As far as I know, that is the ’number case’. Where the difference between upper and lower case is defined based on alignment of the numbers with baseline of typography.
I think the post is taking about ‘letter case’. Which we commonly use to yell at people through text. I don’t think there is an equivalent like that in case of numbers. Mainly because numbers came from languages which are unicase by default. Like the Indian languages and Arabic.
It is lowercase only. But lowercase in number case. The upper and lower case is distinguished based on alignment in this, where in text case it is based on shape and/or size.
Edit: my use of the words number case and letter case does not look like the standard words. But the concept still exist.
Check this: https://totallytype.com/figures.php
IDK, I don’t think old style and lining figures are analogous to lower- and uppercase letters. They’re not really different glyphs, at least not like lower- and uppercase letters are, and I would see them more as different ways of typesetting the same glyph.
For some reason this reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBOL, though not even COBOL was batshit enough to use numerals written in plain English. Everything else was in plain English, though, which was supposed to make it easier to read and write, but is in reality a horrible idea.
Though all caps just reminds me of early programming languages in general, since we didn’t separate uppercase and lowercase in all machines back then, instead using encoding schemes like DEC SIXBIT. Saving memory by using only six bits per character instead of seven or eight, and such. Six bit characters had matching word lengths, before the concept of a byte there used to be loads of 12-bit and 36-bit architectures, that more-or-less went away when the industry almost collectively decided to take byte-addressed memory into use.
That makes me wonder, why are there capital letters in the first place? Could we not have done fine without them? There is no reason why each sentence has to start with a capital letter, it only adds another level of complexity to the written language. Names and titles would be just fine in lower case. I can write larger letters rather than using capital letters to express loudness. “Startrek into/Into Darkness” could finally have a common consensus on correct capitalization.
Because of redundancy. Modern written language has a lot of features that make it easier to read, that were added as society became more literal. Things like capitalization, punctuation (a surprisingly recent addition), even separately marking vowels wasn’t a given for all writing systems (see old Hebrew as an example). Capital letter in the start of a sentence saves you from picking that up from context, especially when coupled together with the stop (.) signifying the end of it. Redundancy is actually a very natural phenomenon, and spoken language has loads more compared to written examples.
It’s complexity that aids the understanding, trading some of the simplicity and speed of writing to better reading comprehension. As per why capital and lowercase, in latin script capitals are derived from the letters that were chiseled, lowercase used to be just a handwritten thing. Written language naturally evolved to make use of these two systems to aid in reading. So things like capitalization are actually completely opposite from added complexity, actually making the language easier to comprehend after a bit of an initial learning curve.
To hammer the point through here’s the same comment with the “complexity” removed, a bit more akin to tokenized text:
because of redundancy modern written language has a lot of features that make it easier to read that were added as society became more literal things like capitalization punctuation (a surprisingly recent addition) even separately marking vowels wasnt a given for all writing systems (see old hebrew as an example) capital letter in the start of a sentence saves you from picking that up from context especially when coupled together with the stop (.) signifying the end of it redundancy is actually a very natural phenomenon and spoken language has loads more compared to written examples
its complexity that aids the understanding trading some of the simplicity and speed of writing to better reading comprehension as per why capital and lowercase in latin script capitals are derived from the letters that were chiseled lowercase used to be just a handwritten thing written language naturally evolved to make use of these two systems to aid in reading so things like capitalization are actually completely opposite from added complexity actually making the language easier to comprehend after a bit of an initial learning curve
Because English is weird, in Chinese Language, it doesn’t even need much spacing between words and you can write it vertically or read right to left. Lol
hyper2
XKCD has you covered:
There truly is an XKCD for everything…
The subreddit law of comics (lemmy communities just can’t reach that level for now)
Relevant video by mad lad Tom7:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLRdruqQfRk
☺☻♥♦♣♠•◘○
nerd mode engaged.
https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/54423/why-dont-upper-case-numbers-exist#54425
they actually are usually upper case, it’s the lower case that are less widely used.
As far as I know, that is the ’number case’. Where the difference between upper and lower case is defined based on alignment of the numbers with baseline of typography.
I think the post is taking about ‘letter case’. Which we commonly use to yell at people through text. I don’t think there is an equivalent like that in case of numbers. Mainly because numbers came from languages which are unicase by default. Like the Indian languages and Arabic.
Wikipedia says that they are sometimes referred to as lowercase.
Most font packages call it old style figures.
In typography class we were taught to call the lining and non-lining figures.
It is lowercase only. But lowercase in number case. The upper and lower case is distinguished based on alignment in this, where in text case it is based on shape and/or size.
Edit: my use of the words number case and letter case does not look like the standard words. But the concept still exist.
Check this: https://totallytype.com/figures.php
6 and 8 being all “no one tells me what to do!” and staying the same.
