# Loop-tail g **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 4, 2018, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loop-tail-g/811774 "2018-04-04T02:10:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2018, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loop-tail-g/811774/21 "2018-04-06T05:06:18Z")
I bet if most of you were reading a page of typeset text, and you saw a word containing one of the “wrong” ones, it would jump out at you as looking funny. The same as when you run into a word that is spelled wrong. It just looks funny. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2018, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loop-tail-g/811774/22 "2018-04-06T07:39:57Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > “ɛ” That’s just epsilon, as far as I’m concerned. What used do you have of that form, except as a Greek letter or mathematical symbol? ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2018, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loop-tail-g/811774/23 "2018-04-06T09:18:18Z")
I’ve had to draw g’s like that a lot on posters and flyers and such, by hand in the olden days. Though I typeset digitally now, staring at fonts and graphics all day makes me aware of the shape of letters of different kinds. Needless to say, I picked correctly. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2018, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loop-tail-g/811774/24 "2018-04-06T09:43:22Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > So how many can pick out the correct form of the [loop-tail g](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180403140403.htm)? I got the right one, but it took me a while to find an example to confirm it. That site, the SDMB, Wikipedia, and Google all use fonts with the hook-tail g. The kind of writing I grew up with had no such g, either in cursive or typed. g was either the hook-tail (in print) or with a long loop in handwriting (not those chubby loops). Both started at the bottom right of the circle. > [@jtur88](#): > > I bet if most of you were reading a page of typeset text, and you saw a word containing one of the “wrong” ones, it would jump out at you as looking funny. The same as when you run into a word that is spelled wrong. It just looks funny. That was the reaction of my class the very first time we opened our England-published ESL text. “Why do the 'a’s have that curl?” We were used to ‘a’ being round (a). ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2018, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loop-tail-g/811774/25 "2018-04-06T12:27:56Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > That’s just epsilon, as far as I’m concerned. What used do you have of that form, except as a Greek letter or mathematical symbol? It’s also a not-unusual handwritten form of minuscule “e” for people using Latin-based alphabets. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2018, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loop-tail-g/811774/26 "2018-04-06T13:21:52Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > “ɛ” I use that form routinely as a capital E. Picked it up somewhere in high school or early college. Maybe it was too many math classes, but I liked it because it seemed faster to write than the regular, boxy “E,” which requires three strokes, while the curly “E” is only one. That said, I’ve never seen it used as a regular form of the miniscule. (And I just use the regular “e” for that, as it can also be written with one stroke.) ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2018, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loop-tail-g/811774/27 "2018-04-06T13:23:05Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > It’s also a not-unusual handwritten form of minuscule “e” for people using Latin-based alphabets. Huh. I’ve honestly never seen it, at least not in American (and smattering of European) handwritings. (Different countries have different forms of handwriting, though. Did you learn to handwrite outside the US? That said, it seems like a weird form for handwriting, as it backs over itself a couple of times, instead of the regular hand-written “e,” which is essentially just a single loop. That said, handwriting systems are not necessarily concerned about efficiency, see: The Palmer Method.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loop-tail-g/811774.md?page=1)