The letter G in braille

How to recognise it

Dots 1, 2, 4 and 5 fill the top two rows completely — a solid square, with no gap in it.

G, Q and the “for” sign

G is the base shape. Add dot 3 and it becomes Q; add dots 3 and 6 and the cell is not a letter at all but the “for” sign, ⠿.

Adding dots 3 and 6 turns a, b, c, d and e into u, v, x, y and z. For f, g, h, i and j the same step gives the words and, for, of, the and with — so g plus dots 3 and 6 is “for”, not a letter. The contraction reference lists all five.

G is also the digit 7

After the number sign, dots 3-4-5-6, G is read as 7 — and one number sign carries a whole run of digits, so 77 is three cells: ⠼⠛⠛. Braille numbers covers where the run ends.

Where G turns up in Grade 2

Standing alone, G is the word “go”. Inside a word it is the letter again: “girl” is ⠛⠊⠗⠇.

The contraction reference gives the rules for each.

Writing a capital G

Capital G is two cells: the capital sign, dot 6, then G. A word in capitals takes the sign twice, once for the whole word: “GIRL” is ⠠⠠⠛⠊⠗⠇. Capitals covers longer runs.

Easily confused with

G differs by a single dot from D, F, H, J and Q — the letters to drill it against.

Practice words

Words that start with G, one cell per letter in Grade 1. Where Grade 2 writes one shorter, that form follows.

In a whole book

In a count over the whole of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the letter g is printed 2,531 times. Grade 2 still writes it as its own cell 898 times, 35.5%. The other 1,633 are inside contractions, most often “ing” (983), “gh” (134), “ought” (97) and “again” (83).

The cell itself is written 1,192 times in the Grade 2 text: 898 as the letter, 50 as the word “go”, 167 inside shortforms and 77 as the second cell of a two-cell contraction.