xkcd and Braille

[pne]

xkcd had a comic featuring Braille:

Now I'm wondering why "ed" is contracted to dots-1246 but "gh" is not contracted to dots-126 in the word "sighted". I also wonder whether "people" doesn't have a contraction... *looks up* ah, "p" by itself.

Seeing an uncontracted "people" didn't bother me so much, since I imagine Braille on public signs tends to be relatively uncontracted since not every blind person will know Grade 2 Braille. But I wonder, then why "ed" made it in? And if "ed" is in, why not "gh"? Both signs would seem to me to be part of a reasonably "Grade 1.2 Braille" (along with other letter combinations such as "th", "ing", and "sh"), given that they have (nearly) no other meanings.

Comments

[leora.livejournal.com]

I saw this last night and wondered about it too. All the Braille I've seen around the US has been in full grade 2, to the best of my knowledge.

I have noticed differences between the Braille and the print, sometimes the capitalization is different, sometimes there are added words. For example, the print might say Insert Bills and the Braille might say Insert Bills Above. But there aren't usually many differences. Sometimes there are braille translations for things represented with icons.

[pne.livejournal.com]

All the Braille I've seen around the US has been in full grade 2, to the best of my knowledge.

Interesting.

I only knew the situation here in Germany, and the little Braille I've seen in public (mostly on lift buttons) has been in Grade 1 -- either in "basic" Grade 1 (only individual letters) or in "extended" Grade 1 (which has about half-a-dozen multi-letter signs such as "ei, sch, au").

Because German needs so many letters to say the same thing compared to, say, English, I'm under the impression that this "extended" Grade 1 is the default, even though it's not strictly alphabetic.

But it's still a toss-up whether a given lift will say "aufzug" or "{au}fzug".

Also perhaps interesting: German Braille nearly never capitalises things (only when teaching spelling or the like, but not in running texts), perhaps because written German has so much capitalisation that a lot of space would be "wasted" for capitalisation markers. I've heard that British Braille also tends not to capitalise things.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Far too often here the all capital nature of the sign is replicated in the Braille, for all of the usefulness that gives us.

Most of my Braille experience is in the bay area, it's possible it doesn't hold for much of the rest of the US. Although the restroom signs seem pretty national and are generally rendered as wom(en) or other relevant grade 2 Braille (sometimes they say "women / handicapped" or other similar things such as "restroom".

[meeps-hitchie.livejournal.com]

Heh-heh-heh. Oh man! The braille conspiracy. Be afraid. Be very afraid. :-)