Angelika Despite having lived here for almost 13 years, we still occasionally notice things that are just different. For example, part of my job involves creating materials for the autistic children I work with. We've been playing the so-called guessing game for some time now, and since we make symbol cards for everything, I made one with a question mark on it. However, when I showed the card to my colleague, she innocently asked if I always drew such funny question marks.
I didn't understand it at first, because for as long as I can remember, my question mark has looked like a mirrored capital "S" with a dot underneath. Here in the USA, most people write it more like a tiltet "U", open at the bottom left, with a straight line going down, plus the dot underneath. The whole thing got me thinking so much that I actually asked Michael at home if he could quickly write a question mark for me. And lo and behold, it looked just like mine.
It must be a small but significant cultural difference. Many people here also smile at my large printed "I" because it looks like a square closing bracket, which is closer to the cursive "I." In the USA, most people create the printed "I" like the Roman numeral one. At first, I thought this was my personal touch, as everyone develops their own handwriting over the years. However, an internet search revealed that I write the so-called Bavarian printed "I," albeit the older version. Hmm, but I went to elementary school in Lower Saxony ... maybe one of the elementary school teachers among the readers can enlighten me.
Also, it is notable that cursive writing looks different here, and this seems to be due to not only individual style but also to how cursive writing is taught in schools in different countries. A fascinating topic. This was also noted by the typologist Florian Hardwig, who compared Cursive scripts from multiple countries in a research project.