home - How to do it yourself
What is the @ sign called in email - in different languages ​​in other countries. What is the name of the "&" sign?

Even as children we were taught to recognize letters native language and most common mathematical symbols and punctuation marks, such as dash, hyphen -, quotation marks "", parentheses () (), etc. However, we often come across signs whose meaning is unknown to us. In this article we will talk about the name of a sign that you can often see in a letter, but cannot understand its purpose.

Keyboard characters

First, let's talk about those signs that you can often find in typographic texts and on the Internet. They are located on your keyboard.

The name comes from two English words: hash - lattice, tag - label. This symbol is placed next to a word or phrase in a blog or social network and serves to identify a specific topic to which a post, photograph or video posted on the Internet is related. For example, if you posted a photo of a puppy on your blog, you could use the hashtags #puppy, #dog, #cute, etc. And if another user wants to see photos of puppies, he will only need to enter the hashtag #puppy in the search, and he will be able to see both yours and hundreds of other photos of puppies tagged with the corresponding hashtag.

  • & - Ampersand. This sign is used to denote a conjunction or, more simply put, replaces the conjunction “and”. Surprisingly, this sign first began to be used before our era. It became actively widespread in the 8th century. first in handwritten texts, and from the middle of the 15th century. - in printed materials and was used to increase recording speed and compress the volume of written text. It is still used for the same purpose today.
  • / - Slash, slash in computer science. This sign belongs to the category of non-literal spelling signs along with the apostrophe (") and hyphen (-). According to the current established norms of the Russian language, it can be used to indicate the relationship of any quantities or parameters to each other (serves as an analogue of the fraction sign and denotes division ); can replace the conjunction “and” and “or”; and can also be used in various abbreviations (railway - railway).
  • * - Asterisk, asterisk. The scope of application of such a sign is very extensive. Here are just the main ones: used to create a footnote or comment in the text; three asterisks in a row delimit disconnected passages of text and can replace headings or a title; several stars in a row replace an unprintable word; Also, asterisks replace proper names in the text that should not be known to the reader or that are not important for the thread of the story, etc.

Diacritics

It is worth talking separately about such a phenomenon as diacritics. These are symbols that are used in typography to change the usual outline of a character, or are used in linguistics to indicate that a certain letter of the alphabet is not read according to general rules.

The most striking examples of diacritics in modern Russian are the superscript colon above the letter “е” and the U-shaped superscript in the letter “й”. There are not many such signs in the Russian language. In other languages, there are much more diacritics:

  • /-shaped stroke above the letter (á);
  • \-shaped stroke above the letter (à);
  • a cap over the letter (â, zh͡j);
  • a bird above the letter (ž, ě);
  • // above the letter (ő, ű);
  • \ above the letter (ѷ);
  • superscript circle (å);
  • superscript (i, j, ṁ);
  • tilde above the letter (ã, ñ);
  • a bar above the letter (ā);
  • apostrophe (a");
  • title (а҃);
  • colon after the letter (a:);
  • various tails on top, bottom and sides of the letters (Ҙ, Ȩ, Ҳ, Ҭ, ɦ, Ơ, Ư), etc.

In the 1990s, when they first tried to translate the @ icon into Russian, there were many equal variants - “krakozyabra”, “squiggle”, “frog”, “ear” and others. True, at present they have practically disappeared, but “dog” has spread throughout the Runet and remains, because any language strives to have only one universal word to denote anything. The remaining names remain marginal, although there may be a lot of them. For example, in English language The @ symbol is called not only by the words commercial at, but also mercantile symbol, commercial symbol, scroll, arobase, each, about, etc. Where did the association between the main computer icon and a person’s friend come from? For many people, the @ symbol really does resemble a curled up dog.

There is an exotic version that the abrupt pronunciation of English at can resemble the barking of a dog. However, a much more likely hypothesis connects our symbol with a very old computer game called Adventure. In it you had to travel through a labyrinth, fighting various unpleasant underground creatures. Since the game was text-based, the player himself, the walls of the labyrinth, monsters and treasures were designated by various symbols (for example, the walls were made up of “!”, “+” and “-”). The player in Adventure was accompanied by a dog who could be sent on reconnaissance missions. It was designated by the @ symbol. Perhaps it is thanks to this now forgotten computer game In Russia the name “dog” has taken root.

