re: Don’t be so sure you know what a lowercase G looks like

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Not in all fonts.

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I am almost positive it is 3

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To be clear, there are two lowercase Gs. There’s the one that almost everyone writes by hand, which is a circle with a tail that points left. It’s like the G in the Arial font, and the researchers call this one “opentail.”

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The other one, called “looptail,” is the kind you see in a font like Times New Roman: two circles, connected by a line on the left side. (So, the correct answer for the above test is 3.)

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So why does this matter, besides being vaguely embarrassing? When we read, nobody has trouble recognizing the letter G no matter how it’s written. It’s not like we see something in Times New Roman and suddenly lose the ability to understand the word. But the study shows we don’t really know what the letter G looks like, and it may be because we’re writing by hand less as we use electronic devices more, the authors write. They wonder if picking up a pen less has had implications on how we pay attention to letters and learn how to read.

It’s nothing new that we don’t pay super close attention to things we see every day. We recognize pennies, for example, but some of us don’t know off the top of our heads which side Lincoln faces (the right). But researchers are now trying to understand how switching to electronic devices is affecting our memory and our literacy. In the meantime, consider this a reminder that we don’t look at things as closely as we think.

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This is what a big G looks like

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Johns Hopkins

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