4 ms·

The author makes a point of avoiding letters that are hard to distinguish even when spelled out in handwriting, but the example table includes the number 7. I c

The author makes a point of avoiding letters that are hard to distinguish even when spelled out in handwriting, but the example table includes the number 7. I can not count the number of times I have found it hard to distinguish between someone's 7 and 1. It helps if you draw a horizontal bar on the 7 but many don't, so you can never really be sure if a 7 is in fact a 1 with the serif or vice versa.

gajus 2y ago
I never ran into into this situation, but I plan to update the article based on aggregated feedback. A few good suggestions have been made.
- deanishe 2y ago
  When it comes to handwritten numbers, Brits frequently mistake German ones for sevens, and Germans British sevens for ones.
- bithaze 2y ago
  A small typo I noticed - "Case-sensitive: 53^5 = 62,259,690,411,360" should be to the eighth power, not the fifth.
  - gajus 2y ago
    Thanks. Fixed
    - silvestrov 2y ago
      Suggestion: after "a longer ID with a lower chance of visual ambiguity" show how many characters that will be needed to have the same number of IDs as 53^8 using the 22 encoding. I.e. for a given number of IDs, how many characters are needed in the 53 versus 22 encoding (people who are not good at math might assume it is more than twice as many).
    - jonp 2y ago
      Actually, 53^8 = 62,259,690,411,361 (not ..360)
- vesinisa 2y ago
  It might be based on the handwriting standards used in your country. Where I live we were taught at school to draw a horizontal bar on 7 and avoid the serif on 1: https://is.mediadelivery.fi/img/468/a93c32e08dae4768869a4bda9f183aeb.jpg https://is.mediadelivery.fi/img/468/a93c32e08dae4768869a4bda... No chance of confusion. This seems to have prompted some to add the serif to their 1 for stylistic reasons or whatever, since it's still distinguishable from 7 with a bar. But then again people following older or newer conventions drop the bar from their 7: https://is.mediadelivery.fi/img/468/46827e3320294f89b12a933830ecda7c.jpg https://is.mediadelivery.fi/img/468/46827e3320294f89b12a9338... This makes a singular 1 with sloppily drawn serif hard to distinguish from a 7 without horizontal bar unless you can also see how the same person draws the other digit in their style.
  - gajus 2y ago
    Updated the article. Thanks for the context
  - zo1 2y ago
    An alternative way, that makes the "1"s a bit less ambiguous, is to draw a bar at the bottom. So even if you put the serif on the 1, and write it sloppy, you still have the bar at the bottom. See the last example in this image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ee/Handwriting_variations%2C_numeral_1.svg/300px-Handwriting_variations%2C_numeral_1.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ee/Ha... Side note to OP and author, the Wikipedia page is pretty handy and has a lot of info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_handwriting_variation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_handwriting_variation
  - yongjik 2y ago
    Where I grew up (Korea), we write 7 with an extra serif at the upper left corner, like this: https://pop.yesform.com/pop/16113 https://pop.yesform.com/pop/16113 It never gets confused with 1, but in America, people were confusing it with 9 (!!), so I had to stop writing it like that. Can't please everybody...
    - pests 2y ago
- deleted 2y ago
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deleted 2y ago
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powersnail 2y ago
That's interesting. I've never encountered a 1 that looks like 7 in handwriting. Usually it's I and l that mess with 1. In what style of handwriting is 1 similar to 7? I'd imagine the top bar on 7 is a sufficient differentiator.
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  A "1" can have a little squiggly roof on it. A big 1-squiggle easily looks like a 7.
- froh 2y ago
  in some countries' handwritings the digit one is not a vertical bar but it has a little ascending hook, like a digit seven turned vertical, but with a shorter roof. so 'muricans mistook my German ones for sevens, all the time, and I had to force myself to write what looks like a pipe symbol vertical bar to me instead of my trusted one. and to disambiguate, we cross the seven like a lower case eff or tee is crossed.
  - swores 2y ago
    The handwriting of numbers and letters being confusing between countries is something that's easy to not think about until you've actually faced the issue multiple times. I'm English, and I can't honestly remember which country it was that I've lived in (I think France...) where there were a couple of numbers that even after living there for a year I still wasn't confident reading when hand-written on things like café menus. And I don't think I would have thought of that being a systemic issue rather than just blaming an individual's handwriting before I lived there, despite having taken over 100 trips to France before moving to live there for a year.
- dusted 2y ago
  7, 1 I i and l are troublesome because sans serif vs serif fonts and other stylistic choices can make them look like eachother.
- sneak 2y ago
  Germans write the number 1 almost like an upside-down capital V. It’s not horizontally symmetrical though, which is why it looks like a 7.
vander_elst 2y ago
Missing in the first part, but In the section "Visually ambiguous dictionary" neither 1 nor 7 is present.
toss1 2y ago
The article also mentioned the difficult-to-distinguish aurally "B" (Bravo) and "P" (Papa). But it did not mention the most similar-sounding pair "F" (Foxtrot) and "S" (Sierra), which are nearly indistinguishable. While one could use the NATO/Aviation standard alphabet (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta...), unless you have a very specifically constrained customer base,it won't help much. Best to also avoid those combinations. Definitely better to have a slightly longer ID_String and maximal ability to read and speak/hear the characters. It'll save FAR more time and aggravation.
- saltcured 2y ago
  There are many of these ambiguous pairs: B/P, F/S, D/T, M/N, Q/U, ... The end-to-end transmission can get really bad when you combine several different filter stages, such as a speaker's mouth being injured or obscured, a narrow channel like telephone or radio, noise, and a listener's ear losing parts of the spectrum. As the sound transmission gets worse, you can get more rhyming ambiguities. Effectively, the consonants are lost in a bad channel and only the vowels come through. In an American English accent, I think these are the groups corresponding to different vowel sounds: A/H/J/K, B/C/D/E/G/P/T/V/Z, I/Y, O, Q/U, F/L/M/N/S/X, R. "W" stands alone with multiple syllables. Depending on the kind of transmission problem, these groups can start to split apart into smaller subgroups based on which of their sonic differences make it through to the listener.
- TacticalCoder 2y ago
  > But it did not mention the most similar-sounding pair "F" (Foxtrot) and "S" (Sierra), which are nearly indistinguishable. My family name begins with a 'F' and, indeed, I can't count the number of times where people write a 'S' instead. I've got invoices with a 'S' instead of a 'F'!

