The contracted words most frequently used are not always necessary to the sense of the sentence, which may be arrived at without them. It is a waste of time to puzzle over a word after its meaning has been arrived at. Many persons who require MS. extracts from public offices take rough notes with the letters of the contracted word; these can be extended afterwards at home, when there is time to seek in dictionaries for the abbreviation or its meaning; with practice the opening words of a sentence will very often supply the context. The oldest forms of contraction are a straight line over a word or a curve; these indicate that a portion of the word only is present, but no clue is given as to the letters left out, or else the straight line may mean _m_ or _n_. Later on the straight line above a word came to represent the letters _m_ and _n_. In words where these letters were duplicated the second one was omitted and the line placed above to indicate its absence. This continued in use until late in the eighteenth century. Com̄on meant ‘common,’ and com̄endation ‘commendation.’ If a curved line was over the end syllable of a word, it meant one or more letters omitted at the end of a word. Verbs are the most troublesome class of contracted words, for a contraction over a verb may mean any syllable, according to the proper grammatical conjugation. Here it is that knowledge of the Latin grammar is a necessity. The meaning of the sentences may often be deciphered without extending the words, and the correct conjugation of the verbs can be added afterwards by another person, if the student’s knowledge of Latin is too limited to accomplish this with accuracy. Certain signs or contractions are fairly constant in their meanings, always taking the place of special syllables. Thus a bold apostrophe above the line will be found to indicate ‘er,’ ‘ir,’ ‘or,’ ‘re.’ [Symbol] = ur. ʒ = et, us. In Domesday ‘et’ is written ⁊. [Symbol] = ram, ras, ris. [Symbol] = is. ꝰ = us, ous, os. A small letter over a word shows that a syllable is left out of which this letter formed part. The letter ‘p’ had a system of its own, frequently used in old deeds and also in old letters: ꝑ = per, par, por. [Symbol] = pre. ꝓ = pro. In old court rolls ‘and’ is written ‘[Symbol]t,’ and ‘est’ appears as ‘÷,’ especially in courthand law deeds. A line drawn through the head of the letter ‘[Symbol]’ means also the addition of other letters, as _is_, _e_, etc. This contraction in names is apt to be confused with double ‘tt.’