# Latest observed knowledge cultural gap: the pound key **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 28, 2008, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-observed-knowledge-cultural-gap-the-pound-key/439517 "2008-02-28T16:20:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2008, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-observed-knowledge-cultural-gap-the-pound-key/439517/41 "2008-02-29T07:25:20Z")
[QUOTE=Mahna Mahna] In North America, most people seem to have no trouble identifying the pound key on a phone. It’s used all the time when navigating through automated phone systems like voicemail menus or teleconference logins. I use it so often that the little design is starting to wear off the key. 😛 [/QUOTE] It’s used all the time over here as well. It’s called the hash key though. I’ve never heard it referred to as the pound key. Pound=£ and a unit of weight. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2008, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-observed-knowledge-cultural-gap-the-pound-key/439517/42 "2008-02-29T08:24:32Z")
If it’s in a prerecorded phone machine, then #, also known in Spanish as “la cucaracha” (the roach) or “el cuadradito” (the little square). Of course the pre-recorded messages never call it the roach. I first encountered this in 2003 in the USA and had to ask a coworker what the heck was the machine talking about. That symbol isn’t used for anything in Spain, outside of telephone keypads and music sheets. I’d seen it before in the USA (1994-'8) but we called it “the number sign”. And in any other context it’s either the squiggly crossed L used for UK currency, or a capital L used for prices in places in Spain which still use pounds for some items (the actual weight varies between 400g and 500g, not just by region but by - kind of item!) ---
**Author:** ![Desert\_Nomad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desert_nomad/32/177_2.png) [@Desert\_Nomad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desert_Nomad)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2008, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-observed-knowledge-cultural-gap-the-pound-key/439517/43 "2008-02-29T10:13:28Z")
Over here in Prague, when you add credit to the pre-paid SIMs, the instructional recording calls # “hash”. ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2008, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-observed-knowledge-cultural-gap-the-pound-key/439517/44 "2008-02-29T10:52:59Z")
[QUOTE=silenus] Why “octothorpe?” There’s no “octo” anywhere near it. [/QUOTE] From the [American Heritage Dictionary](http://www.bartleby.com/61/88/O0028850.html): > [@](#): > > ETYMOLOGY: Alteration (influenced by octo–) of earlier octalthorpe, the pound key, probably humorous blend of **octal, an eight-point pin used in electronic connections (from the eight points of the symbol)** and the name of James Edward Oglethorpe. (Bolding mine) And to answer the OP – of course it’s the ‘#’ key! ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2008, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-observed-knowledge-cultural-gap-the-pound-key/439517/45 "2008-02-29T11:00:19Z")
Incidentally, in Hebrew it’s called the “little ladder key”, which IMHO makes a lot more sense than any of the names mentioned in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2008, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-observed-knowledge-cultural-gap-the-pound-key/439517/46 "2008-02-29T15:48:58Z")
‘Pound’ is a very US way of referring to the # key. Here in Canada, we always call # ‘number sign’, except in the context of phone menus. Many pre-recorded phone menus say ‘hit the pound key’. I think this is because either they are operating from the States or they were made in the States. I also suspect ‘pound’ provides a nice one-syllable counterpart to ‘star’ for \*. I have never, ever, seen anyone in Canada use # to indicate pounds weight. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2008, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-observed-knowledge-cultural-gap-the-pound-key/439517/47 "2008-02-29T16:02:34Z")
Good lord, I’m starting to think I’m the crazy one. But there’s at least one other crazy person - whomever wrote this part of the wiki entry on “number sign”: > [@](#): > > In some regions of the United States and Canada, the symbol is traditionally called the pound sign, but in others, the number sign. This derives from a series of abbreviations for pound, which is a unit of weight. At first “lb.” was used; however, printers later designed a font containing a special symbol of an “lb” with a line through the ascenders so that the lowercase letter “l” would not be mistaken for the number “1”. Unicode character U+2114 (℔) is called the “LB Bar Symbol,” and it is a cursive development of this symbol. Ultimately, there was the reduction to a combination of two horizontal strokes (cf. skewed “=”) and two forward-slash-like strokes (cf. “//”). In this respect, names like fence or square — as well as the representation of the sign containing two vertical strokes (rather than slanted ones), as on many keyboards — are misleading. > > Its traditional commercial use in the U.S. was such that when it followed a number, it was to be read as “pounds,” as in 5# of sugar, and when it preceded a number, it was to be read as ‘number’, as in #2 pencil. Thus the same character in a printer’s type case had two uses. > **[Number sign](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_sign)** > > The symbol # is known as the number sign, hash, (in North America) the pound sign, and has a variety of other names. The symbol has historically been used for a wide range of purposes including the designation of an ordinal number and as a ligatured abbreviation for pounds avoirdupois – having been derived from the now-rare ℔. > Since 2007, widespread usage of the symbol to introduce metadata tags on social media platforms has led to such tags being known as 'hashtags', and from that, the symbol i... ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2008, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-observed-knowledge-cultural-gap-the-pound-key/439517/48 "2008-02-29T18:01:48Z")
[QUOTE=Sunspace] ‘Pound’ is a very US way of referring to the # key. Here in Canada, we always call # ‘number sign’, except in the context of phone menus. Many pre-recorded phone menus say ‘hit the pound key’. I think this is because either they are operating from the States or they were made in the States. I also suspect ‘pound’ provides a nice one-syllable counterpart to ‘star’ for \*. I have never, ever, seen anyone in Canada use # to indicate pounds weight. [/QUOTE] Just another example of why, here in English Canada, we have to be bilingual: British _and_ American. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2008, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-observed-knowledge-cultural-gap-the-pound-key/439517/49 "2008-02-29T19:21:21Z")
[QUOTE=Spoons] Just another example of why, here in English Canada, we have to be bilingual: British _and_ American. 😉 [/QUOTE] Make that ‘trilingual’. Imperial, US, and metric. ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2008, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-observed-knowledge-cultural-gap-the-pound-key/439517/50 "2008-03-01T18:48:22Z")
The hash key. I always hear my bank’s female electronic voice saying that from when I do phone banking. “Now enter your pin number, and press the hash key.” My first awareness that it had another name came through stuff like MAD magazine and the like, I think. ---
**Author:** ![Sunrazor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sunrazor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunrazor)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2008, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-observed-knowledge-cultural-gap-the-pound-key/439517/51 "2008-03-01T19:40:43Z")
[QUOTE=Lunar Saltlick] Pound key actually seems to be used more and more often, contrary to what I think the OP is suggesting, but some people call it the number key, since it’s often used to designate a number: Number 4, No. 4, #4. [/QUOTE] “Number sign” is how I learned it, back before I could even type. On typewriters, it was included on the numerals line for the purpose of designating “numbers” as in “Incident #42783”. I didn’t hear it called “pound sign” until the advent of automated phone answering systems … back in the 1980s? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/latest-observed-knowledge-cultural-gap-the-pound-key/439517.md?page=2)