gajus 2y ago

I never ran into into this situation, but I plan to update the article based on aggregated feedback. A few good suggestions have been made.

deanishe 2y ago
When it comes to handwritten numbers, Brits frequently mistake German ones for sevens, and Germans British sevens for ones.
bithaze 2y ago
A small typo I noticed - "Case-sensitive: 53^5 = 62,259,690,411,360" should be to the eighth power, not the fifth.
- gajus 2y ago
  Thanks. Fixed
  - silvestrov 2y ago
    Suggestion: after "a longer ID with a lower chance of visual ambiguity" show how many characters that will be needed to have the same number of IDs as 53^8 using the 22 encoding. I.e. for a given number of IDs, how many characters are needed in the 53 versus 22 encoding (people who are not good at math might assume it is more than twice as many).
  - jonp 2y ago
    Actually, 53^8 = 62,259,690,411,361 (not ..360)
vesinisa 2y ago
It might be based on the handwriting standards used in your country. Where I live we were taught at school to draw a horizontal bar on 7 and avoid the serif on 1: https://is.mediadelivery.fi/img/468/a93c32e08dae4768869a4bda9f183aeb.jpg https://is.mediadelivery.fi/img/468/a93c32e08dae4768869a4bda... No chance of confusion. This seems to have prompted some to add the serif to their 1 for stylistic reasons or whatever, since it's still distinguishable from 7 with a bar. But then again people following older or newer conventions drop the bar from their 7: https://is.mediadelivery.fi/img/468/46827e3320294f89b12a933830ecda7c.jpg https://is.mediadelivery.fi/img/468/46827e3320294f89b12a9338... This makes a singular 1 with sloppily drawn serif hard to distinguish from a 7 without horizontal bar unless you can also see how the same person draws the other digit in their style.
- gajus 2y ago
  Updated the article. Thanks for the context
- zo1 2y ago
  An alternative way, that makes the "1"s a bit less ambiguous, is to draw a bar at the bottom. So even if you put the serif on the 1, and write it sloppy, you still have the bar at the bottom. See the last example in this image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ee/Handwriting_variations%2C_numeral_1.svg/300px-Handwriting_variations%2C_numeral_1.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ee/Ha... Side note to OP and author, the Wikipedia page is pretty handy and has a lot of info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_handwriting_variation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_handwriting_variation
- yongjik 2y ago
  Where I grew up (Korea), we write 7 with an extra serif at the upper left corner, like this: https://pop.yesform.com/pop/16113 https://pop.yesform.com/pop/16113 It never gets confused with 1, but in America, people were confusing it with 9 (!!), so I had to stop writing it like that. Can't please everybody...
  - pests 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

