Shortform
“great” in braille
Written g-r-t — 5 letters cut to 3 letters of abbreviation, then written in 3 cells. That is 2 cells saved every time the word appears.
dots 1-2-4-5, then dots 1-2-3-5, then dots 2-3-4-5
Unicode ⠛⠗⠞ — 5 letters in 3 cells
How to recognise it
g-r-t in three cells, and it takes -er and -est, so greater and greatest both keep it. A global list of endings without -er would have lost “greater”, which is the 1,454th commonest word in English.
Two steps, not one
Abbreviated in letters first, then written in cells. “great” loses 2 letters — e, a — to become grt. Every letter of the abbreviation is then written as itself, one cell each.
| Stage | What it is | Cells |
|---|---|---|
| Spelled out | great | 5 cells |
| Abbreviated | grt | 3 letters |
| Written | 3 cells |
Endings it keeps
Of the 19 English words that begin with these letters, the reference keeps the shortform in every one. The endings that survive are -s, -er, -ly, -est, -ness. Everything else is spelled out.
| Word | In braille | Ending | Cells |
|---|---|---|---|
| greats | -s | 4 cells | |
| greater | -er | 4 cells | |
| greatly | -ly | 5 cells | |
| greatest | -est | 5 cells | |
| greatness | -ness | 5 cells |
What these 3 cells mean elsewhere
Every cell here has other jobs, which is where misreadings come from:
| Cell | Dots | What it is elsewhere |
|---|---|---|
| 1-2-4-5 | the letter g; the word “go” standing alone | |
| 1-2-3-5 | the letter r; the word “rather” standing alone | |
| 2-3-4-5 | the letter t; the word “that” standing alone |
Check your own text
The translator writes “great” with Grade 2 selected, and the contractions page has all seventy-three.
“great” in braille as an image
The word as it is actually written: grt in 3 cells, not 5 letters.
