Initial-letter contraction

“some” in braille

Two cells for the whole word, however long it is — 4 letters here, a saving of 2 cells. “some” is the 87th most common word in English.

Dots 5, then dots 2-3-4

Unicode ⠐⠎ — 4 letters in two cells

How to recognise it

The contraction that builds a family: something, someone, sometimes, somewhere, somewhat. Six of the 5,000 commonest words are “some” plus another word, and every one of them keeps this sign.

The second cell is the letter s

The second cell is the word's own first letter — the simpler half of this list. The other nine use a groupsign instead.

Learn it with its sister

“some” and “spirit” are written with the same second cell. Only the prefix separates them, which means the hard work of telling them apart is done by one cell — and learning them as a set is far quicker than meeting them one at a time.

The s family
WordCellsPrefixCells saved
somedots 52 cells
spiritdots 4-5-64 cells

Where it may appear inside a longer word

Only at the start and in the middle and 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 “some”, checked against the reference, split by where the letters sat.

Longer words that keep it

6 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.

“some” inside longer words
WordIn braille (Grade 2)Grade 1Grade 2
something9 cells4 cells
someone7 cells4 cells
sometimes9 cells5 cells
somewhere9 cells4 cells
somewhat8 cells5 cells

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, one, ought, part, question, right, there, through, time, under, where, work, young.

Check your own text

Type “some” into the translator with Grade 2 selected to see both cells, or take the full list.

“some” in braille as an image

Both cells as a picture: dot 5, then dots 2, 3 and 4 — the whole word in two cells rather than 4 letters.

"some" in braille: two cells, the first with dot 5 raised and the second with dots 2, 3 and 4.

Download the PNGCC BY 4.0.