Shortform
“herself” in braille
Written h-e-r-f — 7 letters cut to 4 letters of abbreviation, then written in 3 cells. That is 4 cells saved every time the word appears.
dots 1-2-5, then dots 1-2-4-5-6, then dots 1-2-4
Unicode ⠓⠻⠋ — 7 letters in 3 cells
How to recognise it
h-er-f, where the er in the middle is one cell rather than two. It is one of ten -self and -selves shortforms, and of the seven that are among the five thousand commonest English words it is the rarest.
Two steps, not one
Abbreviated in letters first, then written in cells. “herself” loses 3 letters — s, e, l — to become herf. Then it contracts again: er is a single cell, which is how 4 letters of abbreviation fit into 3 cells.
| Stage | What it is | Cells |
|---|---|---|
| Spelled out | herself | 7 cells |
| Abbreviated | herf | 4 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 “herself”. A longer word that is not on the list is spelled out. An added s keeps the cells as well: “herselfs” is ⠓⠻⠋⠎ (10.9.5).
Learn it with the -self words
This is one of 7 shortforms built to the same shape — the pronoun, then an f: himself (hmf), itself (xf), myself (myf), oneself (onef), thyself (thyf), yourself (yrf).
What these 3 cells mean elsewhere
Every cell here has other jobs, which is where misreadings come from:
| Cell | Dots | What it is elsewhere |
|---|---|---|
| 1-2-5 | the letter h; the word “have” standing alone | |
| 1-2-4-5-6 | the letters er inside a word | |
| 1-2-4 | the letter f; the word “from” 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 83 times and saves 332 cells. That is 0.96% of everything Grade 2 saves in the book, and ranks it 29th of the 158 contractions used.
Every one of those is the word “herself” itself.
Check your own text
The translator writes “herself” with Grade 2 selected, and the contractions page has all seventy-five.
“herself” in braille as an image
The word as it is actually written: herf in 3 cells, not 7 letters.
