[math-fun] Questions about written numbers
1. I had a professor who tried to teach us to write the digit 1 with the serif extended to the baseline, like a very narrow upper case lambda. Ostensibly this was easier to write and gave the digit 1 more body than a single stroke. Has anyone ever heard of this technique of writing the digit 1? 2. I was also at some point taught to add a short downstroke at the end of the vinculum in a radical sign, which ostensibly better demarcates the argument. I still do this. Has anyone ever heard of this technique? 3. Printed fonts in which the digits are all h-height and rest on the baseline seem to be fairly old, for example, I have a facsimile version of a 1611 King James Bible in which all of the digits are equal h-height. This seems to be fairly universal in modern fonts. However, there are printed fonts from the 19th and early 20th century, and probably earlier, in which 0, 1, and 2 are x-height; 3, 4, 5, 7 and 9 descend below the baseline, and 6 and 8 reach up to h-height. In my old book collection, I have several books in which the page numbers are printed using this sort of font, including a reprint of Vega's 1856 logarithmic and trigonometric tables, in which the preface uses equal-height digits, while the tables have a mix of equal-height and ascending and descending digits. I find the ascending and descending digits very beautiful and I wondered if anyone might have a font with such digits. If anyone is interested, I will scan an image of a page of Vega's tables for an example.
On Friday 06 May 2005 09:06, David Wilson wrote:
1. I had a professor who tried to teach us to write the digit 1 with the serif extended to the baseline, like a very narrow upper case lambda. Ostensibly this was easier to write and gave the digit 1 more body than a single stroke. Has anyone ever heard of this technique of writing the digit 1?
It's common in France, I think.
2. I was also at some point taught to add a short downstroke at the end of the vinculum in a radical sign, which ostensibly better demarcates the argument. I still do this. Has anyone ever heard of this technique?
I do it too.
3. Printed fonts in which the digits are all h-height and rest on the baseline seem to be fairly old, for example, I have a facsimile version of a 1611 King James Bible in which all of the digits are equal h-height. This seems to be fairly universal in modern fonts.
However, there are printed fonts from the 19th and early 20th century, and probably earlier, in which 0, 1, and 2 are x-height; 3, 4, 5, 7 and 9 descend below the baseline, and 6 and 8 reach up to h-height. In my old book collection, I have several books in which the page numbers are printed using this sort of font, including a reprint of Vega's 1856 logarithmic and trigonometric tables, in which the preface uses equal-height digits, while the tables have a mix of equal-height and ascending and descending digits. I find the ascending and descending digits very beautiful and I wondered if anyone might have a font with such digits. If anyone is interested, I will scan an image of a page of Vega's tables for an example.
There are many. Such numerals are sometimes called "oldstyle" in contrast to the now commoner "lining" numerals. Some typefaces have both kinds of digits available; for digital fonts there's sometimes an "expert" version that includes oldstyle digits and various other typographically useful things. If you're a TeX user, you can get oldstyle numerals by saying $\oldstyle 0123456789$. -- g
On Friday 06 May 2005 09:06, David Wilson wrote:
1. I had a professor who tried to teach us to write the digit 1 with the serif extended to the baseline, like a very narrow upper case lambda. Ostensibly this was easier to write and gave the digit 1 more body than a single stroke. Has anyone ever heard of this technique of writing the digit 1?
De la part de Gareth McCaughan Envoyé : vendredi 6 mai 2005 11:14
It's common in France, I think.
Gareth, I confirm that in France we write our 1 as you says, upper left serif extended near to the baseline (but not completely extended until the baseline). And to avoid the confusion with the 7, we cross the 7 with a dash added in its middle. Christian.
Thank you all for your replies. You cleared up one thing for me. I could not recall which of my math teachers showed me the 1 with the extended serif. Was it Burdoin at St. Paul's School, or maybe Anil Nerode or Juris Hartmanis at Cornell? No, it was my Miss McKinnon, my high school French teacher. And I also remember the crossed 7s. I wonder how much of historical handwriting and typography gets lost in the translation to computer. For instance in Unicode, should/does the long serif 1 and crossed 7 have their own glyphs, or are these just stylistic renderings of the standard digits 1 and 7? I do find a font on my computer, "Edwardian Script ITC", in which the 1 serif extends about 2/3 of the way to the baseline, but the 7 is uncrossed in this font. A quick web search turns up nothing about the downstroked radical sign. I have no idea of its origin or if it has been recorded (maybe it occurs in blackboard photos). I have never seen it in a book font. I assume there are many mathematical handwriting and historical symbols that won't survive the digital transition. One that springs to mind is the old factorial symbol, a preceding vertical bar connected to an underline of the expression. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Christian Boyer" <cboyer@club-internet.fr> To: <ham>; "'math-fun'" <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Friday, May 06, 2005 6:57 AM Subject: RE: [math-fun] Questions about written numbers On Friday 06 May 2005 09:06, David Wilson wrote:
1. I had a professor who tried to teach us to write the digit 1 with the serif extended to the baseline, like a very narrow upper case lambda. Ostensibly this was easier to write and gave the digit 1 more body than a single stroke. Has anyone ever heard of this technique of writing the digit 1?
De la part de Gareth McCaughan Envoyé : vendredi 6 mai 2005 11:14
It's common in France, I think.
Gareth, I confirm that in France we write our 1 as you says, upper left serif extended near to the baseline (but not completely extended until the baseline). And to avoid the confusion with the 7, we cross the 7 with a dash added in its middle. Christian. _______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
Also, I found a font with the ascending and descending digits! It is the "Euclid Fraktur", which also includes those ugly Fractur letters used in pretentious mathematics.
At 03:57 AM 5/6/2005, you wrote:
On Friday 06 May 2005 09:06, David Wilson wrote:
1. I had a professor who tried to teach us to write the digit 1 with the serif extended to the baseline,...
are you thinking of old style figrures perhaps like: http://www.fontfinder.ws/20892/Times-10-Roman-Oldstyle-Figures.html --- ray tayek <http://tayek.com/>, co-chair <http://www.ocjug.org/>, actively seeking telecommuting work.
participants (4)
-
Christian Boyer -
David Wilson -
Gareth McCaughan -
Ray Tayek