Shortform
“himself” in braille
Written h-m-f — 7 letters cut to 3 letters of abbreviation, then written in 3 cells. That is 4 cells saved every time the word appears.
dots 1-2-5, then dots 1-3-4, then dots 1-2-4
Unicode ⠓⠍⠋ — 7 letters in 3 cells
How to recognise it
h-m-f: the “him” shortform plus an f. It and “yourself” are the two -self words whose opening cells are a shortform in their own right, so you can read them as a pronoun plus an ending rather than as three cells to memorise. The f alone is the word “from”.
Two steps, not one
Abbreviated in letters first, then written in cells. “himself” loses 4 letters — i, s, e, l — to become hmf. Every letter of the abbreviation is then written as itself, one cell each.
| Stage | What it is | Cells |
|---|---|---|
| Spelled out | himself | 7 cells |
| Abbreviated | hmf | 3 letters |
| Written | 3 cells |
It carries no endings
No English word begins with “himself” except the word itself, so there is nothing for an ending rule to decide here. These 3 cells write the bare word and nothing else. “good” is the opposite case — it carries seven different endings.
Learn it with the -self words
This is one of 5 shortforms built to the same shape — the pronoun, then an f — and the set is far quicker learned together than one word at a time: herself (herf), itself (xf), myself (myf), 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 | |
| 1-3-4 | the letter m; the word “more” standing alone | |
| 1-2-4 | the letter f; the word “from” standing alone |
Check your own text
The translator writes “himself” with Grade 2 selected, and the contractions page has all seventy-three.
“himself” in braille as an image
The word as it is actually written: hmf in 3 cells, not 7 letters.
