> 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.

Here in Finland we are taught to write the 1's in the American way - just a single line. And crossed 7's. That way it should be really easy to tell 1's and 7's apart. But there are many people here who write both of them the "wrong" way. They even start the 1 near the top like the 7. I think they do that because of the way the numbers appear in books. And recognizing them IS tricky. Once I even got a bad grade in a maths test because I had read the teacher's hand writing wrong!