Yep, same here, woodwork at school and engineering drawing at varsity.
What is a non-looping 2? So that it looks identical to a Z?
You just typed one.
It does not look like a Z, see: 2.
I just looked at some old notes, it looks like if I’m writing quick I leave the 4 open quite often. So mine aren’t consistent.
I was about to choose open top, but then I just mindlessly wrote my numbers and realized I always slant the opening to the four. How closed it gets varies, but it’s always slanted. So I went with your third option.
I think it looks better than the fully closed version.
0 - Sometimes I will put a diagonal straight line through it.
1 - Straight vertical line.
2 - Curve, then horizontal straight line on bottom. No loop in the lower left corner.
3 - Two straight lines, then a curve for the bottom.
4 - All straight lines, closed top.
5 - Vertical straight line, curve at the bottom, then a straight line for the top.
6 - I think there’s only one way to write a 6.
7 - Two straight lines, then a short horizontal line through it.
8 - Draw top circle, then draw bottom circle.
9 - Circle, then vertical straight line.
My capital E is written as an upside down capital F. I go down and over in one stroke, then middle bar, then top bar. The top bar occasionally gets omitted when going quickly.
Back in the dark ages when I was “studying” engineering, I got in the habit of the closed 4, the 3 with a sharp corner on the top and loop on the bottom, snowman 8, etc. Haven’t done that in decades. For a long time, when I was living in Europe, I did the 7 with a line through it. Still do, occasionally.
I have a man who writes my fours for me. You people write your own fours? That’s just precious.
Convert to trinary logic and base-3 numbering; then 4s will be obsolete, especially 4-track Muntz Stereo-Paks.
For maximum confusion, I always write that number as 2[sup]2[/sup].
Opened top with a side order of pie.
I do closed-top, because it is easier, because it’s all one pen stroke. There are no other digits that require more than one pen stroke (assuming you’re not some weirdo who slashes their sevens or threes or whatevers).
True; you can do a 5 in one pen stroke. But it always feels unnatural to me somehow, and never looks proper.
I learned the open-top method, but my sloppy writing is closer to the partially-open top. It is not a deliberate affectation.
I was taught open-top, which my dad vaguely disapproved of. He was more strongly against the new-fangled fives. I did them, as taught, in three strokes, starting at the top right, without lifting the pencil. He used the same number of strokes, but started at the top left, went down and around, then raised the pencil to put the top on separately. Sometimes there was a little gap between the upright and the across and often the across had an upward slant.
He said it kept a 5 from looking like an S.
Yeah, I do mine like your dad did. Down, curve, pick up the pen and across the top. I was taught in the 80s. I don’t remember really being taught right-to-left strokes for straight lines. I’m trying to think of all the letters and numbers I was taught, and all horizontal lines are left-to-right.
Seriously. Only the little people use closed-top fours.
For me:
0, 1, and 2 are x-height
3, 4, 5, 7, and 9 have descenders
6 and 8 have ascenders
1 has a serif at the top
2 is loopless
4 is closed
7 is crossed
9 is all curved
0, 1, 2, 3, 6, 8 are one stroke
4, 5, 7, 9 are two stroke
8th grade drafting class… Teacher said “Feed your fours!”
Don’t recall any specific versions of the 3 or 2 with him. Just “close the mouth” on the 4.