Begging your pardon, Matthew, but it's what was once called the
"pound avoirdupois" sign in your part of the world and what's
still called the "pound sign" over here, and we're often invited
to "press" it in recorded telephone messages, for example.
It's also still frequently used here in the sense of numeral
and, among printers and typesetters (at least the ones with whom
I work) as a sign for letter-space. It's all these different
meanings, in times and places, that make the orthograph so
fascinating to me, as I said. I didn't know that the hash mark
(aka "service stripe" or "inbounds line"?) was the same graph,
at least in some contexts apparently, so thanks for adding to
my octothorpic lore--
Candice
At 12:36 AM 7/11/00 +0100, you wrote:
>That isn't a pound sign - it's what we used to call in my programming days a
>hash. I think this is a British name for it - the sign isn't widely used
>over here, and hardly ever in its US sense of 'number'
>
>Best wishes
>
>Matthew
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
>Date: 10 July 2000 22:25
>Subject: Re: ampersands
>
>
>>Anyone else like the orthograph (aka, "pound sign"): #? I'm fascinated
>>by its long history of shifting meanings, beginning with what I think
>>was its original usage on early (English?) maps to mark a village (8
>>fields around a town square)--Candice
>>
>
>
>
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|