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Hi, Randolph--Just now catching up with the list posts to this thread, which I gather have spawned hash vs. hatch, octothorp, and more ampersand spin-offs, so I'm probably (typically) behind the curve now. Anyway, yes, above the number 3 on my keyboard is the octothorp/pound sign/hatch (thanks, Viv, for correcting us on that!). No, didn't know about the brewers' use of plus/minus signs--another great bit of typographic lore! "Got any others?" you asked, so I went looking and would offer to the keyboarding set the Strange Case of the Pipe (|), which I just typed from above the backslash on my keyboard, but which doesn't appear broken on my screen (how about yours?). What's strange about it, according to Robert Bringhurst, author of _The Elements of Typographic Style_ (a wonderful book!), is its being important to programmers but to no one else, including typographers, yet it continues to be a feature of every standard (i.e., ASCII) keyboard. A prettier and maybe more interesting graph (to me anyway) is the type of fleuron (aka, "dingbat") called a hedera because of its resemblance to an ivy leaf. According to Bringhurst, it's one of the oldest of all typographic ornaments and is even found in early Greek inscriptions. Now, just to be provocative, where do people fall on the continuum between (the positive) "ornament" and (the negative) "dingbat"? Does everybody who hates typographic ornaments call them dingbats, for starters? I myself love the word dingbat, so usually use it in pref. to ornament and altogether positively. Cheers, Candice At 10:13 PM 7/11/00 +0100, you wrote: >I have a vague memory, possibly false, that above the number 3 on US >keyboards is what we call the hash symbol (or cardinal number sign) whereas >on UK keyboards (and Irish ones too!) there's the pound sign as in currency. >I love the village and eight fields derivation. Got any others? (You know >that plus and minus signs were originally used by German brewers to show >which barrels were above/below the mark) > >best > >Randolph Healy > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: <[log in to unmask]> >To: <[log in to unmask]> >Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2000 7:28 PM >Subject: Re: ampersands > > >> 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 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%