Elementary, my dear
Does everyone remember how, when they were taught to print in school, they were told to make their 2s like this:
I was taught that, too. But all the adults made their 2s like this:
In first grade or so, I was really bothered by this. It seemed like we were being taught a way of making 2s that was not the right way, as evidenced by the fact that all the grown-ups did it differently. And at some point, I don't know when, I started making my 2s like that.
Later, when we were taught to write in cursive, we were taught that the
was the cursive way to do it. (Which was rather foolish, because the cursive letter Q looked like
. This seemed ridiculous to me, especially because they weren't both part of the same cursive script alphabet.)
I remember that I pretended not to be able to read cursive in first grade, and staunchly insisted that I couldn't, even though it was pretty easy to figure out. I think I had been told that "kids don't learn cursive until they get to second grade," and I believed that this meant that I would be wrong if I could read cursive despite being younger than that. So I tried not to look at anyone's cursive writing, lest I accidentally read it, covering up with protests of "I don't know how to read cursive!" and resisting the older kids' attempts to teach me during reading class. (I'm very glad that I learned to read before I was told "kids your age don't know how to read," because I might have come to the same conclusion, and that would have been terrible. I can't imagine my early childhood without reading.)
So I had this idea that cursive was the grown-ups' writing, and that kids weren't supposed to write that way. For the longest time I kept sticking to print, even when adults wanted me to use cursive. It was the source of many Pointless And Stupid Battles between me and the teachers, along with the Pointless And Stupid Battles where they wanted me to use pencil and I tried to get away with pen, and the ones where they told me not to doodle on my homework. I really don't know why these regulations are so strictly enforced. Yes, they want to make sure I can use cursive, and erasing is a nice ability, but there are reasons why adults themselves choose to print or use pen or doodle, yet they never seemed to care that I might have had those same sensibilities. I hated that I wasn't allowed to do these minor things my way. Those same things are still my preferences now.
And I never really did get over wanting to use print. The funny thing is that even now that I'm grown up and in the right frame of reference to be using "grown-up writing," I always print except when I'm signing my name or trying to do something artistic with a certain feel. I don't know whether it's because my printing has a script-like feel and my script is so scripty that it's nearly illegible, or because I can't abide the way many capital script letters look, and it feels kind of funny to mix print in with them.
Nonetheless, I continue to mix the script 2 with the rest of my print. It may be terribly synaesthesiac of me to say this, but I think the
looks like a guarded, upset sort of number, whereas the
looks like it's hopeful and comfortable where it is.
Why am I thinking about this?
Well, you see, because I make my 3s like
, and I was never taught that anywhere...