From TYPO-L:
Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2001 10:40:30 -0400
From: Randal <digitas@PANIX.COM>
Subject: @ Long Last
A Brief History of @, by Bruno Giussani, May 07 2001
The man who first put the @ sign into the structure of e-mail
addresses was Ray Tomlinson, a computer engineer who in 1971
performed what he calls "a quick hack" and sent the first electronic
message - to himself. Why did he pick the sign? "I scanned the
keyboard for a sign that wouldn't appear on anyone's name, and
couldn't therefore create any confusion."
But how did the @ sign end up on the computer keyboard in the
firstplace? Most linguists, say that the @ sign is a recent
invention, appearing sometime during the 18th century as a
commercial symbol indicating price per unit, as in "5 apples @ 10
pence." Yet another linguist, researcher Denis Muzerelle, says the
sign is the result of a different twist, when the accent over the
word "ā"used by French and German merchants was hastily extended.
But last July an Italian researcher discovered some 14th-century
Venetian commercial documents clearly marked by the @ sign, where it
was used to represent a gauge of quantity, the "anfora," or jar.
Giorgio Stabile also found a Latin-Spanish dictionary dating from
1492 where "anfora" is translated into "arroba," a measure of weight.
It's therefore natural that, in 1885 the "commercial a" was included
on the keyboard of the first model of Underwood typewriter and from
there migrated into the standard set of computing characters (such
as ASCII) 80 years later. The biggest problem with the @ sign
nowadays is what to call it. Spaniards and Portuguese still use
"arroba" - which the French have borrowed and turned into "arobase."
Americans and Britons call it the "at-sign." So do the Germans
("at-Zeichen"), Estonians ("ät-märk") and Japanese ("atto maak").
However, in most languages the sign is described using a wide
spectrum of metaphors lifted from daily life. References to animals
are the most common. Germans, Dutch, Finns, Hungarians, Poles and
South
Africans see it as a monkey tail.
The snail - oddly enough for the anti-snail-mail set - portrays the @
sign not only in French ("petit escargot") and Italian
("chiocciola"), but also in Korean and Esperanto ("heliko"). Danes
and Swedes call it "snabel-a" - the "a" with an elephant's trunk;
Hungarians a worm; Norwegians a pig's tail; Chinese a little mouse;
and Russians a dog. Food offers other tantalizing metaphors. Swedes
have borrowed the cinnamon bun ("kanelbulle"). Czechs have been
inspired by the rolled pickled herring ("zavinac") commonly eaten in
Prague's pubs. . . Hebrew speakers use "shtrudl" (or "strudel"), as
in the well-known roll-shaped pastry.
-- Michael Everson
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