Shortform
“o'clock” in braille
Written o-'-c — 7 letters cut to 3 characters of abbreviation, then written in 3 cells. That is 4 cells saved every time the word appears.
dots 1-3-5, then dots 3, then dots 1-4
Unicode ⠕⠄⠉ — 7 letters in 3 cells
How to recognise it
o-apostrophe-c, and it is the only shortform on the list that contains punctuation. The apostrophe is a real cell here, not a joining mark, so the word takes three cells rather than two.
Two steps, not one
Abbreviated in letters first, then written in cells. “o'clock” loses 4 letters — l, o, c, k — to become o'c. Every letter of the abbreviation is then written as itself, one cell each.
| Stage | What it is | Cells |
|---|---|---|
| Spelled out | o'clock | 7 cells |
| Abbreviated | o'c | 3 characters |
| Written | 3 cells |
It carries no endings
No English word begins with “o'clock” 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.
What these 3 cells mean elsewhere
Every cell here has other jobs, which is where misreadings come from:
| Cell | Dots | What it is elsewhere |
|---|---|---|
| 1-3-5 | the letter o | |
| 3 | the apostrophe | |
| 1-4 | the letter c; the word “can” standing alone |
Check your own text
The translator writes “o'clock” with Grade 2 selected, and the contractions page has all seventy-three.
“o'clock” in braille as an image
The word as it is actually written: o'c in 3 cells, not 7 letters.
