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 |
It carries no endings
Nothing derived from “altogether” keeps this shortform: of the one English word that begins with it, the reference spells it out. These 3 cells write the bare word and nothing else. “good” is the opposite case — it carries seven different endings.
Learn it with the al- words
This is one of 6 shortforms built to the same shape — a-l, then what tells them apart — and the set is far quicker learned together than one word at a time: 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 |
Check your own text
The translator writes “altogether” with Grade 2 selected, and the contractions page has all seventy-three.
“altogether” in braille as an image
The word as it is actually written: alt in 3 cells, not 10 letters.
