The Ampersand, part 1 of 2

In contrast to some of the other symbols explored here, the ampersand seems at first sight to be entirely unexceptional. Another of those things the Romans did for us, the symbol started life as the Latin word et, for ‘and’, and its meaning has stayed true to its origins since then. Even the word ‘ampersand’ itself manages to quietly hint at the character’s meaning, unlike, say, the conspicuously opaque naming of the pilcrow or octothorpe. Dependable and ubiquitous, the ampersand is a steady character among a gallery of flamboyant rogues.

Things were not always thus, however. Today’s ampersand might take pride of place in the elevated names of Fortnum & Mason and Moët & Chandon, but its Roman ancestor was a different beast entirely. Born in distinctly ignoble circumstances and dogged by a rival character of weighty provenance, the ampersand would spend a thousand years of uneasy coexistence with its opponent before finally claiming victory. The ampersand’s is a true underdog story. Read more →

The Octothorpe: addenda

After I posted The Octothorpe, part 2 of 2 last weekend, New Scientist magazine’s online editor Sumit Paul-Choudhury got in touch to say:

I was surprised and delighted to discover that you had cited us in part 1 of your piece on the octothorpe (via the OED) and thought you might be interested in reading the original reference, which I have now liberated from our paywall[.]

The article is now available on the New Scientist website. It takes the form of a letter from one Kay Dekker,1 who quotes the answer to a Frequently Asked Question from the alt.usage.english newsgroup:

“Finally, in a failed attempt to avoid the naming problem by creating a new name, the term ‘octothorp(e)’ (which MWCD10 dates 1971) was invented for ‘#’, allegedly by Bell Labs engineers when touch-tone telephones were introduced in the mid-1960s. ‘Octo-‘ means eight, and ‘thorp’ was an Old English word for village: apparently the sign was playfully construed as eight fields surrounding a village. Another story has it that a Bell Labs supervisor named Don MacPherson coined the word from the number of endpoints and from the surname of US athlete James Francis Thorpe.”2

‘MWCD10’ is Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 10th edition and the dictionary’s online edition does indeed date ‘octothorpe’ to 1971.3 To summarise, then, in tracing the etymology of the word ‘octothorpe’ the Oxford English Dictionary cites a letter to New Scientist which quotes from the alt.usage.english FAQ, which ultimately cites Merriam-Webster’s own definition. The history of the octothorpe is nothing if not tortuous.

I can’t thanks Sumit Paul-Choudhury enough for making this article available online — it’s great to be able to fill in another small piece of the puzzle of the octothorpe’s name.

I’m away this coming week, so look out for The Ampersand, part 1 in two weeks’ time, on Sunday 12th June. Thanks again for all the comments!

1.
Dekker, Kay. “Letters: Internet Hash”. New Scientist.

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2.
“Names of "&", "@", and ‘#’”.

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3.
“Octothorpe”. In Merriam-Webster Online. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, May 2011.

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The Octothorpe, part 2 of 2

Bell Telephone Laboratories, one-time research subsidiary of American telecoms giant AT&T, has produced some of the 20th century’s most influential developments in the worlds of science and technology. It boasts seven Nobel Prizes in Physics awarded for, among other things, a demonstration of the wave nature of matter, the invention of the transistor and the discovery of background cosmic radiation. Other notable products of this storied research centre include the laser, radio astronomy, the first communications satellite and the UNIX operating system,* which forms a key component of the internet and of modern computing in general.2

Most relevant in terms of punctuation, though, is a small linguistic innovation which emerged in the wake of a much larger technological one. Engaged in the 1960s in reinventing the world’s ageing telephone dialling system, one of the many Bell Labs engineers working on this mammoth task was almost certainly responsible for coining the term ‘octothorpe’. And though the octothorpe’s birthplace is well recorded, the question of exactly who created it is somewhat more contentious. Read more →

*
In certain UNIX programs, the hash symbol is forced into a shotgun marriage with the exclamation mark — the ‘bang’ in printers’ parlance — to yield ‘#!’, the ‘hash-bang’ or ‘shebang’.1 ↢

The Octothorpe, part 1 of 2

The ‘#’ symbol is something of a problem child. It seems at first to be quite innocuous, a jack-of-all-trades whose names and uses correspond in a pleasingly systematic manner: ‘#5’ is read ‘number five’, leading to the name ‘number sign’; in North America, ‘5#’ means ‘five pounds in weight’, giving ‘pound sign’, while the cross-hatching suggested by its shape leads to the commonly used British name of ‘hash sign’.1

Dig a little deeper, though, and this glyph reveals itself to be a frustratingly multifaceted beast. Its manifold uses encompass the sublime and the ridiculous in equal measure. Its varied but functional aliases have lately been joined by the grandiose moniker ‘octothorpe’, bestowed upon it for reasons more frivolous than practical, and the whys and wherefores of its etymology elude even the most studied experts. The simple ‘#’ is not nearly as simple as it seems. Read more →

The Interrobang: addenda

Shady Characters readers have again provided some great extra detail on the marks discussed here. Penny Speckter comments on The Interrobang, part 2 with some heartening information regarding the interrobang’s official status:

While the interrobang has evoked both enthusiasm and derision, and may, like Esperanto, become a blip in history, still, it has evoked thousands of words of interesting comment. And it has finally been awarded an official status in Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 10th edition, published in 1996 under the definition “punctuation,” where it is listed alphabetically along with other recognized marks.

Also, Leonard Boiko reminds us of the interrobang’s Spanish counterpart, the so-called ‘gnaborretni’, and points out that it too has made its way into Unicode. ⸘How could I have forgotten‽

I’m away this coming week, so look out for The Octothorpe, part 1 in two weeks’ time, on Sunday 8th May. Thanks again for the comments!