IN modern world The @ sign is everywhere, especially since it became an integral part of the email address. But this symbol, long before the computer era, was part of the layout of the standard American typewriter, and became a computer symbol only because it was used relatively little. The @ icon is used in commercial calculations - meaning “at the rate”. Let's say 10 gallons of oil at $3.95/gallon would be written 10 gal of oil @ $3.95/gal. In English-speaking countries, the symbol is also used in science to mean “at”: for example, a density of 1.050 g/cm at 15 °C would be written: 1.050 g/cm @ 15 °C. In addition, the @ sign is loved and often used by anarchists due to its similarity to their symbol - “A in a circle.”

However, its original origin is shrouded in mystery. According to the linguist Ullman, the @ symbol was invented by medieval monks to shorten the Latin ad ("on", "in", "in relation to", etc.), which closely resembles its current use. Another explanation is given by the Italian scientist Giorgio Stabile - he discovered this symbol in the records of the Florentine merchant Francesco Lapi for 1536 in the meaning of “amphora”: for example, the price of one @ wine. It is interesting that the Spaniards and Portuguese call the symbol in emails exactly “amphora” (arroba) - a word that the French, having distorted, turned into arobase. However, in different countries There are a variety of names for the @ symbol, most often zoological. The Poles call it "monkey", the Taiwanese - "mouse", the Greeks - "duck", Italians and Koreans - "snail", Hungarians - "worm", Swedes and Danes - "elephant trunk", Finns - "cat's tail" or " sign of meow,” and Armenians, like us, signify “doggie.” There are gastronomic names - “strudel” in Israel and “rolmops” (marinated herring) in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In addition, this symbol is often simply called a "crooked A", or "A with a curl", or, like the Serbs, a "nutty A". However, the most amazing of modern stories, associated with the @ symbol, originated in China, where the sign is tritely called “A in a circle.” A few years ago, a Chinese couple gave this name to their newborn. Perhaps the sign began to be perceived as a hieroglyph symbolizing technical progress, and they decided that it would bring happiness and success to the young inhabitant of the Middle Power.

    A sign such as & is called an ampersand. Otherwise, we can say that this sign replaces the usual union and. This sign is very often used in some brands and company names, precisely instead of this union and.

    & - graphic image, replacing i.

    You won’t be able to pronounce it the first time =) but it’s called a squiggle Ampersand. The creator of this sign is Marcus Tullius Tiron, he was Cicero's secretary. Although this may not be the case, because... Previously, this sign was very rare.

    This sign is called an ampersand (or ampersand). It is often used in company names, when writing trademarks instead of the union and (English and). For example, Procteramp;Gamble, Standardamp;Poors.

    This symbol is called the ampersand. This designation is used to connect two or more text structures. In the usual sense, the ampersand replaces connecting conjunctions, among which the most popular is the conjunction and.

    Sign & called an ampersand. This is a graphic abbreviation of the Latin conjunction et (and). In other words, this is a sign that replaces the union and.

    The invention of this sign is attributed to Marcus Tullius Tiron, Cicero's secretary, who invented it to speed up writing.

    The ampersand appeared in the English alphabet in the 19th century, where it took last place, and disappeared only a hundred years later.

    Sign & or ampersand is a typographic sign with a centuries-old history. The author of the symbol is considered to be Marcus Tullius Tiron, who lived in the 1st century BC. e.

    Ampersand is found in almost all European languages, and in England at one time it was even included in the alphabet. Today sign & can be found often, especially in the names of foreign corporations or trademarks. For example:

    Symbol ampersand It is often used by designers and advertisers, and, in addition, it has found its place in mathematics and programming. Sometimes & inserted into text in an attempt to improve its graphics or give it a little elegance.

    The ampersand (English ampersand) replaces the conjunction and is found in programming languages...

    This sign is found in one of the most popular brands - mamp;ms.

