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The # and its names
2

The # and its names

The # and its names

(OP)
Hi,

I started writing assembly programs for the intel 4004 in the seventies. One of the new characters that we used was the pound sign, hash, sharp, number sign, gridlet, "immediate" or what have you.

We needed a swedish name for it and since it looked very much like a square pile of battens arranged to dry outside a saw-mill - we simply called it a braedhoeg (brädhög, if your computer can reproduce umlauts). It was also sometimes referred to as a bradgard (brädgård). Both meaning pile of battens or batten-yard.

My question: What local names do you use? Is there a story behind that particular name? Have "bradgard" or "bradhog" caught on? I have been told so.

Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org

RE: The # and its names

Well if I'm not mistaken, we here in the US call it an "ampersand" and the spelling may not be correct but phonetically that's what we call it.

Regards,
Qshake

Eng-Tips Forums:Real Solutions for Real Problems Really Quick.

RE: The # and its names

Well, it figures, I am mistaken...the ampersand is the name of the "&" character.  Sorry.

Regards,
Qshake

Eng-Tips Forums:Real Solutions for Real Problems Really Quick.

RE: The # and its names


What's wrong with "hash" ?

RE: The # and its names

In the U.S. it is more common to be called "pound". Don't know the correct name.

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP2.0 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site

FAQ559-1100
FAQ559-716

RE: The # and its names

Pound sign, or tic-tac-toe sign.

RE: The # and its names

"Pound sign, or tic-tac-toe sign." well that may be fine for the US, but in the UK the pound sign is definitely a £ and # is called a hash symbol , whilst "tic-tac-toe" translates to "noughts and crosses". Perhaps it's time for a US to UK translation dictionary?

RE: The # and its names


The israelis call it sulamit, small ladder.
It indeed looks like a two-rung ladder. Would this hebrew word catch on ?

RE: The # and its names

It is also "number", in the US that is.

RE: The # and its names

If it indicates anything about what name is the most commonly recognized, here in the U.S. it seems that any time you connect to an automated telephone switchboard that requires pressing the # key for something, the automated voice instructs you to press the "pound" key.

RE: The # and its names

Up here in the GWN it's referred to (equally) as the "pound" or "number sign". I've never heard it referred to as "hash", over here or in England.

Quote (253662):

What's wrong with "hash" ?
Nothing, unless you're caught with it!


Making the best use of this Forum.  FAQ559-716
How to get answers to your SW questions.  FAQ559-1091
Helpful SW websites every user should be aware of.  FAQ559-520

RE: The # and its names

digger--what's funny is that so many people, especially younger ones, who know what the "pound key" is, wouldn't recognize something like "30#" as "30 pounds".  I'm very close to being one of those people.

On my phone, I think of it as "pound sign".  On my computer keyboard, I think of it as "number sign".  I'm not sure at all what I'd think if I just came along and saw one in isolation on a piece of paper or blackboard.

Hg

Eng-Tips guidelines:  FAQ731-376

RE: The # and its names

It's called "hash" Down Under.

RE: The # and its names

Here in italy we refer to # as 'cancelletto', roughly translated in english as 'small gate'.

Che Dio ce la mandi buona, o almeno ce la mandi- Massimiliano Eusebi
Check eng-tips rules: FAQ731-376

RE: The # and its names

its proper name (in english) is octothorpe,
but i do like the ozie "hash"

RE: The # and its names

The automated voice on UK telephone systems tell you to press the 'hash' key. I usually call it 'hash' even when I use it to mean 'number' in the same way as I call the symbol (&) 'ampersand' but use it to mean 'and'.

On a related note, is the 'at' symbol (@) used in e-mail addresses actually called 'at' or is it just used to mean 'at'. If so, does it have a proper name? And how is it referred to in languages other than English?

RE: The # and its names

On the # mark, you can pick from the following list of english names the one you prefer most:

ASCII code 35, crosshatch, crunch, grid, hex, hash, octothorp, mesh, number sign, pigpen, pound, pound sign, scratchmark, sharp (music), splat, thud, thump, tictactoe.

RE: The # and its names


As for the @ character, I found:

About, account, ad, amphora, cinammon roll, cyclone, ape, arabesque, arroba, at, at key, atmark, at sign, cabbage, cat, cha-cha, commercial at, curl, curled a, each, elephant's trunk, fetch, glyph, horse, pig's tail, pretzel, puppy, rollmops herring, rose, schnabble, scroll, snail, strudel, twiddle, twist, vortex, whorl, whirlpool. And the list is incomplete.    

RE: The # and its names

...and if you put a bunch of those symbols in a row, you get a "printable version" of words generally resulting from the hammer hitting your thumb..... #@#$%@#$ !!

"If A equals success, then the formula is: A = X + Y + Z, X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut."
-- by Albert Einstein

RE: The # and its names

Sprintcar,

Now that is a perfect summing up if I have ever seen one! lol.  Have a star.

RE: The # and its names

   Don't forget the ! key, called "bang" in programming.

   UNIX shell scrips start off with something called "whiz bang"...

#!/bin/sh

                     JHG

RE: The # and its names

Some people call it factorial !

Can anybody tell the difference in meanings between ~ and ≈ ?

