The NPR radio show "Says You!" asked the expert panel for a definition of octothorpe.
All us AWADERS knew!
For newcomers, here's an interesting thread
[url]http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=39882 [url]
If that doesn't work, go to Search (top of the page here) and choose "all Forums" and "all posts" and you'll get more than you want to know about octothorpes ... there's a hint as to what it is in the thread header here!
Dear wow,
You are such a tease!
The only thorpe I can think of is Jim Thorpe. And an octothorpe would be, perhaps, a Jim Thorpe in his eighties.
Now I'm going to have to wait for the comments to come pouring in here to deduce what an octothorpe is because I'm far to lazy to go traipsing through the archives.
Befuddled regards,
WordWondering
I remember posting Quinion's write-up a long time ago, but here it is again:
http://www.quinion.com/words/weirdwords/ww-oct1.htm
Thanks tsuwm, thought mine would work but didn't get a chance to go test it.
Apologies.
"followed by the octothorpe." Get it? Say it aloud, There! See? !!! Knew you'd get it .
Has it been noted yet that the octothorpe/hash
isn't used over this side of The Pond for "number/no."?
Starting to be used now, still rarely, but certainly when I was reading imported comic books in my youth (sigh) the octothorpe threw me a bit. Along with "zip codes" of course.
So why's that, then?
Fun reading the link, tsuwm. Thanks.
But why is an octothorpe called an octothorpe? I could look it up, but I've looked up by far too many things today.
There are four crisscrossing lines, and there are nine cells created, and a high number of small lines forming each of the nine cells.
So where is the "eight" in all this octothorpe nonsense? Of course, there are eight little bitty lines that stick out from the square in the middle. That must be it, then--those eight little lines. But what about the "thorpe" part?
Best regards,
WW, who is a big laze today
It did have to do with Jim Thorpe! Unbelievable! I just got around to reading wwh's link and there it was! In part of octothorpe theory! Here, I'll paste a little:
He was apparently at that time active in a group that was trying to get the Olympic medals of the athlete Jim Thorpe returned from Sweden, so he decided to add thorpe to the end.
Unbelievable, even if theoretical! Thanks, wwh.
Why were people working to get Thorpe's medals returned to Sweden, by the way?
Best regards,
WW
And we've been known to have a Jazzoctothorpe swimming around here!
Why were people working to get Thorpe's medals returned to Sweden, by the way?No, dear, *from Sweden.
The Olympic committee took all his medals away from him when it was discovered he had played baseball and been paid in between Olympic years. The guy had to eat! But they took the medals anyway. There was a movie made of Thorpe's life. I think Burt Lancaster played Thorpe. Not bad.
For the official Jim Thorpe Home Page :
http://www.cmgww.com/sports/thorpe/thorpe.html
Politics makes strange redfellows.
(Will Rogers to Cal Coolidge after seeing a picture of Cal in a full Indian warbonnet)