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Comment by gpvos | Hacker News Reader

As an aside, note the typical Dutch way to write the digit 8: starting at the left of the middle with the bottom part, instead of at the very top left. It is used universally in the Netherlands, but I have been told it's used nowhere else, not even in Flanders.

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Wait, people start at the top left for 8? I start at the top right. I also write "e" by first writing the "c" and then filling it in, so it's very conceivable that I'm the outlier. I blame wanting to finish those dang writing practice sheets in 2nd or 3rd grade as quickly as possible.

Okay, somewhere near the top at least.

After starting at the top right, do you move your pen left or down? I start at the top-right and move left (in other words, the first curve is counterclockwise).

Yep. Same.

Did a brief survey off people around me, results were inconclusive:

1x Upper Left

1x Upper Middle

1x Upper Right

Outlier here too. I start in the bottom left and move to the upper right. So essentially my 8's are all upside down.

I'm Dutch and I write it that way. This is the first time in my memory that I consciously thought about how I write an 8 though. Probably I did when I was learning to actually write an 8 many years ago. Then again it's been a while since I actually wrote anything with a pen.

Flemish here: I write 8 by starting in the mid-point, then to top left, around via top right to bottom left, around to bottom right and then back to the middle.

So it's horizontally mirrored compared to the way you do it :-)

I know what you mean, I had to unlearn the Dutch way of writing numbers when I moved to the US because almost no-one could read them. It's not just the 8 though, the 1's, 4's, 7's and 9's are also quite different, at least with my handwriting.

7 having a line through it is common in Europe and the UK, but totally unheard of in the USA.

Do you write Z with a line through it? My British family does.

7 with a line through it is unusual in the US, but not totally unheard of.

Z with a line through it is quite common in mathematics in the US (to prevent confusion with the number 2.) Many people who do a lot of math carry the dash over to Zs in general.

Swedish here, I write Z with the line, as well as the number 7. My first teacher was ancient even in the 90s, so that may have something to do with it?

I do it this way and I'm french. It seems strange to me that it is specific to the netherlands.

Well, I wouldn't know for sure, but I haven't seen it differently yet (yes, I know, anecdotal). I don't think it is generally taught that way elsewhere. But the main intention of my post is to find out, so your data point is welcome. :)

There are some corpora of handwritten digits (for OCR training) lying around the net, I guess I should check those to be sure.

Is that you, Gerben Vos?

Hey Ido! Never expected to meet you here.

I'm Dutch and I've got no clue what you're talking about and write it differently, too. I also didn't know it was an actual thing that people paid attention to, I mean does anyone know in what sequence their friends write their numbers?

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