Not a shortform in UEB
“o'clock” in braille
Spelled out, one cell for each letter and one for the apostrophe: 7 cells. The o'c shortform some older charts still show is not part of Unified English Braille.
o, apostrophe, c-l-o-c-k
Unicode ⠕⠄⠉⠇⠕⠉⠅ — 7 cells
Why the shortform went
The older American code, English Braille American Edition, wrote the word as the shortform o'c in three cells. Unified English Braille dropped it, one of nine contractions it eliminated along with by, into, to, ble, com, dd, ation and ally. The Braille Authority of North America gives the reason: “o'clock was eliminated because of a problem with capitalization.”
The UEB Shortforms List has 75 words, and o'clock is not one of them, so a chart that still writes it as three cells is teaching the older code.
How it is written
| Text | In braille | Cells |
|---|---|---|
| o'clock | 7 cells | |
| O'clock | 8 cells |
Nothing inside it contracts: no groupsign or wordsign applies to any part of the letters, so Grade 2 and Grade 1 write it the same way. A capital at the start adds the capital sign, dot 6, in front.
Check your own text
The translator writes “o'clock” with Grade 2 selected, and the contractions page has all seventy-five shortforms that UEB does keep.