Tool
Which contractions apply?
Type anything and see what Grade 2 does to it and why — which contractions were used, which were available and passed over, and which a rule forbade. The reasoning the translator leaves out.
Nothing you type leaves this page — the whole translator runs in your browser.
What the three lists mean
Used
The contractions in the finished word. Each links to its own page, with the position rule that governs it.
Passed over
Legal at that spot, offered, and not taken. UEB writes the version with the fewest cells, so a longer contraction can lose to a shorter route — which is the part that surprises people most.
Barred
Never a candidate, because a rule forbade it: ing may not begin a word, ea needs a letter on both sides, a final-letter sign may not open one. The reason is given in words.
Why shortest, not longest
Most people assume a braille translator matches the longest contraction it can find and moves on. UEB says otherwise: where a word can be written several ways, the one with the fewest cells wins, and where two are the same length, the one without two-cell forms wins.
That single rule explains most of what looks arbitrary. “thence” contains “the”, which is one cell and looks like a bargain — but writing th-ence takes three cells and the-n-c-e takes four, so the shorter route wins and the “the” sign goes unused. The finder shows it in the passed-over list rather than leaving you to wonder.
The rest is position. A contraction can be barred where it sits even though its letters are right there, and the reasons are specific rather than general: the ing sign may not open a word, the lower signs need a letter on either side, the final-letter signs may not begin one.
For the two-cell contractions the position rules are not written down anywhere — they were measured. Where a contraction may sit inside a word is the survey of 11,014 English words those rules came from.