    This sign is called an ampersand. Means the same as the English conjunction and. You could say it replaces it. This is a kind of disjunctive conjunction (instead of and).

    You can find this sign in the names of various brands, names of stores, hotels, etc.

    For example, Dolce & Gabbana.

    Ampersand or ampersand is a Latin sign that is used in writing the conjunction and is replaced.

    The ampersand sign is quite often present in the names of trading companies or foreign companies:

    The famous Mamp;Ms brand, owned by Mars Corporation, produces multi-colored chocolate dragees. The Mamp;Ms brand was invented by Forest Mars, founder of the Mars Corporation.

    & - ampersand(ampersand) - this is what the indicated sign is called. Most often used to denote and (union and), for example, in the names of companies or various competitions between two teams. How to write the ampersand sign, see this answer.

  • &

    This icon is called ampersand. And in Russian ampersand.

    This icon represents the word and, that is, a union AND.

    Its main purpose is to replace the word and in some cases.

    What is it for?

    This is usually used in the names of companies and hotels.

    For example Procter & Gamble.

    I think that this is done more for beauty, although in some cases this sign can be used to shorten characters in the text. This sign occupies 1 character in the text and in the file, and the word and 3 characters. Therefore, earlier, when computers were not yet so powerful, replacing and on & could save a lot of space. For example, if the word and occurs 1000 times in a file, then replacing it with an icon could save 2000 bytes in the ASCII system and 4000 bytes in the Unicode system. Of course, it doesn’t look so correct, but you can replace it again when displayed on the screen using various programs & on and.

On the Internet, the @ symbol is used as a separator between the username and the host (domain) name in email address syntax.

Some Internet personalities call this symbol “one of the main pop symbols of our time, a sign of our common communication space.” Evidence of the worldwide recognition of this symbol can be considered the fact that in February 2004, the International Telecommunication Union introduced a code for the @ symbol (. - - . - .) into Morse code. It combines the codes of the Latin letters A and C, which reflects their joint graphic writing.

The history of the @ symbol

Thanks to the research of the Italian researcher Giorgio Stabile, a document was discovered in the archives of the Institute of Economic History of Prato near Florence, where this sign was found in writing for the first time. The document turned out to be a letter from a Florentine merchant dated 1536, which spoke of three merchant ships arriving in Spain. Their cargo included containers of wine, marked with the symbol "@".

After analyzing data on wine prices and the capacity of medieval vessels and comparing them with the system of measures of that time, the scientist came to the conclusion that the “@” sign was used as a measuring unit replacing the word “anfora”, that is, “amphora”. (This is what the universal measure of volume has been called since antiquity).

American scientist Berthold Ullman suggested that the @ sign was invented by medieval monks to shorten the Latin word “ad”, which was often used as a universal word meaning “on”, “in”, “in relation to”, etc.

In Spanish, Portuguese, French The name of the symbol comes from the word “arroba” - an old Spanish measure of weight, ca. 15 kg, which is abbreviated in writing as the @ sign.

Modern official name of this symbol " commercial at" comes from accounts where it was used in contexts like this: 7 widgets @ $2 each = $14, which translates to 7 widgets. $2 = $14 Since this symbol was used in business, it was placed on typewriter keyboards. He was already present on the first typewriter in history, Underwood, released in 1885. 80 years later, computer keyboards have taken over.

In the official history of the Internet, it is generally accepted that the appearance of “@” in an electronic mail address is due to the American computer engineer Ray Tomlinson, who in 1971 sent the world’s first electronic message over the network. The address had to consist of two parts - the user name and the name of the computer on which it was registered. As a separator between them, Tomilson chose an icon on the keyboard that was not found in either user names or computer names.

Versions of the origin of the name "dog"

There are several versions of the origin of this funny name. Firstly, the icon really does look like a curled up dog. Secondly, the abrupt sound of the English “at” is a bit like a dog barking. Thirdly, with a fair amount of imagination, you can see in the outline of the symbol almost all the letters included in the word “dog”, well, with the exception of “k”.

