Which of the following is a symbolic notation method to record spoken language?

Our boss decided he needed a typist, and so a lovely lady who could take shorthand was employed and for some reason I was the one designated to help her. She was a good typist, but banks, like a lot of other offices, use words that are rare outside of that environment. The first time she pointed to something in her notebook I had to explain that it could be written in Chinese and she would have to read me the whole sentence so I could figure it out. It turned out what she was trying to decipher was 'irrevocable mandate' and I think she made up her own symbol for that and some of the other strange phrases she came across. Luckily the dictaphone came along and made life lot easier.