Shortform
“afternoon” in braille
Written a-f-n — 9 letters cut to 3 letters of abbreviation, then written in 3 cells. That is 6 cells saved every time the word appears.
dots 1, then dots 1-2-4, then dots 1-3-4-5
Unicode ⠁⠋⠝ — 9 letters in 3 cells
How to recognise it
a-f-n — the “after” shortform with an n stuck on the end, not a new abbreviation. Reading it that way makes the whole af- group easy: the first two cells are always “after”, and the third says which one. The n alone is the word “not”, which is the only thing that can be confused here.
Two steps, not one
Abbreviated in letters first, then written in cells. “afternoon” loses 6 letters — t, e, r, o, o, n — to become afn. Every letter of the abbreviation is then written as itself, one cell each.
| Stage | What it is | Cells |
|---|---|---|
| Spelled out | afternoon | 9 cells |
| Abbreviated | afn | 3 letters |
| Written | 3 cells |
Endings it keeps
One English word begins with these letters, and the reference keeps the shortform in it. The one ending that survives is -s. Everything else is spelled out.
| Word | In braille | Ending | Cells |
|---|---|---|---|
| afternoons | -s | 4 cells |
Learn it with the af- words
This is one of 3 shortforms built to the same shape — a-f, then what tells them apart — and the set is far quicker learned together than one word at a time: after (af), afterward (afw).
What these 3 cells mean elsewhere
Every cell here has other jobs, which is where misreadings come from:
| Cell | Dots | What it is elsewhere |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | the letter a | |
| 1-2-4 | the letter f; the word “from” standing alone | |
| 1-3-4-5 | the letter n; the word “not” standing alone |
Check your own text
The translator writes “afternoon” with Grade 2 selected, and the contractions page has all seventy-three.
“afternoon” in braille as an image
The word as it is actually written: afn in 3 cells, not 9 letters.
