Do you cross your Z's and 7's?

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I do; I'm not sure why.

― andy --, Thursday, 3 November 2005 23:22 (twenty years ago)

You think it makes you look smart.

― Stop, Thursday, 3 November 2005 23:28 (twenty years ago)

yes, that's how my mom taught me.

― ai lien (kold_krush), Thursday, 3 November 2005 23:31 (twenty years ago)

Z's, yes, thanks to six years of engineering school beating it into me.

7's, hell no. You think we're some kinda crazy eastern europeans?

― kingfish orange creamsicle (kingfish 2.0), Thursday, 3 November 2005 23:31 (twenty years ago)

i cross my 7s, but i haven't been doing so my whole life.

― jbr: the little-known, idiosyncratic nutball (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 3 November 2005 23:32 (twenty years ago)

Why do British say "zed"? that's too weird.

― andy --, Thursday, 3 November 2005 23:33 (twenty years ago)

We're not stuck in the year 1600?

― Frogm@n Henry, Thursday, 3 November 2005 23:35 (twenty years ago)

You don't want to mistake your 7s for 1s.

― sexyDancer (sexyDancer), Thursday, 3 November 2005 23:35 (twenty years ago)

only when there's a need to avoid confusion, like on a handwritten message for one of the eds. or on a ransom note.

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Thursday, 3 November 2005 23:35 (twenty years ago)

why do american people

― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 3 November 2005 23:36 (twenty years ago)

i do this because my handwriting is shitty already so it's a courtesy to anyone who might have to read it

― kyle (akmonday), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:01 (twenty years ago)

I don't think I used to do either when I was young, but I do them both now. Probably as my handwriting has gotten more crap as I get older.

― ailsa (ailsa), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:11 (twenty years ago)

It's funny that British say "Herb" and Americans say "Erb" because it really should be the other way around.

― andy --, Friday, 4 November 2005 00:12 (twenty years ago)

do you cross your 0s?

crosspost

what about "yooman" instead of "human"?

― RJG (RJG), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:13 (twenty years ago)

I cross my 7s sometimes, used to cross my Zs and do capital E like a backwards 3, but I dont tend to now. I think computers have rendered my handwriting completely retarded.

― Trayce (trayce), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:14 (twenty years ago)

I started crossing my sevens when I was in my late teens, to be unique or cool or euro or something. Now it's stuck that way. But not Z, even though my name has one. I didn't think of it, otherwise I would have.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:18 (twenty years ago)

Oh, the proper cursive capital Z and Q are really cool. I don't think most people would recognize them now.

Do they still teach cursive? I still use cursive daily, but it seems to be dying somewhat... I'm the only one in my office.

― andy --, Friday, 4 November 2005 00:21 (twenty years ago)

I cross my 7s sometimes, Zs never.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:23 (twenty years ago)

They still taught cursive when I was in elementary school. Dunno about now.

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Friday, 4 November 2005 00:25 (twenty years ago)

ihttp://www.enchantedlearning.com/letters/gifs/cursiveall.GIF

― andy --, Friday, 4 November 2005 00:25 (twenty years ago)

They had that weird pulpy paper with the dotted center line, and then about 4th grade you graduated to fat but sorta normal college ruled.

― andy --, Friday, 4 November 2005 00:26 (twenty years ago)

If it was fat, then it wasn't college-ruled, it was wide-ruled.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:27 (twenty years ago)

i cross it all BABY

― anthony, Friday, 4 November 2005 00:29 (twenty years ago)

I always cross my 7's, esp. in offical form-filling etc. Z's? Never.

― Si.C@rter (SiC@rter), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:31 (twenty years ago)

My Zs look like 3s. There's no crossing but I cross my "f"s twice to make up for it.

― Cressida Breem (neruokruokruokne?), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:31 (twenty years ago)

Thinking about it, it's probably because my NI number has three 7's and a 1 in it.

― Si.C@rter (SiC@rter), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:33 (twenty years ago)

My small "z" looks like those cursive ones. I didn't get taught it like that though, and I never used to do them, I think I just saw someone else do it and thought it looked better; that's probably where the crossing of "Z" and "7" came from too.

― ailsa (ailsa), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:34 (twenty years ago)

I started out closing my 4's, then a kid named Wayne in second grade told me that was the baby way so now they're open on top.

― andy -, Friday, 4 November 2005 00:40 (twenty years ago)

I cross my 7's when I have some extra time on my hands, or if I think it looks more illegible than usual. Z's, hell naw.

― Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:42 (twenty years ago)

Crossing either makes you 102 years old. Do you use "whenceforth" a lot too?

― paulhw (paulhw), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:46 (twenty years ago)

You don't want to mistake your 7s for 1s.

