(crosspost)

[pilfered_words]

(Responding to this post about consciously choosing to write your 7s, 2s, or a's differently.)

It’s not true about my 7s! I have written sevens with not only a dash but with the little hook on the left end for as long as I can remember.

 

Which is exactly why I changed my 2s. When I was in middle school, my math team coach despaired of my handwriting. “Manya,” she would say, “is that a 1? a 2? a 7???”

 

Because when you’re writing quickly, the curve of the 2 gets pointed, the dash through the 7 moves down, and both 2s and 7s end up looking like 1s, the ones like this. Which, inconveniently, was how I wrote my 1s.

 

I was a stubborn child, so I wasn’t giving up my 1s and 7s, no matter how much my coach insisted. But my 2s went.