how do you call the @ symbol?? i used to call it "monkey" (in polish of course), because i was taught to call it so. but my brother, who is studying informatics, told me yesterday that & should be called "monkey" and @ - "elephant's ear"
any comments on that?
I call it the "at" sign, but you might want to do a search, I think we #'ed this one over a little while back...
"Here boy! Here boy!"
No, I've always called it the at-sign.
k
Here's the - better make that "a" - previous discussion of @:
http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=14518It also mentions a few other non-alphanumeric symbols.
For me,
@ is the AT symbol (first learned in math class, (how much would you need to purchace a 3 lb bag of apples if they sell 1lb. @ 73cent..(and you use the word at when you see the symbol)
# was the number symbol, but the telephone company instist on calling it a "pound" symbol, and i have learned here it is also called Octothorp!
$ US dollar symbol
% Percent symbol
^ carot --use as accent mark, and in Math (excel programing) to indicate an exponent. In editing, it could mean "insert"
& Ampersand -is the name, and it "reads" as and, ie, Johnson & Sons= Johnson and Sons. this was discussed, it might come from a rote teaching style, as
A as in apple
b as in boy
etc,
with the symbol being
& as per AND,
* Atrerix (from the latin for star, a little star)
( Parens -- a pair ( ) would be parenthesis with various uses in text and Math
| is the Pipe symbol..and it is used in Programing.
: colon and ; semi -colon...
< and > are either arrow points (pointers) or greater than/less than symbols... depending on whether its is text or numbers..
? is technically an interogitive-- but i never call it that... it is a question mark
! is an exclamation mark
[ ] are brackets,
{ } are braces!
/ \ are slashes,
- - are dashes!
~ is a tilde
there are one or two others on a standard keyboard, and many more in the Character set...
interesting, how different nations see @ symbol. I gather, it's "arroba" in Spanish, "sobaka" - a dog among Russian e-mail users, "snail" in Sweden (if I remember correctly)
I don't know if you bargained for so many words, rav, but here you go.....
http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/whereat.htmQuinion mentions, 'at the price of'. In a conversation with my accountant some years back, it was revealed to me that in trade and business circles in India, this symbol is expanded as, 'at the rate of'. Which in turn, takes my mind to something that Nehru once said, (I can't remember the exact quote) about how, in India, the old never gets replaced by the new; the old always co-exists with the new harmoniously.
Edit:Would you believe, there is yet another one!! This seems to be the most current of them all - 'atmark'.
# was the number symbol, but the telephone company instist on calling it a "pound" symbol, and i have learned here it is also called Octothorp! also, "hash", no?
see also
http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=36166 octothorp
number sign
sharp
pound
tic-tac-toe
hash mark
...and there are supposed to be a couple more, as I recall (see
Harvard Magazine , ca. 1977?)
At is also called "commercial at" (but I actually didn't know that till quite recently -- read it somewhere).
Synonyms for the forward slash (/): virgule, solidus, separatrix, oblique stroke.
Not aware of alternate nomenclature for the backslash (\).
The pipe symbol (|) is also called a vertical bar or just 'bar'.
k
Synonyms for the forward slash (/): virgule...
Somewhere I got the idea that a virgule was a comma, just like the French word
You gotta be kiddin' me! Is that a real word? That sounds like a name for a female arbitration judge.
>$ US dollar symbol
Here it is just known as the dollar symbol, and I suspect that it is yclept similarly in Australia, Fiji, Grenada, Hong Kong, Jamaica, Liberia, Montserrat, Namibia, Singapore, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago, and Zimbabwe, to name a few. (I'm not sure about the loonie)
wofa, yeah, virgula means comma in Portuguese, too. Go figger.
Jackie, to quote you back to your own se'f: come here. I got something for you.
I believe this information on the ampersand is slightly more accurate:
"a corruption of and (&) per se and, which literally means "(the character) & by itself (is the word) and." The symbol & is derived from the ligature of ET or et, which is the Latin word for "and."
cool.
et'
"a corruption of and (&) per se and, which literally means "(the character) & by itself (is the word) and."
Not Ampere's "and" ?
Or is that just another Urban Myth (the urb in question here being eighteenth-century Paris) and the symbol has really been around, and so named, for much longer ?
What's in a name? A lot!
et call home... See?
^ carot --use as accent mark, and in Math (excel programing) to indicate an exponent. In editing, it could mean "insert"
Would that be caret Helen?
Now, I admit I made an error in Info&Annouce calling the day after Easter "Evacuation Day" when in actual fact it should have been Patriots Day! It's also the day the 26+ mile Boston Marathon is run. Decent weather today, about 60 and cloudy ... runners should do well.
Evacuation Day is March 17! Oooops? !!
What does Evacuation Day commemorate? Who was evacuated from where?
Bingley
miukumauku yees.. that's much more eerr.. poetic than monkey :))
What does Evacuation Day commemorate?
History was never my strong point, but I believe the British left Boston on a March 17, after they awoke that fine morning to find Colonial cannon facing them...having been quietly brought in and placed during the night. It seemed to be the prudent move at the time, I'm sure...
Wofu, your history was spot on. Here's a url that confirms it!
http://www.patriotresource.com/events/bostonevac.htmlThey learned from the experience, of course, and have since snuck out of several places in their socks with practiced precision!
Someone garroted the poor little tyke? I assume it was his worried mother, who said, "When we find him I'm just gonna STRANGLE him!"
Evacuation Day is a proper feast little noted outside of the Irish population of Boston, Massachusetts. It commemorates the departure of English troops (and loyalist families) from Boston in 1776. General William Howe led the evacuation, as the city was surrounded by Continental forces and break-out was unlikely. As the day falls on the Feast of Blessed Patrick of Ireland, there is a certain blurring of events remembered, which may also be due to the beer.