That can be used to play pranks on people…
IDK, I don’t think old style and lining figures are analogous to lower- and uppercase letters. They’re not really different glyphs, at least not like lower- and uppercase letters are, and I would see them more as different ways of typesetting the same glyph.
Edit: Wikipedia does not agree with me.
Neat-lowercase0
𝟙𝟚𝟛𝟜𝟝𝟞𝟟𝟠𝟡𝟘
I’m not sure if Roman Numerals are the best choice for statistics
iii III!
It’s made up numbers anyway…
So is Arabic
Just use an exclamation mark. It’ll be fine. Like so:
5!
10!
See? No real difference and now the number feels bigger!
Big difference there, those are
120
3628800
I think you mean:
120!
3628800!
Really emphasize it, ya know!?
Embiggened by several factors.
Calculator 2: The Overbiggening
— It will cost you $253.
— Are you kidding me? TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY THREE DOLLARS?
$253? Try, SEVENTEEN THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND NINETY SIX DOLLARS!
They are in the Chinese numbers.
陸柒 (/s)
PG, DNLMHGC
/joke (Cantonese people should know xD)
Um, @&$!#
That explains a lot. It turns out people often switch to upper case speaking numbers to me.
EIGHT
EIGHT
You can use absolute numbers like ”The answer to life, the universe and everything is |42|.”
What if the number is negative, do I say “-|42|?”
Please surrender your license to math.
XXXXII!!!!!!! So simple!
Use roman numerals.
I guess OP’s never seen Roman numerals before. 🤪🤓
Although, the romans never saw one trillion anything.
VXXXII!
How about, ONE POINT SEVEN FIVE TRILLION KILOGRAMS PER HECTARE SQUARED!
Or perhaps, TEN BILLION FOOT POUNDS PER SQUARE INCH!
Or even, FOURTEEN MILLION ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY FIVE THOUSAND, TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTY THREE CUBIC DECILITERS PER YEAR!
For some reason this reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBOL, though not even COBOL was batshit enough to use numerals written in plain English. Everything else was in plain English, though, which was supposed to make it easier to read and write, but is in reality a horrible idea.
Though all caps just reminds me of early programming languages in general, since we didn’t separate uppercase and lowercase in all machines back then, instead using encoding schemes like DEC SIXBIT. Saving memory by using only six bits per character instead of seven or eight, and such. Six bit characters had matching word lengths, before the concept of a byte there used to be loads of 12-bit and 36-bit architectures, that more-or-less went away when the industry almost collectively decided to take byte-addressed memory into use.
ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE
SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE TEN, ELEVEN TWELVE
Chinese entered the chat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRuVjJTjszM
I’m ethnic Chinese* and I’m entering the chat
(*Chinese American)
And I’ll conquer the fediverse with 壹貳參肆伍陸柒捌玖拾
This ONE reason will shock you.
That makes me wonder, why are there capital letters in the first place? Could we not have done fine without them? There is no reason why each sentence has to start with a capital letter, it only adds another level of complexity to the written language. Names and titles would be just fine in lower case. I can write larger letters rather than using capital letters to express loudness. “Startrek into/Into Darkness” could finally have a common consensus on correct capitalization.
Damn.
Because of redundancy. Modern written language has a lot of features that make it easier to read, that were added as society became more literal. Things like capitalization, punctuation (a surprisingly recent addition), even separately marking vowels wasn’t a given for all writing systems (see old Hebrew as an example). Capital letter in the start of a sentence saves you from picking that up from context, especially when coupled together with the stop (.) signifying the end of it. Redundancy is actually a very natural phenomenon, and spoken language has loads more compared to written examples.
It’s complexity that aids the understanding, trading some of the simplicity and speed of writing to better reading comprehension. As per why capital and lowercase, in latin script capitals are derived from the letters that were chiseled, lowercase used to be just a handwritten thing. Written language naturally evolved to make use of these two systems to aid in reading. So things like capitalization are actually completely opposite from added complexity, actually making the language easier to comprehend after a bit of an initial learning curve.
To hammer the point through here’s the same comment with the “complexity” removed, a bit more akin to tokenized text:
This is so interesting, thank you.
It makes things with several sentences easier to read.
Because English is weird, in Chinese Language, it doesn’t even need much spacing between words and you can write it vertically or read right to left. Lol
9oo.
Just sayin’.
Yup, typographers differentiate lowercase and uppercase numerals. Lowercase 9 goes below the baseline though, 6oo is a better example.
That’s what lining numbers are
¹²³4
Oh so that’s what exponents are for. They’re just lowercase numbers in the sky.
I don’t know how to explain it, but 5 is loud
The numbers are always yelling
They actually are. And there are lowercase numbers in several fonts, which people really should use more.