Tour

Abbreviations

Lesshand has abbreviations for common words. You probably already know a lot of them! For example, "you" is written as "u", "because" is "bc", and "people" is "ppl".

Here are ten familiar abbreviations for common words to get you started:

are --> r
because --> bc
no --> n
really --> rly
though --> tho
tomorrow --> tmrw
very --> v
yes --> y
you --> u
your --> ur

Using these abbreviations, the sentence

You are really going to enjoy your day tomorrow, it'll be very special.

would be written

u r rly going to enjoy ur day tmrw, it'll be v special.

That's 22% shorter!

Almost all of Lesshand's abbreviations are mnemonic, meaning they are designed to be easy to remember. They are usually either existing abbreviations (like "u" for "you") or they are formed from letters that appear in the abbreviated word (like "abt" for "about"). The only exception is the abbreviation for "the".

"The" is the most common word in English, so it's essential that it has a one-letter abbreviation. However, several other common words start with "t", such as "to" and "that". Additionally, "the" should be as easy as possible to type, so it needs an abbreviation that's on the "home row" of standard QWERTY keyboards.

With these considerations in mind, "the" is abbreviated as "l". This may seem counterintuitive, but it won't be too hard to remember since you'll use it all the time. Additionally, it's very effective: just using this single abbreviation can save you about 1% of your time while writing!

The most effective abbreviations

Here are the ten abbreviations that will save you the most time:

the --> l
and --> d
of --> o
to --> t
for --> f
that --> tt
was --> w
from --> m
are --> r
is --> s

These will speed up your writing and typing by about 5%.

When you've mastered those, here are a few more:

could --> cd
should --> sd
would --> wd
this --> h
have --> hv
not --> x
about --> abt
between --> bw
without --> wo
I --> i

See Abbreviations for the full list.

Phrases

Lesshand reuses abbreviations for phrases are already common in English. These are prefixed by "," to disambiguate them with actual uses of that abbreviation. For example, "thank you" becomes ",ty" and "I don't care" becomes ",idc".

Suffixes

The suffix "ing" can be replaced by "q". For example, "learning" may be abbreviated "learnq". Similarly, the suffix "tion" may be replaced by "T", turning "celebration" into "celebraT". See Suffixes for more information.

Namespaces

For less common words, Lesshand provides namespaces of abbreviations. For example, the namespace "c" is for names of countries. "Sweden" can be abbreviated "c,se" and "United Kingdom" as "c,gb". The "b" namespace is for basketball terms. "b,den" stands for "Denver Nuggets". See Namespaces for more information.

Keyboard shortcuts