What does “@” mean? In today’s high-tech world @ is read as “at”. But I’ve also seen it read as “circa” (especially in photographs: “@ 1930” for example) And I’ve heard others read it as “around” ("@ 8 tonight" for example) Even my fathers old manual typewriter from the 1930’s has the “@” symbol. What did it originally mean?
With God as my witness, I thought turkey’s could fly.
The symbol originally appeared in Sanskrit as the capital 2. As the use of capital numbers declined, other meanings were assigned…
@ also can represent “for” or “each”
As in “On Sale. Apples. 12 @ $3”
It’s been “at” for a long time. Way before there were any dot-coms to worry about. The use of the symbol and the “at” pronunciation in URLs is derived from the traditional usage, not the other way around.
“pluto … a seriously demented but oddly addictive presence here.” – TVeblen
DrFidelius quoth:
Actually, in Sanskrit the capital 2 was written as " (the quote character.) The @ symbol did not come into common usage as the capital 2 until the advent of the Aramaic numeral system around the beginning of the Common Era.
See also bit-paired keyboard.
What? Next you’ll be trying to tell me that the Rig Veda doesn’t mention Oldsmobiles…
Maybe I should’ve ignored this, but in this context, “@” still means “at.”
Sucks to your assmar.
Apples priced $36 a dozen is not a very good sale.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen @ used for circa by anyone who I thought had a clue as to what he was doing. The usual abbreviation for circa is c. or sometimes ~, and “around” is of course just the English equivalent of “circa”.
I’ve occasionally seen it used as a misguided attempt at the copyright symbol (a c in a circle).
That typewriter presumably uses an English (or at least Latin) alphabet. The word “at” is also an English word, and the “a in a circle” form derives from the first letter of the word “at”.
All that was a lead-in to this: I participate in a mailing list about the Hebrew language, and the question was recently asked: “What is that character called in Hebrew?”
The answer was: “It’s called a ‘strudel’ - think of what a cross-section of that cake looks like.” And then several people wrote in, that it is called ‘strudel’ in other languages as well, but I don’t remember which.
Upper case numbers? Could somebody elaborate on this? I have never heard of this before.
Sure you have: look at the keyboard you’re using. For example, the upper case 7 is &, the upper case 4 is $, and so on. You just need to use the shift key.
Of course, when you get into the question of uppercase irrational numbers, then things get a bit tricky…
…but when you get blue, and you’ve lost all your dreams, there’s nothing like a campfire and a can of beans!
Gee, I just thought that was a convenient way to store symbols with fewer keys. Put some above the numbers. You have already made the shift key for upper case letters, so there’s extra space.
I never interpreted that to mean the symbols above the numbers were equal to the numbers.
How come we don’t write "@ + @ = "? And does @ + 2 = 4, or , or something else?
Capital numbers (uppercase numbers)?
Um, Mr. Z.? Irishman? It’s a joke.
There was a little blurb about the @ symbol in a recent issue of the newsletter of an editors’ association I belong to. It mentioned that although it’s just called “the ‘at’ symbol” in English, other languages have names for it like “cat’s paw” or “monkey’s tail.”
Thank you for this link! Now I know where the insane layout on Japanese keyboards (at least the ‘uppercase number’ part of it) came from - the Teletype. We’re still stuck with Shift 2 for double quote and shift 7 for single quote, and you can imagine how hard it is to type English sentences on them.
Before the teletype, there were manual typewriters. In a remarkable instance of tradition not ruling forever, when electric typewriters came out, a few changes were made in the keyboard layout. Unfortunately, ASCII, the bit-paired keyboard, and (I gather) some non-English keyboards to this day follow the pre-electric layout.
Manual typewriters also didn’t have a “1” key (you used “l”), and the exclamation point had to be made by overstriking “’” and “.”.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
Actually, the “@” symbol is derived from a Chinese ideogram meaning “entire coiled line is twenty-seven feet long”. Therefore, in it’s purest interpretation “@” means “The Whole Nine Yards”.
Plunging like stones from a slingshot on Mars.
In Cantonese, of course, “@” means “rope of 324 inches”.
This makes sense. When the gunner on a WWII bomber fires a whole magazine at an attacker, the sound the gun makes is “rat-at-at-at-at-at” etc.
I call it the ‘at sign’ ‘atsign’ Course no dictionary I looked at has it. But some do.
Well, my dictionary doesn’t say anything about the @ sign, except it’s listed in a “Symbols and Signs” list under ‘symbol’. (This, of course, brings up the question whether Cecil has ever schooled us in the difference between a sign and a symbol (not those things in bands).)
But my dictionary says that, in Laos, 100 at = 1 kip, so @ that rate, when I buy a dozen apples, I should be able to kip the change. No, that can’t be the Laosiest pun you ever heard.
Ray (cheap @ any price)