Talk:Regional handwriting variation

message: Programmers and mathematicians generally put a diagonal slash through a zero to differentiate it from a capital O, but I wouldn't call that an 'accent'.KJ
: I'd say more programmers than mathematicians; in mathematics, a slashed zero is more often used to indicate the empty set (which is different from zero).  Growing up, I had the slash-zero habit and got a lecture from my seventh-grade algebra teacher about it.  -- Coneslayer
:: Not all programmers either. The "empty set" symbol is also used by programmers to represent null. That rules out many people versed in programming theory (in addition to those versed in mathematics as stated above). I'd say "some" programmers do it, but "most" is an exaggeration. Also I don't think it's characteristic of programmers, probably just "technophiles" in general, i.e. those who copied the practice from early teletypes.
:: Side note: physicians apparently use the "empty set" symbol a lot as well (e.g. for "no symptoms" or "all normal"), so I don't see them using the slashed zero either. I'd say it's a rare and somewhat random occurrence and probably more common in some regions and social groups than others (American technophiles the most, I'd wager).
:: However I do see a lot of programmers adopt the American symbol for the number one when writing binary. This has probably more to do with laziness than anything else, though. They often switch back to European numerals when dealing with non-binary numbers. — Ashmodai (talk · contribs) 03:17, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Same here in Germany. I've never seen anyone putting a slash through a zero. It's just zero - everywhere here. --77.20.125.50 (talk) 13:51, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slashed zero 

message: WP:VfD/Handwriting_foreign_accent
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:Most Europeans write numeral 9 like lowercase g (Arial-style)
I don't, and most people I know don't do that (I'm Spanish). I tend to think the French write the numeral 9 like g, although I don't know about other countries. BTW, this article is too Amerocentric: it talks about "foreign accent" and it doesn't say anything about how Americans write. Why not... a list of letters, numbers and symbols and an explanation on who writes each of them in which way? Like:
::1: In country X it is common to write it with a hat and underline, in country Y it's writte like an Arial l. Sabbut 08:05, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  From [[WP:VFD]] 

message: Every time I looked at the way I write, I saw North America. I'm from the UK, and it's most likely that the 'North American' style comes straight from here. Maybe it should be changed to make the point that North American is actually 'British-style' Big Moira 13:53, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fifty years ago, one could talk about a "national" copybook, because the two dominant copybooks were somewhat similar. Currently there are three or four major players whose copybooks are very dissimilar. Fifty years ago, a copybook from one of the minor players would only be found where that company was located. Currently, the geographical location of the headquarters of the minor player has no bearing upon where their copybook is taught.jonathon 12:13, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  North America? 

message: What about the absence or presence of a loop in the arabic numeral 2? 134.250.72.191 00:19, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two 

message: In the main article, I noticed "Slant is always a function of the taught copybook.[citation needed]".  
Do we really need to have a citation for something that obvious?  Or to put it differently, can somebody point to an instance of a copybook where slant is not one of the parameters of the copybook?jonathon 19:26, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure what's obvious, because the statement is confusing. Does it mean that the only way someone would slant their writing is if they learned to do it from a copybook? Presumably they would be copying something like an italic hand. Or does it mean, as in your interpretation, that there exists no copybook without some mention of slant? The editor adding the citation request was polite enough not to simply delete the statement for its audacious lack of helpful information. Mephistopheles 11:41, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

text: I think I see where the confusion is now. I rewrote that sub-section. I'll check my reference material later, to add the appropriate citations, and correct anything I misremember.  jonathon 23:22, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slant 

message: Would adding graphics of the various copybooks be useful? Either to demonstrate slant, or what the different glyphs look like.jonathon 23:48, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Graphics 

message: Basically the whole page is nonsense. Even in the same country or region (or even in the same school) different people have different writing style. I vote that this page to be changed into "Handwriting Variations" and the regional differences parts all removed or lowered to a subnote to be taken with a (lot of) grain of salt. 
And btw, this page's second nonsenseness is because there is no graphic to explain what's being talked about. Half of the texts can be removed and changed into graphic. I (being a layman, not a typographist) can't understand half of the different glyphs being talked about. And I'm sure many people would feel the same as me. The Kid (talk) 20:59, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And no two people talk alike; does that make dialects "nonsense"?  —Tamfang (talk) 19:17, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  This whole page is nonsense 

message: Would whoever added the templates for "unverified claims", and "original research" state exactly what they consider to be the unverified claims, and original research?  jonathon (talk) 21:37, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unverified Claims / Original Research 

message: In cleaning up the citation to this entry, I noticed that the only reference is to a 1911 publication (reprinted but not revised or republished as a new edition, per WorldCat) by Lewis Foreman Day.  Since Day was known primarily as an art critic associated with the English Arts & Crafts movement, is his book anything more than assumptions and generalizations by an enthusiastic amateur (ala Sabine Baring-Gould)?  Hence the "unverified status" on this entry, perhaps? Librmt (talk) 22:33, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Outdated Information 

message: There are no sources for anything. Many of the examples aren't just regional variations but are variations which could occur within a single country and historical variations. The article is very incomplete, mentioning a few variations in different countries, but doesn't describe all letters for all countries in a systematic way. Count Truthstein (talk) 21:55, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article quality is poor 

message: This sentence about an alternative to slashing the zero was changed today to
which is ungrammatical and incoherent, so I reverted.  The same edit also added these two references:
* Fox, D., et al. “Examining Legibility of the Letter ‘e’ and Number ‘0’ Using Classification Tree Analysis.” Usability News 9.2 (2007)Print.
* "Reference Data For Radio Engineers, Fifth Edition, Howard W. Sams & Co., Inc., 1970
Should they be attached to the beginning of the paragraph, which discusses slashing? —Tamfang (talk) 23:32, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  zero and O 

message: Isn't there wide variation in the use of crossbars? 76.18.160.47 (talk) 23:51, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Uppercase I? 

message: It seems a huge number of script related articles have references to the hideous commercial Getty-Dubay method. I suspect this is a form of spam.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.233.193.37 (talk) 02:32, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Getty-Dubay Spam? 

message: Let's at least talk about whether numerals is better than digits here.  "4" is a numeral, but so are "1729" and "DCLXVI"; digit is more specific. —Tamfang (talk) 20:46, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  numerals vs digits 

message: There is much to be improved in this article, but in particular I believe it needs more of the very helpful images. Many of the descriptions are incredibly confusing, and even if rewritten would still be unclear for many readers. MikeJamesShaw (talk) 12:32, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  More images 

message: I found it surprising that the most distinctive variant of a letter I've ever seen, the American handwritten uppercase G, is absent of the article! I mean, most people I know (from South America and several Western European countries) write it either like a big lowercase g or as a block capital G; Americans, instead, use a letterform that resembles a handwritten Y or an inverted &.
Amaral92 (talk) 19:37, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  American uppercase G 

message: I can think of at least four different ways to write an eight, but there's no coverage here.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.140.1.28 (talk) 18:14, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Numeral 8 

message: Hey I remember occasionally seeing the cursive lowercase s written with a swish like ś and I'm wondering what is the origin of this practice
 --Thegunkid (talk) 08:35, 25 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  S with Swish?