
At - colinprince
http://furbo.org/2014/03/25/at/
======
elektronaut
In Norwegian the official name is "krøllalfa", meaning "curly alpha". Hip in
the 90s, but I don't think I've heard anyone call it that in years. I was
actually surprised when I learned that "at" was the proper English name and
usage. I had always assumed it was a symbol that had been co-opted into
network addresses because it was accessible from the keyboard and kinda looked
like an a.

One advantage of the international variants is that they're not ambiguous,
whereas in English you might have to explicitly specify "the at symbol" when
speaking.

As a side note: A long time ago, before the internet and international
shopping, I mainly thought of $ as the variable character in BASIC.

~~~
buckbova
I always thought the English version was ampersat.

~~~
kbenson
I just looked into this, and the _ampers_ portion of of both ampersand and
ampersat is short-hand/corruption of "and per se" [1], meaning ampersand is
another way of writing the word "and", and ampersat is another way of writing
the word "at".

1:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampersand#Etymology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampersand#Etymology)

------
arrrg
No one actually uses „Klammeraffe“ in German. It’s just „at“ (English
pronunciation – most of the time). I wonder how widespread the use of those
alternative names for “at” is in other languages he lists.

In German „Klammeraffe“ is this weird, unwieldy nickname that used to be
somewhat fashionable a long time ago (mid-nineties maybe, whenever many people
where first confronted with email addresses). I remember it being used back
then whenever people were explaining the internet in media (TV, radio, books),
though I don’t think it ever got widely used outside that context.

~~~
ma2rten
The Dutch one "money tail" is more widespread than "at", I would say.

~~~
DouweM
I'm not so sure. I'm Dutch as well, and when I recite my email address I use
the English "at", so "douwemaan at domain" rather than the unwieldy (4
syllables long!) "douwemaan apenstaartje domain".

In my experience most (if not all) people in my age group (18 - 25) simply
pronounce it as "at". This could be a generational thing as most of us were
raised with the internet and all these internet-y terms come quite naturally
to us.

~~~
mercer
It could very well be an age thing, because I myself and friends of similar
age (25-30) use both 'at', and 'apenstaartje', although primarily the former.

------
kiyoto
In Japanese, the sign itself is called "attomaaku" ("at mark") but it's
pronounced as "atto" when dictated. So someone's email would be johnsmith-at-
gmail-dot-com, and if you ask a Japanese person to pronounce the symbol, they
would say "atto". However, if you show them the symbol and ask them _what it
is_, they probably would say "attomaaku".

Semiotics is fascinating.

~~~
lnanek2
atto is about the closest their writing rules allow. It is all pairs like ka,
ki, ko, ku, except for n. So all loan words have to be extended if they end
illegally.

~~~
sterling312
Actually it's interesting that you mention this. Technically, you can also
make it atoma-ku, (like ato like in later, and ma-ku as in mark). I wonder if
the dip-tone was intentional to make it sound more like foreign word.

------
ternaryoperator
"[chiocciola] is fun to say, too. Something like 'chee-o-cho-la' but with more
exotic hand gestures."

The initial "chi" in Italian is pronounced like "kee" (e.g. chianti). So this
would be pronounced "kee-o-chio-la"

~~~
izietto
I'm italian and I confirm it ;)

------
kiliancs
In Catalan we call it arrova. It's interesting that, used as a unit of mass,
the @ had different values in different places [1][2]:

\- Castille: 11.5002325 kg

\- Aragon: 12.5 kg

\- Catalonia: 26 pounds

\- Valencia: 30 pounds

\- Portugal: 32 pounds

Apparently it's still used as a unit of measure in Spain and South America,
for example for oranges [2] and cocaine [3].

