Initial-letter contraction
“one” in braille
Two cells for the whole word, however long it is — 3 letters here, a saving of 1 cell. “one” is the 43rd most common word in English.
Dots 5, then dots 1-3-5
Unicode ⠐⠕ — 3 letters in two cells
How to recognise it
The 43rd most common word in English and the single most common word on this list, yet it saves only one cell. Its interest is entirely in where it may appear inside a longer word: 96% of the time the letters end the word, and there it is the contraction; in the middle it is the contraction only 23% of the time.
The second cell is the letter o
The second cell is the word's own first letter — the simpler half of this list. The other nine use a groupsign instead.
Where it may appear inside a longer word
Only at the end and of a word. UEB allows these inside a longer word only where the letters keep their meaning, which spelling cannot decide, so this site settled it by counting: every English word containing “one”, checked against the reference, split by where the letters sat.
In the at the start and in the middle the letters are the contraction less than half the time, so using it there would be wrong more often than right.
Longer words that keep it
19 words among the 5,000 commonest in English are written with this contraction inside them. These are some of them, and every one was taken from this site's own output rather than chosen by hand.
| Word | In braille (Grade 2) | Grade 1 | Grade 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| phone | 5 cells | 4 cells | |
| phones | 6 cells | 5 cells | |
| done | 4 cells | 3 cells | |
| none | 4 cells | 3 cells | |
| someone | 7 cells | 4 cells | |
| anyone | 6 cells | 5 cells |
Words where it is written out instead
| Word | Written as | Why |
|---|---|---|
| money | the letters sit in the middle, where they are the contraction only 23% of the time | |
| component | the same position, and the same reason | |
| indonesia | and here no part of the word is the word “one” at all |
The other 21 words under dots 5
The largest of the three prefix groups, so the prefix itself tells you little — the second cell does the work.
character, day, ever, father, here, know, lord, mother, name, ought, part, question, right, some, there, through, time, under, where, work, young.
Check your own text
Type “one” into the translator with Grade 2 selected to see both cells, or take the full list.
“one” in braille as an image
Both cells as a picture: dot 5, then dots 1, 3 and 5 — the whole word in two cells rather than 3 letters.