powersnail 2y ago

That's interesting. I've never encountered a 1 that looks like 7 in handwriting. Usually it's I and l that mess with 1. In what style of handwriting is 1 similar to 7? I'd imagine the top bar on 7 is a sufficient differentiator.

actionfromafar 2y ago
A "1" can have a little squiggly roof on it. A big 1-squiggle easily looks like a 7.
froh 2y ago
in some countries' handwritings the digit one is not a vertical bar but it has a little ascending hook, like a digit seven turned vertical, but with a shorter roof. so 'muricans mistook my German ones for sevens, all the time, and I had to force myself to write what looks like a pipe symbol vertical bar to me instead of my trusted one. and to disambiguate, we cross the seven like a lower case eff or tee is crossed.
- swores 2y ago
  The handwriting of numbers and letters being confusing between countries is something that's easy to not think about until you've actually faced the issue multiple times. I'm English, and I can't honestly remember which country it was that I've lived in (I think France...) where there were a couple of numbers that even after living there for a year I still wasn't confident reading when hand-written on things like café menus. And I don't think I would have thought of that being a systemic issue rather than just blaming an individual's handwriting before I lived there, despite having taken over 100 trips to France before moving to live there for a year.
dusted 2y ago
7, 1 I i and l are troublesome because sans serif vs serif fonts and other stylistic choices can make them look like eachother.
sneak 2y ago
Germans write the number 1 almost like an upside-down capital V. It’s not horizontally symmetrical though, which is why it looks like a 7.

vander_elst 2y ago

Missing in the first part, but In the section "Visually ambiguous dictionary" neither 1 nor 7 is present.

toss1 2y ago

The article also mentioned the difficult-to-distinguish aurally "B" (Bravo) and "P" (Papa). But it did not mention the most similar-sounding pair "F" (Foxtrot) and "S" (Sierra), which are nearly indistinguishable. While one could use the NATO/Aviation standard alphabet (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta...), unless you have a very specifically constrained customer base,it won't help much. Best to also avoid those combinations. Definitely better to have a slightly longer ID_String and maximal ability to read and speak/hear the characters. It'll save FAR more time and aggravation.

saltcured 2y ago
There are many of these ambiguous pairs: B/P, F/S, D/T, M/N, Q/U, ... The end-to-end transmission can get really bad when you combine several different filter stages, such as a speaker's mouth being injured or obscured, a narrow channel like telephone or radio, noise, and a listener's ear losing parts of the spectrum. As the sound transmission gets worse, you can get more rhyming ambiguities. Effectively, the consonants are lost in a bad channel and only the vowels come through. In an American English accent, I think these are the groups corresponding to different vowel sounds: A/H/J/K, B/C/D/E/G/P/T/V/Z, I/Y, O, Q/U, F/L/M/N/S/X, R. "W" stands alone with multiple syllables. Depending on the kind of transmission problem, these groups can start to split apart into smaller subgroups based on which of their sonic differences make it through to the listener.
TacticalCoder 2y ago
> But it did not mention the most similar-sounding pair "F" (Foxtrot) and "S" (Sierra), which are nearly indistinguishable. My family name begins with a 'F' and, indeed, I can't count the number of times where people write a 'S' instead. I've got invoices with a 'S' instead of a 'F'!