
The recording medium changed three times
Early machines stored speech on wax cylinders. The company moved to a plastic disc in 1947, the Dictabelt, and phased out the wax cylinders at that point 4. Each Dictabelt held about 15 minutes of recording 5, so a long report needed several belts.
Magnetic tape came next. The company adopted magnetic tape, in the form of cassettes, in the 1960s 6. Its 1997 annual report describes its traditional desktop and portable products as using analog magnetic tape to store and replay voice 7. The Dictaphone trademark had also appeared on dictating machines by about 1907 8, which shows how early the brand was in the business.
Why the Dictaphone matters for typing today
The Dictaphone is the origin of the workflow that digital dictation still uses. The steps are the same: record the speech, send it to someone or something, and produce text. What changed is the medium. Tape and belts became audio files, and the typist is now sometimes a speech recognition program.
If you want the history in more depth, our guide to dictation machines and who still uses them covers the machines themselves, and the history of dictation follows the method from shorthand to speech recognition. For the basic idea of speaking instead of typing, read what dictation is.
Related terms
- Dictation: speaking so that your words are written as you say them.
- Digital dictation: the file-based successor to tape and belts.
- Dictation foot pedal: the control a typist used to play back a recording.
- Shorthand: the earlier method of capturing speech by hand.
Evidence
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Related terms
- Dictation and Voice Typing: How to Talk Instead of TypeThe topic this term belongs to
- Automatic punctuationAutomatic punctuation is when speech software infers commas, periods and question marks from your speech and inserts them without a spoken command. It can be switched on or off, and it works only in supported languages.
- DictationDictation is speaking your words so that software writes them as text, usually into the app that has the cursor. Phones and computers now include it, and people also call it voice dictation or voice typing.
- Dictation foot pedalA dictation foot pedal is a footswitch that controls playback of a recording, so a typist can start, pause and rewind audio without using their hands. It is the traditional control for transcribing dictation.
- Digital dictationDigital dictation is recording speech as digital audio, then sending the file to a typist or to speech recognition software for transcription. It replaced tape with files that can be encrypted, uploaded or routed for processing.
- Filler wordsFiller words are sounds and words such as um, uh, like and you know that speakers produce while they plan what to say next, without adding content. Many dictation tools can remove them automatically, and research on transcripts found they can be deleted without compromising meaning.
- HomophoneA homophone is a word pronounced the same as another word but different in meaning, spelling or both, such as to, too and two. Dictation software has to choose the right spelling from context, so homophones are one of the most common errors in dictated text.
- Noise-canceling microphoneA noise-canceling microphone is designed to filter ambient noise, so it picks up mainly the speaker's voice. It can help dictation in noisy rooms, but it does not remove all noise, and it is different from the active noise cancellation in headphones.
- Oral compositionOral composition is working out and shaping a text by speaking it, whether to a dictation tool, to a recorder or silently in thought. Research on letters finds that planning takes most of the time, however the text is produced, so speaking mainly changes how the words get onto the page.
- Push-to-talkPush-to-talk is a dictation mode in which you hold a key while you speak and release it to stop, so the software writes only the speech made while the key is down. Some tools also offer tap-to-start and tap-to-stop.
- ShorthandShorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases the speed of writing compared with longhand. Trained writers used it to take dictation before recording machines, and it still underpins court reporting.
- Spoken punctuationSpoken punctuation is saying the name of a punctuation mark, such as comma or question mark, so that dictation software writes that mark into the text. It is the manual alternative to automatic punctuation.
- Voice commandA voice command is a spoken instruction that the software carries out, such as delete or stop listening, rather than writing the words as text. Dictation tools must separate commands from dictated words, and the rules differ by product.
Pages that use this term
- Dictation and Voice Typing: How to Talk Instead of TypeTopic
- What Is Dictation? Voice Typing and Talk to Text ExplainedGuide
- Dictation Machines: What They Do and Who Still Uses ThemGuide
- History of Dictation: From Shorthand to Speech RecognitionGuide
- Can you use a voice recorder for dictation?Question
- What is a Dictaphone?Question
- Dictation foot pedalGlossary
- Digital dictationGlossary
- ShorthandGlossary
- Transcription foot pedalGlossary