But the most romantic legend is the following: “Once upon a time, when computers were large and displays were exclusively text-based, there lived popular game with the simple name “Adventure”. Its point was to travel through a computer-generated labyrinth in search of treasures and battles with harmful underground creatures. In this case, the labyrinth on the screen was drawn with the symbols “!”, “+” and “-”, and the player, treasures and hostile monsters were designated by various letters and icons. Moreover, according to the plot, the player had faithful assistant- a dog that could be sent into the catacombs for reconnaissance. And it was, of course, indicated by the @ sign.” Whether this was the root cause of the now generally accepted name, or, conversely, the icon was chosen because it was already called that way, the legend is silent about this.

To be fair, it should be noted that in Russia “dog” is also called doggie, frog, bun, ear, ram and even muck.

What is the @ symbol called in other countries?

Bulgaria - “klomba” or “maymunsko a” (monkey A),
Netherlands - "apenstaartje" (monkey tail),
Israel - “strudel” (whirlpool),
Spain - like the weight measure “arroba”,
France - the same measure of weight "arrobase",

Portugal - the same unit of weight "arrobase",
Germany, Poland - monkey tail, monkey ear, paper clip, monkey,
Italy – “chiocciola” (snail),
Denmark, Norway, Sweden - “snabel-a” (snout a) or elephant trunk (a with trunk)
Czech Republic, Slovakia - rollmops (marinated herring),
America, Finland - cat,
China, Taiwan - little mouse,
Türkiye - rosette,
Serbia - “crazy A” or “maymun” (monkey)
Vietnam - "crooked A"
Ukraine - “ravlik” (snail), “doggie” or “dog”, “mavpochka” (“monkey”)

Symbols. What is the hash sign called?

&, #, ;, *
“Hash sign”, “division”, “instead of and”, “asterisk”, “letter R”, “reverse question” - what are the correct names of the symbols?


DIVISION - "OBELUS"


From Latin obelus - from Greek;;;;;;. These words have the same root as the word obelisk.


This is exactly what the division sign is called - obelus. It resembles combining a minus sign and a colon. It was introduced by the ancient Greek philologist and Alexandrian librarian Zenodotus of Ephesus to denote doubtfulness. The symbol could look either like a regular horizontal line, or like the same line, but with the addition of dots, one at the top and bottom. It was placed in the margins opposite those parts of the text that raised doubts during the verification of manuscripts received by the library.


In 1659, the German mathematician Johann Rahn first used the obelus to represent division in his work. Some authors used this symbol as a subtraction sign, which became the norm in some European countries - for example, Norway and Denmark. In Poland, the obelus was used to indicate ranges - for example, the notation 3;7 meant "from three to seven."


GRILLE - OCTOTHORP


From Latin octothorpe - eight ends


Other names for the hash sign are hash, hash, number sign, sharp or sharp (due to the external similarity of these two characters), pound sign (# is often used in cases where it is impossible to enter the pound symbol).


In the 60s of the 20th century, American telephony engineers tried to come up with a special name for this symbol, such as octothorp, octatorp and octatherp. However, none of them received serious distribution: all used the established forms hash sign (hash sign) or number sign (a number sign that is often used in English).


This symbol was not widespread in Russian typography until the end of the 20th century. The sign gained non-specialized, everyday distribution with the spread of digital dialing in telephones. In the language, the term “hash sign” has been assigned to it.


& - AMPERSAND


from English ampersand


The ampersand is a graphic abbreviation of the Latin conjunction et (“and”). In English it denotes the conjunction "and".


VERY STRANGE SIGN - INTERROBANG


From English interrobang


Interrobang, or Question mark, is an experimental punctuation mark that was used to a limited extent in the 1960s and 1970s in American typography. The sign was invented in 1962 by the head of the New York Advertising Agency, Martin Specter, who reported the invention in his own TYPEtalks Magazine. Intended to indicate rhetorical question, most of which in English are exclamations.


The author's name for the sign interrobang combines the beginning of the Latin word interrog;t;vus (“interrogative”) and English word bang (“bang!”), which in the jargon of American proofreaders means an exclamation point. Specter chose this word from a number suggested by readers of his magazine, pointing out that although there are more correct ones (exclarotive, exclamaquest), they are not as energetic as interrobang.


