Although contractions are not used in grade 1 mode, uncontracted (grade 1) braille may be employed without the use of grade 1 indicators.

Contracted (grade 2) braille

Note: The use of the contractions in contracted (grade 2) braille is covered in Section 10, Contractions.

Note: UEB contracted braille differs slightly from other forms of English contracted braille. See Section 1.3, Introduction, for basic signs found in other forms of English braille.

Other grades of braille

Note: Other grades of braille have been developed. One of these is grade 3 braille which contains several hundred contractions and is primarily for personal use. Another is grade 11/2 braille. Employing only 44 one-cell contractions, this was the official code of the United States from 1918 to 1932.

A letter or letters-sequence is considered to be "standing alone" if it is preceded and followed by a space, a hyphen or a dash. The dash may be of any length, i.e. the dash or the long dash.

A letter or letters-sequence is considered to be "standing alone" when the following common punctuation and indicator symbols intervene between the letter or letters-sequence and the preceding space, hyphen or dash:

• opening parenthesis (round bracket), opening square bracket or opening   curly bracket (brace bracket)
• opening quotation mark of any kind
• nondirectional quotation mark of any kind
• apostrophe [also see Section 2.6.4]
• opening typeform indicator of any kind
• capitals indicator of any kind
• opening transcriber's note indicator
• or any combination of these.

A letter or letters-sequence is considered to be "standing alone" when the following common punctuation and indicator symbols intervene between the letter or letters-sequence and the following space, hyphen or dash:

• comma, semicolon, colon, full stop (period), ellipsis, exclamation mark or question mark
• closing parenthesis (round bracket), closing square bracket or closing curly bracket (brace bracket)
• closing quotation mark of any kind
• nondirectional quotation mark of any kind
• apostrophe [also see Section 2.6.4]
• typeform terminator of any kind
• capitals mode terminator
• closing transcriber's note indicator
• or any combination of these.

A word with an interior apostrophe is considered to be "standing alone" under the specific provisions of Section 10, Contractions, 10.1.2 (alphabetic wordsigns), 10.2.2 (strong wordsigns) and 10.9 (shortforms).

Follow print for the use of the ampersand.

Follow print for the use of currency signs.

Note: Some currencies are indicated by a letter or letters (e.g. "DM" for Deutsche Mark, "p" for pence, "R" for Rand).

Refer to: 3.26, for transcriber-defined symbols to represent currency signs with no UEB symbols.

Follow print for use of the degree sign and the prime signs.

Note: The minute may be shown in print by an apostrophe and the second by a nondirectional double quote. This usage can be followed in braille.

Follow print for the number used and the approximate placement of the ditto mark, that is, under the item that it refers to on the line above.

Use a dot locator for "mention" to set apart a braille symbol which is under discussion, as in a symbols list, a transcriber's note or in a publication about braille such as this one. Place the dot locator for "mention" before the braille symbol and unspaced from it.

When a dot locator for "mention" is used, do not list the dot numbers of the braille symbol.

Note: A braille symbol, e.g. a typeform indicator or a grade 1 indicator, preceded by the dot locator for "mention" does not have its normal effect on the following text.