Shortform
“him” in braille
Written h-m — 3 letters cut to 2 letters of abbreviation, then written in 2 cells. That is 1 cell saved every time the word appears.
dots 1-2-5, then dots 1-3-4
Unicode ⠓⠍ — 3 letters in 2 cells
How to recognise it
h-m in two cells. Twenty-two English words begin with these letters — himalaya, himation, himself — and the reference carries the shortform into exactly one of them, which is “himself”.
Two steps, not one
Abbreviated in letters first, then written in cells. “him” loses 1 letter — i — to become hm. Every letter of the abbreviation is then written as itself, one cell each.
| Stage | What it is | Cells |
|---|---|---|
| Spelled out | him | 3 cells |
| Abbreviated | hm | 2 letters |
| Written | 2 cells |
It carries no endings
Nothing derived from “him” keeps this shortform: of the 22 English words that begin with it, the reference spells every one out. These 2 cells write the bare word and nothing else. “good” is the opposite case — it carries seven different endings.
Words that only look like it
Almost everything that starts with these letters is not this word. Each begins with the same letters and is written out in full.
| Word | In braille | Cells |
|---|---|---|
| himalaya | 8 cells | |
| himalayan | 9 cells | |
| himation | 6 cells |
What these 2 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 | |
| 1-3-4 | the letter m; the word “more” standing alone |
Check your own text
The translator writes “him” with Grade 2 selected, and the contractions page has all seventy-three.
“him” in braille as an image
The word as it is actually written: hm in 2 cells, not 3 letters.
