Shortform
“letter” in braille
Written l-r — 6 letters cut to 2 letters of abbreviation, then written in 2 cells. That is 4 cells saved every time the word appears.
dots 1-2-3, then dots 1-2-3-5
Unicode ⠇⠗ — 6 letters in 2 cells
How to recognise it
l-r in two cells, and it carries on into longer words: lettered, letterer, lettering and letterless all keep it, and the Shortforms List names 39 in all.
Two steps, not one
Abbreviated in letters first, then written in cells. “letter” loses 4 letters — e, t, t, e — to become lr. Every letter of the abbreviation is then written as itself, one cell each.
| Stage | What it is | Cells |
|---|---|---|
| Spelled out | letter | 6 cells |
| Abbreviated | lr | 2 letters |
| Written | 2 cells |
Longer words that keep it
For “letter” the Shortforms List (Rules of Unified English Braille, Appendix 1) names 39 longer words that keep it, among them lettered ⠇⠗⠫, letterer ⠇⠗⠻, reletter ⠗⠑⠇⠗, letterbox ⠇⠗⠃⠕⠭, lettering ⠇⠗⠬ and letterman ⠇⠗⠍⠁⠝. In a word the list does not name, the shortform is still used where it begins the word and no vowel or y follows (10.9.3); anywhere else the word is spelled out. An added s keeps the cells as well: “letters” is ⠇⠗⠎ (10.9.5).
| Word | In braille | Ending | Cells |
|---|---|---|---|
| letters | -s | 3 cells | |
| lettered | -ed | 3 cells | |
| letterer | -er | 3 cells | |
| letterers | -ers | 4 cells | |
| lettering | -ing | 3 cells | |
| letterless | -less | 4 cells |
Words that only look like it
These begin with the same letters, are not on the Shortforms List, and have a vowel straight after them, where rule 10.9.3 does not use the shortform; each is written out in full.
| Word | In braille | Cells |
|---|---|---|
| letteret | 7 cells | |
| letterin | 6 cells | |
| letterure | 8 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 1-2-3 | the letter l; the word “like” standing alone | |
| 1-2-3-5 | the letter r; the word “rather” 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 4 times and saves 16 cells. That is 0.05% of everything Grade 2 saves in the book, and ranks it 136th of the 158 contractions used.
The words it is written in: letter (3), letters (1).
Check your own text
The translator writes “letter” with Grade 2 selected, and the contractions page has all seventy-five.
“letter” in braille as an image
The word as it is actually written: lr in 2 cells, not 6 letters.
