Did the shapes represent individual letters of the alphabet, words or whole phrases?

Both their designs employed multiple wires (up to 35) in order to visually represent most Latin letters and numerals.

Various numbers found in words may actually represent archaic letters.

The buds represent the arts, letters, and sciences.

For example the 'æ' in archæology represents a and e letters.

Because the monthly magazines that still represent American letters to college kids are now run by many such people.

Code 128 and Code 39 are alphanumeric, so they represent letters as well as numbers.

A computer code that represents letters as numbers.

He later developed the New York Point System in which points were used to represent letters or their sound.

He also guessed, correctly, that they represented not letters or hieroglyphics but words and syllables, and were to be read from left to right.