The Phillips Code is a shorthand method created in 1879 by Walter P. Phillips

Walter P. Phillips

Walter P. Phillips, born in Grafton, Massachusetts in 1846, was a telegraph operator who invented the Phillips Code. He later went on to become the very respected head of the United Press. The most famous remnant of the Phillips Code is terms POTUS/SCOTUS....

 for the rapid transmission of press reports by telegraph.

The code consists of a dictionary of common words or phrases and their associated abbreviations. Extremely common terms are represented by a single letter (C - See; Y - Year); those less frequently used gain successively longer abbreviations (Ab - About; Abb - Abbreviate; Abty- Ability; Acmpd - Accompanied).

The terms POTUS

President of the United States

The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 and SCOTUS

Supreme Court of the United States

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...

 originated in the code and entered common parlance when newsgathering services (in particular, Associated Press

Associated Press

The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...

) adopted the terminology.

Telegraph operators would often interleave Phillips Code with numeric "Wire Signals", to describe the article's priority or confirm its transmission. This meta-data would occasionally appear in printed newspapers, especially the code for "End of article" - 30.