Discussion Groups / English Usage / July 2009

3 cap Is, 4 lc ls, 4 cap Is, 4 lc ls

I'm reading your message using Courier New font.

    You can. Set in Firefox in the Advanced settings for fonts some
font that distinguishes between them. I use Lucida Console, and have no
trouble seeing which are capital i's and which are lowercase l's.
Peter's suggestion of Courier is a good one too.

I see three "I"s (eyes), four "l"s (els), four "I"s (eyes), four "l"s
(els), and five "."s.  I agree that it is not good when two different
characters look alike.

Just use another font.  I use Courier New.  I prefer a fixed-width
font because my aging eyes have trouble telling how many of what
adjacent narrow characters I am seeing.  The "ill" in my first name is
an example.  A sans-serif proportional font is particularly bad.

Bill in Kentucky

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Reverse parts of the user name and ISP name for my e-address

Ells and ones are harder to distinguish: l1.  (Were they not the same on
typewriters?)

Three capital I's, four little l's, four capital I's, and four
little l's, and don't anybody give me any crap about the
apostrophes.

The font I am using is 12 point OS/2 System VIO, which probably
doesn't help you a lot.