Or your Z's for 2's. It's the only reason why I do this.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:47 (twenty years ago)

7s usually Zs never

― deej.. (deej..), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:47 (twenty years ago)

Crossing either makes you 102 years old. Do you use "whenceforth" a lot too?

I'd rather spend a few seconds crossing my 7's than encourage some illiterate to send me a gas bill for three thousand quid.

Plus, have you ever been to Europe?

― Si.C@rter (SiC@rter), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:54 (twenty years ago)

Sevens, yes -- I picked it up from an editor I used to work for and have found it useful in deciphering my own phone numbers, bill payment confirmations, etc even if viewed months later when you have no idea how much your electric bill was in April.

― Laurel (Laurel), Friday, 4 November 2005 01:13 (twenty years ago)

I used to cross both to be cool and now I do neither. I do write capital cursive Qs like 2 though.

― emilys. (emilys.), Friday, 4 November 2005 02:17 (twenty years ago)

Yes and yes.

― elmo (allocryptic), Friday, 4 November 2005 02:17 (twenty years ago)

I really don't like the cursive capital Q. I do cross my letters. Also my lowercase "a"s have hooks.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 4 November 2005 02:20 (twenty years ago)

sevens - almost always, zeds - never ever, zeroes - yes, but only when i mean nil, not just a numerical zero.

― Kim (Kim), Friday, 4 November 2005 02:50 (twenty years ago)

i don't like most of those cursive caps (at least the ones that differ from what most people do now). i particularly dislike the cursive G.

― jed_ (jed), Friday, 4 November 2005 02:55 (twenty years ago)

I cross both. I started crossing sevens in grade school because I was BORN IN ENGLAND and wanted to look cool and worldly to my other easily impressed classmates, and now it's just habit. I have no idea when I started crossing Zs but it's useful. Sometimes I cross zeros if I am writing down a long string of alphanumeric characters or an email or something that might contain 0 and O.

My handwriting has never been prizewinning and like Trayce's, it has now deteriorated to something that could have been scratched out by a mentally challenged monkey with parkinsons writing with a bad pen while sitting in the back of a pick-up that's driving down a dirt road after a major rainstorm.

― pullapartgirl (pullapartgirl), Friday, 4 November 2005 03:14 (twenty years ago)

I always hated how my cursive capital J's looked. That was probably a factor in my dropping cursive, which I learned in Elementary school but haven't used for many years.

I always cross my z's. I never cross my 7's, except during the period I recently spent living in Paris. And I only cross my 0's if I'm writing something like a software registration code, where you can't tell from context whether to expect a letter or a digit. Actually these days I put a dot in the center of my zeros, rather than crossing them (inspired by the example of Andale Mono).

― Paul in Santa Cruz (Paul in Santa Cruz), Friday, 4 November 2005 03:15 (twenty years ago)

When I was a gradeschooler, we were taught penmanship, and graded according to how closely our cursive style conformed to the Palmer Method. Had this discipline been completely, universally successful, there would be no such thing as personal handwriting styles, and signatures would be useless as legally binding identifiers.

― M. V. (M.V.), Friday, 4 November 2005 06:19 (twenty years ago)

You don't want to mistake your 7s for 1s.

Or your Z's for 2's. It's the only reason why I do this.

-- Pleasant Plains ///

i cross both for the same reason.

― tehresa (tehresa), Friday, 4 November 2005 06:39 (twenty years ago)

I cross my sevens, my zeroes, and zeds if I haven't written them like backwards threes. I think it's sad that people don't use cursive anymore. I still use it and I get compliments on it all the time from people, as if it was some magic power that I have instead of just something I learned in school and never forgot.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Friday, 4 November 2005 07:10 (twenty years ago)

Oh god yes, cursive Gs are godawful.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 4 November 2005 08:08 (twenty years ago)

I was taught that style of cursive for my lower-case letters when I was about 7 or 8, and I still use it, although my s has degraded to look more like a cursive-style schwa.

I cross my 7s and sometimes my Zs; I started this when I was around 16 or so.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Friday, 4 November 2005 08:16 (twenty years ago)

Z? No, I don't think I do. Oh yes, I do, when it's a captial. 7? It depends really. Sometimes. But when I want to make it very clear that it's a seven, I usually write it the Japanese way which seems much clearer.

Actually I don't know for sure. I don't seem to write that much anymore. :-(

― Nathalie, the Queen of Frock 'n' Fall (stevie nixed), Friday, 4 November 2005 08:32 (twenty years ago)

i cross both 7s and Zs

― g-kit (g-kit), Friday, 4 November 2005 09:12 (twenty years ago)

I never liked the look of cursive. I learned to write calligraphical style, and never really bothered with either ball and stick or cursive - by the time I was taught it, I thought it was hideous compared with the graceful italics of calligraphy.

