OVERVIEW OF CHANGES
FROM CURRENT LITERARY BRAILLE TO UEB
The following is not intended as a comprehensive list of each and every difference
between UEB and current braille. However, it covers the most significant changes
that will be noted by the general reader of braille.
CHANGES
Nine Contractions Eliminated
by
ble
ation
into
com
ally
to
dd
o'clock
The overarching reasons for deletion of these contractions are the need for
accurate automatic forward- and back-translation between print and braille, the
need to allow for more symbols without creating conflicts in the code, and the
principle of reducing exceptions to braille rules. Here are more specifics:
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ation and ally were eliminated because they created complications in rules
having to do with capital letters in the middle of words.
to, into, and by were eliminated to allow for greater consistency in usage of
other symbols. Also, the special spacing rules closed off options for making
new symbols.
com was eliminated to make room for greater flexibility in the placement
and usage of hyphens and dashes. In current literary braille, a great deal of
attention must be paid to the spacing of dashes etc., slowing down the
production of accurate braille.
ble was eliminated to allow for unambiguous reading and writing of numbers
wherever they occur in literary contexts.
dd was eliminated to allow for a single way to show the period/dot/decimal
point even when it occurs in the middle of words or numbers.
o'clock was eliminated because of a problem with capitalization. The extent
of a capitalized word indicator (double dot 6) includes only the actual letters
immediately following the indicator. This means that the apostrophe
terminates the effect of the double dot 6 (this rule reduces the frequency of
the use of the capitals mode terminator). If the short-form word "o'clock"
were fully capitalized under this rule, it would look like this:
O'CLOCK
,,o',,c
which is fairly awkward, and almost as long as the spelled out word. This is
the only contraction with this problem and is relatively infrequently used.
Overview of Changes from Current Literary Braille to UEB; BANA, March 2013
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