It enables him or her to record armorial devices quickly and accurately, to make effective use or ordinaries, armorials, peerages, etc., and to communicate with other armorists. The objectives of blazon are brevity and precision. The conventions of blazon are well established but not inflexible, and current practice is nearer the spirit of the medieval heralds than the prescriptive heraldic manuals of the last century, in which tautology was described as mortal sin, and clarity sacrificed for pedantry. All the well known heraldic books contain the technical minutiae of blazon, but it is recommended that the novice concentrate on perfecting his or her understanding of the basics before concerning himself or herself with technicalities. Once the conventions are understood the terminology will come with practice and a few hours spent browsing through an illustrated peerage.
Blazons are unpunctuated, except that the tinctures and charges begin with a capital letter.
If a shield is impaled, the dexter coat is blazoned first. If, as often happens, the last quartering is a repetition of the first, the blazon would commence Quarterly 1st and 4th, Quarterly Ist and 8th and so on, depending on the number of quarterings borne. When quarterings are themselves quartered they are described as grandquarters, each coat of which they are composed being a sub-quarter. A shield containing several quarterings may also be surrounded by a bordure. This should always be blazoned last, together with any charges placed upon it.