We use Our Secret Garden to write letters to the people we like. We use Our Secret Garden to send letters to the people we like.
All letters vary in form the original Latin letter.
The shape of each single letter is similar to the common shape of the letter.
Some letters can have two different shapes.
The base of a word consists of a root, an optional crown and a donor that connects the two. A crown of indefinite form is silent. We start a word with a simple line. We can add any marks to make it look better.
The letters are planted on donors and serve as donors themselves. We read the letters on a plant in a clockwise direction, passing through all the donors. We plant the letters on lines. We read the letters on a plant in a clockwise direction.
We use a graft symbol for marks within words, such as apostrophes and hyphens.
We draw a graft letter to join parts of a word — as in bird-call.
Furthermore, this letter helps us to join parts of a long word.
We represent parentheses as grasses. We draw parentheses as grasses.
We water the sentences. We draw water drops to end both complete sentences and parts of sentences.
We write polite texts and do not use abbreviations. This means that financial, mathematical, and other abbreviations, such as percentage, plus, ampersand are written as words.
Numbers are the exception. We abbreviate their digits with the significant letters of the corresponding French words: Zéro, Une, Deux, Trois, Quatre, Cinq, siX, Sept, Huit, Neuf. For the numbers, we use a fruit in the shape of a circle as a crown. We draw numbers with letters.
| Number | {{digit}} |
| Letter | {{'ZUDTQCXSHN'[digit]}} |
To mark a plant as number, we use a fruit in the shape of a circle on top of the plant.
We use flying and sounding animals and their trail to quote. We draw a bird or something similar above the words to show that someone speaks (quote).
We design the roots to highlight the words - apart from natural choices like colour, pen, and other means. We draw more lines at the bottom to mark important words.
We add one or more small bugs to vary the Latin letters - as do the diacritics in ž, ế, Ü, the æ, œ ligatures and the recent creations as @. We can use the simplest bug when it is sufficient to guess which variation it is. We add flies to get changed letters, for example Ü œ which are just changed forms of U O. We can change the shape of the fly for easier reading.
We use friendly symbols to refer to the recipient of a letter, for example we could replace you and your with a ladybird. The same applies to references to both together, author and recipients, such as our and us. We draw a friendly picture to name the person who gets the letter. For example we can use a ladybird for you and your. The same rule is for our.
We rotate letters at donors as needed, we never mirror them. The letter i is an exception to follow gravity.
We have to turn letters depending on their position. For example if they are placed on the left side of a line.
But the letter i is different. The two flowers of this letter should always hang down.
Finally, we can give visual clues to guide the reader through the garden. For example, it is possible to place the words of a sentence in a circle instead of aligning the words with horizontal lines.
By the way, the position of the words on the paper can be freely chosen - as long as the reader knows where to start and to end. For example, the words can be placed in a circle.