What is the name for the @ (at) symbol?

Friar Tuck

Atmark according to http://pages.zoom.co.uk/leveridge/dictionary.html Definition: A newly current word for the 'at' character @. Also called the 'At Sign', 'Commercial At', 'Commercial At Sign', 'Commercial Symbol'. Also has numerous nicknames, including snail, arabesque, monkey, curl, cabbage, twiddle, twist, a-twist, strudel, vortex, whorl, whirlpool, cyclone, ape, cat, rose. The official ANSI/CCITT name is 'commercial at'. In the PostScript language it is called the 'at' sign. The expansion of the Internet has brought the sign into prominence, but it remains a mystery why people have difficulty naming the symbol, which has been on typewriter keyboards since the nineteenth century. Perhaps the decline of traditional arithmetic teaching and manual book-keeping ( '15 neeps @ 2 farthings each' ) caused the meaning of the symbol for the younger generation to drop out of knowledge just before it acquired a new use. The single unit term Atmark perhaps has some utility for people speaking aloud Internet addresses. Derivation: The atmark written as a single character is a manuscript abbreviation of the Latin 'ad', which means 'at'. Nov 27 02, 4:17 PM

mibmob

ad doesn't mean at. It means to or towards. Nov 27 02, 4:28 PM

Friar Tuck

Thanks Mibmob (Head of crowd control) for pointing that out I will get our Head of Correction to suitably chastise that web site. Nov 27 02, 4:42 PM

Senior Moments

Which language would you like it in? In German, it is frequently called Klammeraffe,. Danish has grisehale,as does Norwegian, but more often calls it snabel a, as does Swedish, where it is the name recommended by the Swedish Language Board. Dutch has apestaart or apestaartje, this turns up in Friesian as apesturtsje and in Finnish in the form apinanhanta. Finnish also has kissanhanta, and miukumauku. In Hungarian it is kukac. In Serbian majmun, with a similar term in Bulgarian. Both Spanish and Portuguese have arroba. In Thai, the name translates as 'the wiggling worm-like character'. Czechs often call it zavinac. The most-used Hebrew term is strudel. Another common Swedish name is kanelbulle. The most curious usage, because it seems to have spread furthest from its origins, whatever they are, is snail. The French have called it escargot for a long time (though more formal terms are arobase or a commercial), but the term is also common in Italian (chiocciola), and has recently appeared in Hebrew (shablul), Korean (dalphaengi) and Esperanto (heliko). In English the name of the sign seems to be most commonly given as at or, more fully, commercial at, which is the official name given to it in the international standard character sets. Other names include whirlpool (from its use in the joke computer language INTERCAL) and fetch (from FORTH), but these are much less common. A couple of the international names have come over into English: snail is fairly frequently {used;} more surprisingly, so is snabel from Danish. http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/whereat.htm Nov 27 02, 5:48 PM

Gnomon

In English, it is called 'at' or 'the at symbol'. Nov 27 02, 10:23 PM

Create a Free FunTrivia ID to add to, request more/new answers, or edit this entry

Does anyone know the name for the @ symbol, the encircled a? What is the official name for the @ symbol which is used in email addresses? What is the name of the symbol of healing accepted by most western doctors? This symbol # is often called the hash or pound sign but what is its proper name?

1 Name That Name So many times we only identify a person by his or her last name. Every question in this quiz looks like 'Which of the following _____s was _____?' where the last name and a characteristic is given and you have to identify the first name. Name is in the middle Average 10 Q yakko Mar 12 00 2421 plays 2 The Name Behind the Name Tons of famous people go by nom de plums, pseudonyms, aliases, stage names and the like. Here's a quiz on the best of the nomers. Birth and Stage Name Average 10 Q hitachi Jul 02 02 1026 plays 3 Name That Tune Name In the first seven questions, I will give you a name or names and you answer with the Beatle song it is from. The last three questions I will give you a lyric, and you answer with the Beatle song, which is also the name of a person. Songs by The Beatles Average 10 Q rach_robins Sep 28 02 3204 plays