I have really got to change the tone of my blogs, so here's something random.
How do you write your 8s?
Most people I know write it like a vertical infinity.
For some reason, I changed my way of writing it a couple years ago, so it's actually just two circles stacked on top of each other. Apparently this is weird.
I don't know why, but I like the more roundedness of the two circles versus that weird connecting cross thing in the middle.
My regular 8 is on the left. What most people I know write is on the right. Sorry for the out of focus shots.
The one on the right, like everyone I've ever seen write an 8.
I think you'd see more varied responses if you asked about 2 (loop at the bottom left or no loop), 5 (one stroke from top right to bottom left, or two strokes, first top left to bottom left, then the horizontal bar on top), 7 (horizontal slash or not), or zero (slash or not).
Looks like you start from the center but I think its a tendency to start above for many as we are used to writing on loose leaf which has that straight guide line for us to form our letters or numbers.
you gotta have .png or jpg at the end, from imgur you get that by right clicking and "open picture in another tab" so it looks like http://imgur.com/0qbHa.png
There's a lot of different ways to write numbers. I know "7"s and "4"s are always an area of high controversy too. I was trying to be neat here but I'm oftentimes just scribbling when I'm rushing and I always manage to confuse my "3"s, "6"s, and "8"s in various combinations.
how about the number 4? some people make like, a capital L and then cross it with a lowercase l, but other people dont pick up the pen. I do the former because the latter can be perceived as a 9.
I do the right method mentioned in the OP, though I often make my bottom circle extremely small and it ends up looking like a 9.
For a 4 I do the L and the I method.
However, my terrible handwriting leads to this handy dandy chart of deciphering my shit when it comes to my notes. It especially sucks when I have to write something like "mu is proportional to n^alpha" or something cuz I have no idea what the hell I write. (mu alpha n^alpha). Or psi and phi, holy fuck I cannot write those things at fucking all.
What I try to write vs how it ends up looking, as reproduced in paint to get the gist of it.
I used to do 2 circles, but I stopped when i was in like 4th grade. The real question is when you do the circles, do you start at the top or bottom? Most people start on top for circles, zeros and o's, my brother and I are the only people I've met who do circles from the bottom.
Edit: after a little bit of testing, I think another efficient way to white 8's is to do a 3 and then a rever 3, maybe not as efficient at standard but surely better than 2 circles.
1: sometimes just a line, sometimes with serifs 2: I used to make the little curl thing but I stopped 3: not much variation here? 4: I don't close the top, but get pretty close (no right-angle-only 4's) 5: not much variation; I write everything but the top first, and then draw the top horizontal line 6: eh 7: I cross them 8: start on the right, make figure eight 9: circle first, then straight vertical line 0: sometimes clockwise, sometimes counter-clockwise (???) I can't actually decide what I do "most of the time"
Top is how I was taught in school, bottom is approximately what I do now.
What happens to my 5's is I start out at the top right but about half the time the top part is too short for the rest of the 5 so I end up drawing the extra bit on at the end. Every time I do this my 5 slowly starts looking like my dad's (who does that all the time and that's how he was taught)
I don't cross my 7 because I have that thing on top left to distinguish it from my 1. And then I just started adding it to my 3's for some reason.
Top is how I was taught in school, bottom is approximately what I do now.
What happens to my 5's is I start out at the top right but about half the time the top part is too short for the rest of the 5 so I end up drawing the extra bit on at the end. Every time I do this my 5 slowly starts looking like my dad's (who does that all the time and that's how he was taught)
I don't cross my 7 because I have that thing on top left to distinguish it from my 1. And then I just started adding it to my 3's for some reason.
Wtf, your own hand writing is a lot fancier than what they actually taught you :D
Top is how I was taught in school, bottom is approximately what I do now.
What happens to my 5's is I start out at the top right but about half the time the top part is too short for the rest of the 5 so I end up drawing the extra bit on at the end. Every time I do this my 5 slowly starts looking like my dad's (who does that all the time and that's how he was taught)
I don't cross my 7 because I have that thing on top left to distinguish it from my 1. And then I just started adding it to my 3's for some reason.
Wtf, your own hand writing is a lot fancier than what they actually taught you :D
I make up for it with extremely illegible letters.
Edit: Found the exact font they taught us to write in. Did anyone else here (most likely in US) have to do D'Nealian daily for like the first three years of school?
The number one has always bothered me. When it's in an equation or number, 95% of the time I just draw a straight line down. But when the one is by itself, like = 1, it looks fucking weird to me, some random straight line on a page, and I have to put a flat base and bent top onto it.
1: no serifs, just a line 2: w/ the loop 3: no flat top 4: right angles 5: top line last, being very careful to not leave a gap or any extrusions 6: standard 7: w/ a cross (I don't know why, I don't even serif my 1's) 8: I start in the middle, so there's less of a seam.
I'm more interested in 9's though, since I don't quite know why the teach the weird 9 with the 'kink' in in at school. Ever since I tried for the first time I just couldn't go back because it's faster, and just nicer overall IMO.
Also avoids the ugly/ambiguous y-like-looking-9 when writing fast ( ) issue I had before I switched.