On 27 Apr 2000, 21:05, John Tracy McGrath wrote:
> I wonder if anyone can tell me the name of the little "at sign," @, that
> ia part of the email address?
>
> I remember its use before the Internet as shorthand in accounting text:
>
> 14 apples @ $0.10 = $1.40
>
> But never knew its name (or if it has one!)
It is called the "at sign."
However, this is interesting:
cite: http://www.lingsoft.fi/~reriksso/typography.html#ligatures
<quote>
ligatures -- a collective name for characters which "melt together".
Classical Latin has �, French has a similar oe: � (this might not
display as a ligature in your browser); Northern and Eastern European
languages have an exciting plethora of national characters which have
often historically evolved from some kind of ligature (i.e. the
original German � was originally drawn as a small e on top of an o;
this was then borrowed into Swedish).
Like many contemporary ligatures, the ampersand & "et" was developed as
a shorthand by medieval scribes.
The American @ "at" has a somewhat similar history; it was used for
enumerating prices ("5 apples at 1 dollar makes 5 dollars" would be "5
apples @ $1 -- $5"). Of course, this sign is now in ubiquitous use in
Internet email addresses. It is called "commercial at" in many
languages, but there is a large assortment of animal-related colloquial
names in various languages as well. See this article
<http://www.herodios.com/herron_tc/atsign.html> or try a canned Alta
Vista search. Interesting names include Sp. "arroba" (Fr. "arobase")
and Dutch "apeklootje" ('little monkey's testicle').
In fine typography, some combinations of letters are often represented
by ligatures. I.e. the two letters "fi" would be replaced by a single
glyph which looks like the "head" of the f would have merged with the
dot on the i.
<end quote>
So the next time you see the "@" in an e-mail address, just be aware
that somewhere...someplace, there is this little monkey hobbling around
on one testicle. He wants to know where the other one is *at*! :-)
Alan
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
