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used as shorthand for the units (as when one sees a weight as 20#).
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Ah, but there's an instant regional problem here:
In the UK, I have never seen a weight listed as 20#, but always as 20lb. Likewise, I have always seen # referred to as 'hash'.
I suspect that this comes back to our currency being the pound, as indicated by the '£' symbol, and that as a result it would be confusing to give the same name to anything else.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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In French Québec most people call the @ "commercial A." Arroba is sometimes used by people, usually those trying to speak 'proper' French, but whomever they are talking to usually says "what" over and over until the person says "commercial A, alright, it means commercial A!" so the second person usually says "well, why didn’t you say so." Pretty aggressive lot, I’d say  . In English we just say AT and save all the hoopla.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Re @
In the dear dead days beyond recall when I was in school we were taught the @ stood for at as in "prices for each unit."
3 lipsticke @ $1 total $3.
wow
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Re @
In the dear dead days beyond recall when I was in school we were taught the @ stood for at as in "prices for each unit."
3 lipsticks @ $1 total $3.
wow
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old hand
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old hand
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re: My Depression-era mother also utilizes the @ symbol to denote "each".
I think you'll find she's simply shortened another commercial symbol. Not available on keyboard, so described as 'ea' with the a's tail looping around both letters. Very common in fruit shops in the days when they had hand written price signs stapled to broken off bits of wooden apple boxes.
stales
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wooden apple boxesAhh. The first apple icon 
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The first apple icon
Good one, mav!
That reminds me--what is an applet, please?
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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I believe that "applet" comes from the computer term, "application," meaning a software program. An applet is a mini-program.
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Some months ago Newsweek published a short article about the different names other countries gave to the symbol ‘@’.
I have forgotten most words but I remember that some of them were quite curious. I am not sure but I think that the Chinese or the Russian called it ‘the mouse’. Actually, if I try, I can see a long tail and a small body on it.
As Hyla wrote, we in Spain call it “arroba” and nobody knows who named it this way. “Arroba” is an old weight measure scarcely used today, I remember my grandfather using it referring to pigs. Some years ago a few humorists started calling it “algarroba” (carob pod) -BTW, a common feed for pigs- and now, what started as a joke, is used by a considerable number of people.
Regarding ‘#’ people try to avoid referring to it because nobody knows exactly how to call it. The most popular word is “almohadillita” (small cushion) but some people say “libra” (pound) or “chirobita” (small hump) or “rejillita” (small grate).
It would be interesting knowing how other cultures refer to those symbols.
Juan Maria.
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I thought I'd mentioned this before, but I couldn't find it again, so:
A poll of my Indonesian colleagues reveals that in English they call it the at sign, and read it as at. In Indonesian they read it as at, but call it variously "a kurung" (caged or bracketed a), "a keong" (snail a), or "a kura-kura" (turtle or tortoise a).
Bingley
Bingley
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