STAR - ASTERIX


Although "star" is used much more often and is the second name for Asterix.


Asterix denotes a huge number of objects and actions: from an empty space to a single linear Hodge operator. For example, three stars in a row are used as a separator for text segments or replace a title (a special symbol is also used for such purposes - an asterism - three stars in a triangle); superscript asterisk - a classic sign of a footnote or note; on the Internet (how to write the word Internet - see here) actions are often highlighted with asterisks, for example: Hello! *waves hand* How are you? ; in chats, an asterisk means a correction of the word: I eat bnan. *banana; Asterixes are also very often used in programming, etc.


~ Wavy line - TILDE ~


Spanish tilde, from Lat. titulus - signature, inscription


Tilde is the name of several typographical characters in the form of a wavy stroke. In many languages ​​it is placed above the letters. Usually the superscript tilde corresponds to a character derived from the letters N and V, which in medieval cursive were often written above the line above the previous letter and degenerated into a wavy line in the style. For example, in Spanish; used to denote a soft sound, close to “n”, and in Portuguese; And; indicate nasal pronunciation of vowels.


· Midpoint - INTERPOINT ·


Interpunctuation (·) is a punctuation mark, which is a point used to separate words in Latin writing, as well as in modern Japanese. A similar symbol is used in mathematics as a multiplication sign.


; Curved grille - SHARP;


Many people confuse this sign with the lattice - octothorp. However, sharp is a completely different sign; it is used in music when writing notes to indicate raising the zuk by a semitone. Double-sharp or double sharp (;) is also common and is intended to raise a note by a tone.


¶ It is not clear what - PARAGRAPH MARK ¶


This sign is called the paragraph sign, and it is not difficult to guess that it is used to indicate the end of a paragraph. The paragraph mark is used in computer programs to indicate a non-printing special line break code at the end of a paragraph. It is assumed that ¶ comes from the Latin letter C, since the Latin word capitulum means "head".


Origin of the sign ¶ from the letter C
Origin of the sign ¶ from the letter C
; The question mark on the contrary is an IRONIC SIGN;


The ironic sign is used very rarely and expresses irony. It was invented in late XIX century by the French poet Alcanter de Brahm, and in 1966 French writer Herve Bazin suggested 5 more similar ironic punctuation marks.


A couple more signs:


"Machine apostrophe
¤ Currency symbol

Other articles in the literary diary:

  • 03/31/2018. Do I miss... for, for or about?
  • 03/30/2018. Three poignant poems by Olga Berggolts
  • 03/27/2018. To torture or torment?
  • 03/26/2018. Paul Verlaine
  • 03/25/2018. Alexey Apukhtin
  • 03/24/2018. Robert Rozhdestvensky
  • 03/23/2018. How Vasily Surikov kicked out Leo Tolstoy
  • 21.03.2018. Symbols. What is the hash sign called?
  • 03/20/2018. Finish or finish college?
  • 03/19/2018. Three poems by Drunina about love
  • 18.03.2018.
 


Read:



Presentation on the topic of the chemical composition of water

Presentation on the topic of the chemical composition of water

Lesson topic. Water is the most amazing substance in nature. (8th grade) Chemistry teacher MBOU secondary school in the village of Ir. Prigorodny district Tadtaeva Fatima Ivanovna....

Presentation of the unique properties of water chemistry

Presentation of the unique properties of water chemistry

Epigraph Water, you have no taste, no color, no smell. It is impossible to describe you, they enjoy you without knowing what you are! You can't say that you...

Lesson topic "gymnosperms" Presentation on biology topic gymnosperms

Lesson topic

Aromorphoses of seed plants compared to spore plants Aromorphoses are a major improvement, the boundary between large taxa Process...

Man and nature in lyrics Landscape lyrics by Tyutchev

Man and nature in lyrics Landscape lyrics by Tyutchev

*** Human tears, oh human tears, You flow early and late. . . Flow unknown, flow invisible, Inexhaustible, innumerable, -...

feed-image RSS