Anyway... sorry, I could talk about fonts and handwriting all the doo dah day.

I *do* cross both 7s and Zs. I've done it since I was about 9. I also make the tops of my 3s straight and flattened, rather than rounded. I always had teachers who were obsessed with neat handwriting - especialliy the nun I had in 4th Grade. I like having old fashioned handwriting. I often write with a fountain pen to aid the effect. When I was younger, I used to cut quills for a true authentic 18th Century hand, but have ceased that because I think the birds need the feathers more than I do.

― Streatham's Paisley Princess (kate), Friday, 4 November 2005 09:24 (twenty years ago)

I cross my 7s, but not my Zs! It's not something that I did at school, but I always do it now for some reason.

― Panther Pink (Pinkpanther), Friday, 4 November 2005 09:25 (twenty years ago)

I went through a semester at school of writing in uncial for a laff:

http://www.identifont.com/samples/urw/AmericanUncial.gif

But the nuns protested on the grounds that I was becoming sloppy with capitalisation.

― Streatham's Paisley Princess (kate), Friday, 4 November 2005 09:27 (twenty years ago)

never crossed a Z

sometimes cross a 7, either because i've wrote it shitty or I have spare time on my hands

cross my 0's more, as I am big computer geek.

― Ste (Fuzzy), Friday, 4 November 2005 09:39 (twenty years ago)

I just realised that's really modern Uncial to be having crossed 0s and Euro symbols in it, ha ha.

― Streatham's Paisley Princess (kate), Friday, 4 November 2005 09:45 (twenty years ago)

I cross 7 and do squiggly lowercase z and my uppercase Zs have serifs so they don't look like 2s and my E looks like a backwards 3. My lowercase f goes below the line and my uppercase F looks like other people's lowercase f.

Are we all terrible ponces?

― beanz (beanz), Friday, 4 November 2005 09:48 (twenty years ago)

Ponces? Humph!

Do other people not extend their lower case f's? that's frankly bizarre. Mine are long and have curly tails. I would do archaic long S's if I thought I could get away with it. And Thorn... aaahhhh... where's our Alphabet thread? I'm going to go all gooey in a moment.

― Streatham's Paisley Princess (kate), Friday, 4 November 2005 09:50 (twenty years ago)

I cross 7s and Zs because I went to a French immersion elementary school, and was taught to write that way. I stopped for a while, but then started again for the reasons Pleasant Plains describes. I use a cursive G in my signature, otherwise it would be boring since my cursive Ss aren't all that.

― sgs (sgs), Friday, 4 November 2005 09:54 (twenty years ago)

I always cross my 7s and began to cross my Zs, but the fat line coming out of my fountain pen made them look mucky, so I started doing backwards 3s for Zs instead. I usually do cursive Gs, but not in postcodes or all caps, when I use a G similar to the girobank gGee.
http://www.tucoo.com/logo/logo_eps013/s/Girobanks.png
My capital As are like lower case As but bigger, again except in postcodes and all caps.

― Mädchen (Madchen), Friday, 4 November 2005 09:57 (twenty years ago)

When I used to write lots of maths, I crossed both, cos back then 2/Z confusion and 7/1 confusion were likely and problematic. But then I used to do curly x's then too, so that they didn't get confused with multiplication signs. These days I never really write maths, and I still cross 7s, cos they're still easily confused with 2s (in phone numbers or whatever), but Zs are usually clearly Zs through context (nobody's going to misread it as "I went to the 200 yesterday and saw monkeys and elephants"), and my Xs have reverted to crosses too.

― JimD (JimD), Friday, 4 November 2005 11:13 (twenty years ago)

I only cross numbers if I'm sending an important number to a European, or if I'm writing a code/ID number of some kind that contains both letters and numbers.

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 4 November 2005 11:53 (twenty years ago)

pretentioalphanumeric

― RJG (RJG), Friday, 4 November 2005 11:58 (twenty years ago)

Huh, I thought I crossed neither but glancing around at the notes around me, apparently I cross both! Funny I never noticed that considering I have a 'z' in my own name.

― Roz (Roz), Friday, 4 November 2005 12:11 (twenty years ago)

Why do British say "zed"? that's too weird.

cos otherwise "zee" sounds too much like "c"

― dog latin (dog latin), Friday, 4 November 2005 13:00 (twenty years ago)

I don't know why I cross my Zs, but I know why I cross my 7s. When I was little I had problems writing neat 1s and 7s (I have atrocious handwriting), so my mom showed me how to write 7s the crazy euro way, because she had to do them that way for German class and it stuck.

