> Speaking of Finland, my father was there for two years as a young man, and came away writing all his 7's with a - through them. This is the way I grew up writing my 7's.
> A few years back, someone looked at a 7 I had written and said something about it being pretentious to write that way. Made me pause for all of about 2 seconds before deciding that *my* way was better. Who wants to have a bunch of naked 7's running around?

I prefer naked 7's myself, but I don't have any issues with either way. Most of Europe uses crossed 7's (Britain, at least, writes 1's and 7's as Americans do) because they write their 1's in a way that could otherwise be confused with 7's: rather than drawing a single straight vertical line, they start at or near the bottom, draw a line slanted up and right, then draw another straight down. Depending on the handwriting of the person doing the writing, this kind of 1 can look *exactly* like a naked 7. Americans going to Europe generally have no problem recognizing a crossed 7 as a 7, but recognizing their two stroke 1's as 1's and not 7's can be tricky sometimes.