Short forms
Every short form in Moon type
Moon type shortens the words and endings that come up most often. It is the same idea as braille Grade 2, and for the same reason: a raised page is large, a finger reads it slowly, and every cell saved is time given back to the reader.
This is the whole list. It comes from the table the font is built from, so the page cannot say one thing while the font does another. Where a form is on the RNIB sheet it is here; where no document shows a form, it is not in the font at all.
- 2 logograms
- Whole words with a sign of their own.
- 23 word signs
- One letter standing for one common word.
- 12 abbreviations
- A word cut down to two or three letters.
- 8 endings
- A sign that replaces the end of a word.
Logograms
Two words with a sign of their own
These are not letters standing in for words. They are signs that exist only to be these two words, and they are the oldest short forms in Moon: both are on Moon's own alphabet sheet.
WordMoon
- and
- the
The the sign does double duty: inside a word it stands for the letters “th”, the way the old letter thorn did. So heather is written with it, and so is thing.
Word signs
One letter, one word
A single Moon letter, standing alone between spaces, is read as a whole word. The letter is usually the first letter of that word. Inside a word it is just a letter again, so but is one sign and button is spelled out.
WordMoon
- but
- can
- child
- do
- every
- from
- go
- have
- it
- just
- know
- like
- more
- not
- people
- quite
- rather
- some
- that
- very
- was
- which
- you
The letters A, I, O and Z have no word. On Everson's chart U stands for under, but the RNIB sheet leaves it blank, so this font leaves it blank too.
Abbreviations
Words cut down to two or three letters
Twelve words are written with only some of their letters. Like the word signs, they only count when the word stands alone.
WordMoon
- about
- after
- again
- could
- good
- letter
- little
- necessary
- said
- should
- would
- your
Endings
A sign that replaces the end of a word
Moon's own alphabet sheet states the rule: words ending in ing, ment, tion and ness “have the last letter put for the whole syllable, as G for ING, T for MENT”, with “two dots one above the other giving notice of the contraction”. The RNIB sheet adds four more endings.
EndingAn example word, in Moon
- -ing
- -ment
- -tion
- -ness
- -ound
- -ence
- -ful
- -ity
An ending sign survives in front of a plural s: the 1927 magazine writes ornaments with the -ment sign and then an S.
Put together
A word sign carrying an ending
When a word starts with a word-sign word and ends with one of the endings, both apply, joined by a hyphen: knowing is the K sign, a hyphen, then the -ing sign.
WordMoon
- knowing
- likeness
- commenting
- thing
And one word that is spelled out after the sign
This pattern is not a licence to shorten every word that happens to begin with a word-sign word. Each one needs a document showing it, and so far there is one: Everson prints knowledge as the K sign, a hyphen, then LEDGE. knowledgeable is spelled out in full, because nothing shows it shortened.
WordMoon
- knowledge
When they do not fire
Short forms are whole words, not letter patterns
A word sign or an abbreviation only stands for a word when the word stands alone. Each pair below starts with the same letters. The first is one sign, because it is the whole word; the second is spelled out, because those letters are only the beginning of a longer one.
WordMoon
- but
- button
- can
- candle
The two-letter pairs behave the other way round: th, ch and wh are signs wherever they appear, inside a word as well as at its edges. That is why they survive at Grade 1, when everything else has been switched off. You can watch all four levels change on the try it page.