It is just called the at symbol was my reply.
Afterwards I decided to do some googling and came across this article http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/whereat.htm.
Michael Quinion writes on International English from a British viewpoint. It would seem that the original symbol was an amphora which was a unit of weight in medieval Italy and @ was a handwritten A embellished in typical Florentine style.
Use of it within internet email addresses has led to the symbol being imported into many different languages. Names mentioned in Quinion's article include
- Klammeraffe (spider monkey in German)
- grisehole (pig's tail in Danish)
- snabel (elephant's tail in Swedish)
- apestaart (monkey's tail in Dutch)
- kukac (worm in Russian)
Michael Quinion's site World Wide Words is an Aladin's cave of articles on all aspects of word usage. This lexicographer and word-lovers' site has been going since 1996 which is an eon in internet time. Now I've discovered it I shall be making regular visits.
Good info - thanks
ReplyDeleteNasra
In French we also use the word arrobase for which a similar explanation an be given. A unit of measure coming form the Arabian countries through Spain and Portugal. There's a good article on Wikipedia.
ReplyDeleteI've often wondered.
ReplyDeleteThey don't have it in Spain.
To write an e mail address you have to presss 3 keys at the same time.
This is an interesting article about symbol „@“. In my country people used to read it „crazy A“ and there were those who read it like „monkey“, but today more and more people just call it “at”.
ReplyDeletePre-Internet usage, I always read it like "at the rate of", as in 50 mangoes at the rate of one Frank per mango.
ReplyDeleteI've bookmarked the W W Words site. Are you familiar with the Word Detective?
Some people in Sweden call it a kanelbulle (cinnamon bun)!
ReplyDeleteOh, I love the cinnamon bun. I've just asked my siblings what it's called in Japanese, but I'm guessing "atto", as in "at", except, like Italian, we always end a word with a vowel.
ReplyDeleteWay way way back when, from what I understand, we used to have these HUGE grid that acted as a keyboard, where you had to know where our two sets of alphabets and a few thousand Chinese Kanji/Hanji were, and you moved the locator to pick out each letter. Then we had these converted Japanese keyboards that looked like most Western Language keyboard, but with a few extra, and converted multiple inputs into one letter or word. Nowadays, it's all done on software, so I can use any old keyboard, and by pressing a few keys, I get most letters/words; the less often used characters still have to be imput(ed??) by entering the corresponding 3- or 4-digit codes, but one learns to say the same thing without using those codes. I guess that's how one's vocabulary diminishes rapidly, conversely. (Conversely? Inversely? Reverse-ly?)