14 Apr
2020
14 Apr
'20
6:12 a.m.
On Monday, 13 April 2020 at 19:01:13 +1000, Dave Horsfall wrote:
In the time-mean I also saw a slash through
"Z" (Zulu, Zed, Zee) in order
to distinguish it from a "2" (FIGURES TWO); WTF? And you *never* slashed
your ones, lest thou ended up with the contents of an 029 chad-box over
thine head...
These days, I merely slash my sevens by habit and it doesn't even raise an
eyebrow; even Oz Pigeon Post's mail mangler seems to accept it[*].
What're other bods' experiences?
It's funny that nobody seems to have differentiated these usages.
I've seen at least three:
1. "European" characters: 1 with a serif (is that really the correct
term?), 7 with a stroke, Z also with a stroke. Also small u with
a stroke above it in German, left over from the days
(âSütterlinschriftâ) when this was the only distinction between
written u and n. None of these had anything to do with computers.
2. The distinction between O and 0. Put a cross through the 0 and
leave the O as it was. In my experience, this too predated
computers: I first learnt it round 1963 when trying to become a
radio amateur, much to the disgust of my maths teacher, who also
didn't like the hooked 1s and the crossed 7s.
3. The distinction between O and 0. The same as before, almost: put
a cross through the O and leave the 0 normal. This must be a US
usage, since O and à are both valid (and different) letters in
some Nordic languages.
Greg
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