[1] [http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrova](http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrova)
[2]
[http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arroba_%28unidad_de_masa%29](http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arroba_%28unidad_de_masa%29)
[3]
[http://web.archive.org/web/20110101190636/http://www.delisse...](http://web.archive.org/web/20110101190636/http://www.delisse.ec/hojadecoca.htm)

~~~
galfarragem
Still a standard in South Portuguese countryside to measure livestock weight.
15kg=1 arroba

------
gabemart
>A pictogram…, is an ideogram that __conveys its meaning __through its
pictorial resemblance to a physical object.

By this definition, @ is not a pictogram just because it is _named for_ a
pictorial resemblance. It must _convey meaning_ through that pictorial
resemblance. A "monkey tail" or "elephant trunk" or "sea snail" does not
convey the meaning of "at", unless I'm missing some cultural context.

木, on the other hand, conveys the meaning of "tree" through visual
representation of roots below the ground and branches on top [1].

[1]
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9C%A8](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9C%A8)

~~~
Gracana
To be fair, the article does go on to explain that with regard to pictograms,
"what we’ve seen happen with the @ symbol is the opposite."

------
gk1
I believe in Russian it's called "Sobachka", or "Doggy." (Correct me if I'm
wrong.)

~~~
jypepin
Arrobase in french. Don't think it means anything.

~~~
ekianjo
Here you go:

> Le nom arobase, forme la plus fréquente, est une déformation récente du
> castillan arroba(s), qui désigne une unité de mesure de poids et de capacité
> (dite en français arrobe), en usage en Espagne et au Portugal8, de grandeur
> variable selon les régions et selon les liquides (huile ou vin). Ce terme,
> attesté en Espagne depuis 1088, vient lui-même de l'arabe الربع (ar-rubʿ), «
> le quart », pour un quart de l'ancien quintal de 100 livres, soit 12 kg
> environ. Depuis le xvie siècle, en effet, le mot arroba — parmi d'autres —
> s'est constamment écrit au moyen de l'abréviation "@"9.

[https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrobase](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrobase)

------
madeofpalk
When I worked in retail, I noticed Indian people would pronounce it something
like 'attarrat', with a hard R in the middle.

It took me a while to catch on to what was ment by that, but i never really
pushed it much further to get the 'proper' pronounciation.

~~~
timlimfimbim
I believe they were saying "at the rate".

~~~
ANTSANTS
Not sure why people are downvoting you. The @ symbol is hundreds of years old
and originally meant "at the rate of" (as in, "10 boxes @ $1" means "10 boxes
for $1 apiece"). It's perfectly possible that the Indian population could have
picked this up and perhaps contracted it a bit during the reign of the British
Empire.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/@_symbol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/@_symbol)

~~~
demodifier
That is indeed the case. The 'at the rate of' usage was quite popular in
arithmetic problems even in the early 90s when most of the population was
unaware of emails. My parents still say it as at the rate of when reading
aloud an email address.

------
jefftchan
In China, it's called "circle a" (圈a), "flowery a" (花a), or "little mouse"
(小老鼠). In Taiwan, it's most commonly called "little mouse"

------
sramsay
Dating in Korea:

"Hey, really enjoyed talking to you! Can I have your email address?"

"Sure, it's john sea snail hotmail dot com."

"Oh. Great."

~~~
iLoch
Well looks like it's time to move to Korea and launch seasnailhotmail.com

------
camillomiller
I would have mentioned that the purported Latin origin of the symbol is much
closer to the English way of saying it. Some historians believe that the @
symbol fist appeared as a contraption of the word "ad", which loosely means
"towards". Scribes may have altered the word by exaggerating the upstroke of
the d. So at least on twitter, "at" is pretty consistent with the original
meaning of the symbol.

------
lozf
I'm currently in Kashmir where everyone always says in full _"... at the rate
of..."_ in the middle of their email address. So far I've not met many twitter
users.

------
aristus
For a very long time, I thought the "{" was called "birdwing" because that's
how it was explained to me. When I try that now I get very odd looks.

