| at sign (@) |
| Definition:
The phonogram for the word at. Its use in email addresses has caused it to spread into general
usage.
Note: It was originally called the commercial at because it was sometimes used to represent the phrase at the rate of in accounting and commerce. |
| Etymology:
Ray Tomlinson, a programmer, is credited with starting its use in e-mail addresses.
In 1971-72 he implemented the first email system that was able to send mail between users who were on different computers on a network. To be able to specify exact locations on the network, he needed a way to indicate which machine the user was on. To do this he used the @ sign followed by the machine name (e.g., dave@computer1). |
| Feedback:
Some names for the symbol in other languages are: (1) Snabel, elephant's trunk (Danish) (2) Klammeraffe, hanging monkey (German) (3) papaki, little duck (Greek) (4) kukac, worm (Hungarian) (5) dalphaengi, snail (Korean) (6) grisehale, pig's tail (Norwegian) (7) sobachka, little dog (Russian) My source for this: American Headway 4B, an ESL textbook. (Jack Ognistoff) |