Shortform
“altogether” in braille
Written a-l-t — 10 letters cut to 3 letters of abbreviation, then written in 3 cells. That is 7 cells saved every time the word appears.
dots 1, then dots 1-2-3, then dots 2-3-4-5
Unicode ⠁⠇⠞ — 10 letters in 3 cells
How to recognise it
Ten letters in three cells, a-l-t — the largest saving on the list, tied with “according”. The t alone separates it from “also”, which is worth knowing before you meet the two in the same paragraph.
Two steps, not one
Abbreviated in letters first, then written in cells. “altogether” loses 7 letters — o, g, e, t, h, e, r — to become alt. Every letter of the abbreviation is then written as itself, one cell each.
| Stage | What it is | Cells |
|---|---|---|
| Spelled out | altogether | 10 cells |
| Abbreviated | alt | 3 letters |
| Written | 3 cells |
Longer words that keep it
The Shortforms List (Rules of Unified English Braille, Appendix 1) names no longer word that keeps “altogether”. A longer word that is not on the list is spelled out. An added s keeps the cells as well: “altogethers” is ⠁⠇⠞⠎ (10.9.5).
Learn it with the al- words
This is one of 6 shortforms built to the same shape — a-l, then what tells them apart: almost (alm), already (alr), also (al), although (alth), always (alw).
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 | |
| 1-2-3 | the letter l; the word “like” standing alone | |
| 2-3-4-5 | the letter t; the word “that” standing alone |
In a whole book
In a count over the whole of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (26,439 words), this contraction is written 5 times and saves 35 cells. That is 0.10% of everything Grade 2 saves in the book, and ranks it 116th of the 158 contractions used.
Every one of those is the word “altogether” itself.
Check your own text
The translator writes “altogether” with Grade 2 selected, and the contractions page has all seventy-five.
“altogether” in braille as an image
The word as it is actually written: alt in 3 cells, not 10 letters.
