TIL there are upper and lower case numerals | Hacker News Reader

TIL there are upper and lower case numerals

graphicdesign.stackexchange.com

47 pointslisper11 comments

I wouldn't call them uppercase and lowercase numerals. That suggest a functionality of those numerals that isn't true.

The link in the answer shows the correct distinction between them http://theworldsgreatestbook.com/book-design-part-3/ but a only slightly incorrect TL;DR is oldstyle figures are for numbers in a text flow and lining is for mathematical use of numbers like in tables or technical papers.

OTOH there are true uppercase and lowercase numerals. Roman numerals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerals_in_Unicode#Roman_nume...

> I wouldn't call them uppercase and lowercase numerals. That suggest a functionality of those numerals that isn't true.

Well, the terms "uppercase" and "lowercase" come from movable-type printing. The individual slugs bearing capital letters were kept in a separate case, positioned behind and above the case holding the small letters: hence literally the upper and lower cases.

So, for a font with both titling and old-style figures, if the titling figures were kept in the same case as the capital letters and the old-style figures in the same case as the small letters, then referring to them as uppercase and lowercase respectively would be technically correct.

But I don't know whether that's the practice.

Drawing of printer's "upper case" and "lower case" (although unfortunately it does not show titling and old-style figures in the different cases):

http://imgur.com/gallery/fAvUg

The Wikipedia article on old-style figures [0] gives the impression there was something of a religious war between their proponents and the proponents of titling figures when the latter were first introduced (with words like 'preposterous' being thrown about), so maybe it was rare or even unknown for fonts to contain both before the advent of digital typesetting.

In the drawing you link to, are those small caps on the left side of the upper case?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_figures

Like always on stack exchange, the accepted answer is not the best one. The other answers are better in that they explain that our numeral system has a different origin and development from our alphabet. Not all languages have two cases for their script, it's really as simple as that. Oldstyle numerals versus lining is mainly a typographic distinction rather than anything as meaningful as the usage of case in English for nouns and acronyms. (it's similar to small caps vs regular ones)

No there aren't, it's just a different style. Capital letters are different. For example you wouldn't mix old and new-style digits in the same number like you would with capital and lowercase letters.

Title should be : "Why don't upper case numbers exist?". We're not on /r/todayilearned...

The migration from Reddit is showing.

I first thought the TIL was short for until, but then I thought but that would start with a ' and not be capitalized.

I have been frustrated by fonts before that had the numbers all over the place - I had no idea that they were just lower case, or that there was a 'fix'!

There are. This is an uppercase 7: & and this is an uppercase 8: *.

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