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 — and “greater” alone is the 1,480th commonest word in English, by the list this site measures on.
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 |
Longer words that keep it
For “great” the Shortforms List (Rules of Unified English Braille, Appendix 1) names 38 longer words that keep it, among them greaten ⠛⠗⠞⠢, greater ⠛⠗⠞⠻, greatly ⠛⠗⠞⠇⠽, greatest ⠛⠗⠞⠑⠌, greataunt ⠛⠗⠞⠁⠥⠝⠞ and greatcoat ⠛⠗⠞⠉⠕⠁⠞. In a word the list does not name, the shortform is still used wherever its letters occur (10.9.3). An added s keeps the cells as well: “greats” is ⠛⠗⠞⠎ (10.9.5).
| 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 |
In a whole book
In a count over the whole of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (26,439 words), this contraction is written 39 times and saves 78 cells. That is 0.23% of everything Grade 2 saves in the book, and ranks it 82nd of the 158 contractions used.
Every one of those is the word “great” itself.
Check your own text
The translator writes “great” with Grade 2 selected, and the contractions page has all seventy-five.
“great” in braille as an image
The word as it is actually written: grt in 3 cells, not 5 letters.