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Friday, 4 November 2005 13:28 (twenty years ago)

Another distinctively European trait, which I noticed when a waitress wrote out a bill for me recently, using a comma instead of a period, e.g. 1,75 instead of 1.75

― Oh No, It's Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 4 November 2005 13:33 (twenty years ago)

yes, but do you cross your Ð and your þ

― Streatham's Paisley Princess (kate), Friday, 4 November 2005 13:44 (twenty years ago)

I deeply regret the passing of the Ð and the þ from the English langauge

― Oh No, It's Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 4 November 2005 13:48 (twenty years ago)

Not to mention yogh which I don't think there's even an HTML character for!

Curse those lazy printers! ::shakes fist::

― Streatham's Paisley Princess (kate), Friday, 4 November 2005 13:56 (twenty years ago)

I got an email with þ in it the other day (from a chap called Thor).

RJG, fuck off.

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 4 November 2005 13:58 (twenty years ago)

Wouldn't he be Þor?

― Streatham's Paisley Princess (kate), Friday, 4 November 2005 13:59 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, þuck off (xpost)

― Oh No, It's Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 4 November 2005 13:59 (twenty years ago)

Do you have a lisp, Dada?

― Streatham's Paisley Princess (kate), Friday, 4 November 2005 14:00 (twenty years ago)

I have no liþp

― Oh No, It's Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 4 November 2005 14:01 (twenty years ago)

Or rather, a liðp?

― Streatham's Paisley Princess (kate), Friday, 4 November 2005 14:02 (twenty years ago)

Results 1 - 10 of about 2,330,000 for se7en.

Results 1 - 10 of about 23,900 for "zed's dead, baby".

― M. V. (M.V.), Friday, 4 November 2005 14:18 (twenty years ago)

I cross my 7's. I think it looks fancy.

But not my z's.

― jel -- (jel), Friday, 4 November 2005 17:36 (twenty years ago)

Just my sevens. So you can differentiate them from ones.

― M. White (Miguelito), Friday, 4 November 2005 17:56 (twenty years ago)

pretentio: (

― RJG (RJG), Friday, 4 November 2005 18:17 (twenty years ago)

Actually, I remember learning at junior school that Spanish people get to put crosses in their sevens, and I just thought it was cool.

― jel -- (jel), Friday, 4 November 2005 18:18 (twenty years ago)

earlier this year, when my job required me to be a teleform expert, i stopped crossing my 7's, which i had been doing since 9th or 10th grade, cause teleform would get confused. i also couldnt remember why i had started, and it seemed like a good life change.

― petesmith (plsmith), Friday, 4 November 2005 19:22 (twenty years ago)

I always cross my sevens and my z's. I also write the date out as DD MM YYYY too.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Friday, 4 November 2005 20:13 (twenty years ago)

I used to but one time on a bank deposit I crossed the 7 in my account number and they misread it and I didn't get that money deposited forever and it was really pretty tragic and now I don't cross 7's anymore - true story

― Mickey (modestmickey), Saturday, 5 November 2005 07:16 (twenty years ago)

I don't understand how one could possibly confuse a 1 and a 7 unless you're adding a serif to the top of the 1. That type of insanity is only forgivable if you're adding serifs to every letter and drawing a two-story lowercase "a". Otherwise a one is a straight line and a seven consists of two lines -- easily distinguishable without adding a redundant cross to the poor 7.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Saturday, 5 November 2005 07:50 (twenty years ago)

Tu n'est pas Francais, Walter!

See e.g. this menu for typical French handwriting: http://www.p178host.com/0tp178/pcd/mtf/g_paris_london/orig.jpg

― Paul in Santa Cruz (Paul in Santa Cruz), Saturday, 5 November 2005 08:22 (twenty years ago)

est -> es

― Paul in Santa Cruz (Paul in Santa Cruz), Saturday, 5 November 2005 08:25 (twenty years ago)

Let's see if this works for yogh: Ʒ

― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 5 November 2005 08:28 (twenty years ago)

Lowercase: ʒ

Apparently also goes by ezh. &ezh;?

― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 5 November 2005 08:29 (twenty years ago)

Ah well.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 5 November 2005 08:29 (twenty years ago)

But if you are writing down, say, a phone number or account number, the recipient isn't necessarily going to know if the two-lined figure is a 7 or a 1 with a serif if there is no example of either (or of your beautifully serif-enhanced handwriting) anywhere else in what you have written in order to compare.

― ailsa (ailsa), Saturday, 5 November 2005 08:33 (twenty years ago)

Started crossing both at say 12 because of French class. Since I am left-handed, my writing is somewhere between the poles of printing and cursive, not to mention full of serifs, so I think it's probably useful. My group of school friends at say age 10 also were obsessed with calligraphy done on rice paper and parchment.

― suzy (suzy), Saturday, 5 November 2005 11:27 (twenty years ago)

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