RE: The # and its names

According to the group that standardizes HTML codes for characters, ~ is the "tilde operator" and ≈ means "almost equal to".  Here is a link:

http://www.tipmaster.com/includes/charentities.cfm

Here is some related info from Mathworld:

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Tilde.html
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/AsymptoticNotation.html
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/OrderofMagnitude.html
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/AlmostInteger.html

Regards,

Cory

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

RE: The # and its names

A better short name for the exclamation mark (!) is shriek.

RE: The # and its names

To sfi, would you call the inverted exclamation ¡ symbol much used in Spanish, a sigh ?

RE: The # and its names

have you tested the us-international keyboard layout?

áéíóúñÑ¡²³¤€¼½¾‘’¥×ßðø¶´æ©¹£ÄÅÉÞÜÚÍÓÖÁ§Ðذ¨Æ¢Ñǵç÷¦’«»¬

by combining the right ALT and the shift keys with the keyboard provides great flexibility to write in different languages without changing the basic english keyboard layout.

saludos.
a.

RE: The # and its names

"To sfi, would you call the inverted exclamation ¡ symbol much used in Spanish, a sigh ?"

I'd call it the "deep breath" before the shriek.

RE: The # and its names

The # is called a hash because of mis-pronunciation and (as usual) laziness in speech.  It comes from the cross hatching used in technical drawing/engineering and originally was called 'hatching'or (on a keypad)the 'hatch' key, then became the 'hash'key. (Hash browns are a similar phenomenon originally being hashed (grated) potatoes, browned in a pan,  but through common usage of the lazy-speak form became hashed and browned potatoes then just hash browns).



RE: The # and its names

In america, everytime an electronic voice operator prompts you to press that key it is referred to as POUND

RE: The # and its names

I have never worked out what "£" is called for people who call "#" a pound sign.

RE: The # and its names

When I order steel, I specify the weight (mass) using the pound sign (#).

ie) HR PO 590R HEDT #65000 in two lifts.

is 65,000 Lbs split between two coils.

Without data, you're just another person with an opinion.

Hydroformer

RE: The # and its names

(OP)
IMHO the # is a £ - only written a little hastily. I have always called the £ a pound sign and the # a number sign. Both characters occupy the same key on a computer keyboard, which points to their common origin.

But, my original question was this: Is "bradhog" or "bradgard" known at all in your country?

Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org

RE: The # and its names

SomptingGuy - The £ is for Libra, the Latin word for pound, which was the basic unit of Roman weight.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

RE: The # and its names

The £ come to mean currency with respect to pounds and # came to refer to weight with respect to pounds.  Latin libra is also why the abbreviation for pounds (weight) is lb.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

RE: The # and its names

I think it would be funny if the voice said "press the following keys: 1 2 5 1 7 2 Pound" (meaning "press the 1 2 5 1 7 2 #") and someone thought it meant "press the 1 2 5 1 7 2 and really pound hard on those keys".

RE: The # and its names

While I prefer "hash", I've heard some UK telephone systems calling it "square" - even thoug it clearly isn't.

A.

RE: The # and its names

One more meaning for the poor #.  It is used very extensively in all the BASIC languages for programming, and it specifies a double-precision floating-point number, for example, as in:
a = 123.456789#

I think of it as having two, vertical slashes, or "double" slashes, to remember it as meaning double-precision floating-point, as against !, which means a single-precision floating-point number, as in:
a = 123.45!

RE: The # and its names

Yup, definitely "hash" in Aussie land.

Pound is the English currency symbol which does not appear on my keyboard.

RE: The # and its names

I don't have a pound on my main computer either.  It's a real pain - I usually end up writing "pounds", "quid" or "UKP" followed by a diatribe aimed at the non-British world in general.

RE: The # and its names

I have just been informed that the French name for the symbol is "dièze"

RE: The # and its names

(OP)
Interesting. What does it mean?

BTW, like the Jabber handle a lot. Used to be mebmer of a happy little chat community with that name.

Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org

RE: The # and its names

On of my friends was telling a group of us about his boat, the Sea Sharp.  The musically inclined people started laughing, picturing him playing a C# on his guitar, while the computer users know he programs in C#, Microsoft’s newest computer language.

RE: The # and its names

Warpspeed/SomptingGuy

In MSWord you can use the AutoCorrect feature (Tools\AutoCorrect\) to automatically change, say "GBP", to "£".  You just need to copy and paste the symbol from Character Map (Start\Programs\Accessories\System Tools\Character Map).

RE: The # and its names

jabberwocky--"dieze" is "sharp", as bacon4life hinted around.

Hg

Eng-Tips guidelines:  FAQ731-376

RE: The # and its names

Although I should add that strictly speaking the "horizontals" in the sharp sign should be slanted.

Hey, someone else asked this and made a really big answer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_sign

Hg

Eng-Tips guidelines:  FAQ731-376

RE: The # and its names

(OP)
Thanks Hg,

That closes the bag nicely. It more or less confirms what I thought when I started the thread. It even got that "brädgård" (which I think should be "brädhög") in the answer. Wikipedia is really something - almost as good as our little threads when we want to find out the real truth about something. I still think that our threads are better though - they are interactive in a way that no Wikipedia can be - even if edited daily.

Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org

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