Minor things that bother you

[Big John]

Recall that manual typewriters did not have a key for the numeral "1," presumably because the character was identical to a lowercase "L" in both "pica" and "elite" type. I worked with someone who persisted in using a lowercase "L" for the numeral "1" long into the 1990s—more or less, "This is how I learned to type and I'm not changing." (I always wondered whether the slightly different key arrangement threw her off, but I never asked.) I found that distracting because in most proportionally spaced serif typefaces, the difference between the two is noticeable—the number "1" is a wider character with larger serifs. And in typefaces like Aptos (which, to be sure, didn't exist back then), the difference is even more noticeable due to the right-facing curve at the bottom of the lowercase "L."

I've also seen the capital letter I used in place of the numeral 1.

On the old To Tell The Truth. Kitty Carlyle always did that for contestent 1, and it bothered me.

[kphoger]

I've also seen the capital letter I used in place of the numeral 1.

On the old To Tell The Truth. Kitty Carlyle always did that for contestent 1, and it bothered me.

I've seen it in enough scholarly works, that I'm inclined to just think of it as normal.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

21st century workplace problems where people think you're effectively always on call outside of the office because you, like most people, have a phone and a computer. I can ignore the text asking for things at 10:30 PM on Sunday night, sure, but I can't avoid receiving it in the first place.

[wxfree]

Any font that makes these three look the same:  Il1

Any font that makes these two look the same:  O0

That last one was an issue (a small one) when I signed up my grandmother's car for a TollTag.  I reported the license plate number with a zero, and the lady asked if it was zero or O.  I remember Texas plates, the standard, non-custom plates, having strings of letters and numbers, so you can tell what it is by where it is.  The current pattern is ABC 1234.  Before was ABC 123 and I think before was AB 1234.  I think before that was 123 ABC.  I'm not certain they use O.  I seem to remember thinking that they didn't use O not because it looked like 0 (since letters and numbers are segregated) but because on a distant and moving target it looks too much like D.  I remember thinking I'd never seen one, but I've never really paid attention.  I've been meaning to watch for them.  Anyway, she looked up the plate number and verified that it was zero.

Minor thing that bothers me: the oval oh.  If you print them correctly, as a circle, then confusion with zero isn't an issue (other than things like license plates, where you can't always read it clearly). With writing I get it.  My Os come out rather narrow, so putting a stroke across a zero makes sense (I don't do it because you can tell which it is based on the context).  There's no reason for it to be an issue when typing if you don't intentionally design your Os to be narrow.

[DenverBrian]

shirt tags that won't stay down
when someone's else's shirt tag is visible
shirt tags that are scratchy

Tagless shirts are becoming increasingly popular.

And a pair of scissors can eliminate the won't-stay-down or scratchy tags.

A lot of "tagless" shirts aren't tagless. They may be tagless in the neck, but at the waistline there's a redonkulous scratchy label providing washing instructions in 17 languages.

[kphoger]

They may be tagless in the neck, but at the waistline there's a redonkulous scratchy label providing washing instructions in 17 languages.

I wish they were in 17 languages, rather than just a bunch of unintuitive geometric shapes.