Related: [http://carlos.bueno.org/brackets-of-the-
world.pdf](http://carlos.bueno.org/brackets-of-the-world.pdf)

~~~
neic
In Denmark the curly brackets are knows as tuborgklammer, literally Tuborg
brackets. Tuborg is a danish brewery and the brackets are named after the roof
of the cap on their old delivery trucks.
[http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3600/3516095666_fb53727c79_b.j...](http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3600/3516095666_fb53727c79_b.jpg)

------
wuaifeng
"I envy my colleagues that get to play with snails and monkeys while coding in
Objective-C!"

------
kosei
All I can think is how much longer it must be to speak tweets aloud in other
languages. As opposed to "at Jim Lipsey, at Gruber, at Chockenberry, at The
Talk Show", now it's "chee-o-cho-la Jim Lipsey, chee-o-cho-la Gruber..."

Sounds like a mouthful already.

~~~
jkrems
IIRC latin languages offset longer words by speaking generally more syllables
per second. The information per time unit is roughly equal across languages. I
don't think they actually realize that the word is long/awkward (or at least
not to the same degree an English native speaker would realize).

~~~
camillomiller
That and the fact that in English there's always a little pause before, to let
the listener understand you're spelling a very short word. Just listen next
time someone says an email address. In italian not so much, so chiocciola is
pronounced both very fast and without the need for a declarative pause. In the
end it doesn't feel long at all.

------
ulber
In Finnish it is also informally known as "miukumauku", which refers to the
cat-like appearance of the symbol (long tail). This name isn't very common
anymore.

------
sbierwagen
Fun fact about HN's bad visual design: submissions with very short titles
typically get huge amounts of upvotes as people try to click on the submission
link, and hit the upvote button by accident. Since you can't revoke upvotes
for dumb submissions, the number climbs without limit.

------
IgorPartola
I speak Russian as my first language. We use "sobaka" the Russian word for
dog.

------
simplyinfinity
In Bulgaria this is called "Monkey" (маймунка) or "Monkey A" (маймунско А)
i've also heard few people cal it "rose" (розичка)

~~~
delian66
Also, some people in Bulgaria call the '@' sign "кльомба".

An interesting story about this sign, is that it had been used in a medieval
Bulgarian chronicle dated at 1345. In it, the @ symbol is part of the word
'Амин' (amen).

[http://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A4%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BB:19-man...](http://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A4%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BB:19-manasses-
chronicle.jpg)

------
ggchappell
Both cute and interesting.

Note, however, that the article does not distinguish between what the sign is
_called_ , and how it is _read_. I call it an "at sign". I read it "at". Now,
in Dutch it's called a monkey tail (said in Dutch, of course). But that may
not be how it is _read_ in Dutch.

------
thought_alarm
I can think of a few English pictograms on the standard keyboard:

^ = Hat

* = Star

# = Hash

~ = Squiggle

{ = Curly

~~~
vacri
I don't see what 'hash' is a picture of. There is 'cross-hatching' in
illustration, but that's not the same word (and it's specifically cross-
hatching, not just hatching, where the lines generally align). Otherwise
'hash' is either a meat dish or a recreational drug, neither of which look
much like #.

~~~
vertex-four
Indeed. If anything, it should be called "waffle".

------
4684499
This is what I've been told: "木 = wood, 林 = woods, 森 = forest". Quite
intuitive. :)

------
junkri
In Hungary, we say "kukac", which means "worm" in english

------
mzs
I like commat from the prosign, it stems from its use in prices like 7 @ $4.

Also in Polish I encounter małpka (little or cute monkey) more than małpa
(monkey), maybe that's a regional thing.

------
noel82
Very interesting read. As italian, I agree with our "exotic" gestures which
follow the spelling of email addresses when it comes to 'chiocciola' (@)

------
fla
Arobaz in French. But most people just say 'At'.

------
almog
In Hebrew, the official name is Strudel (Wikipedia: "A type of layered pastry
with a filling that is usually sweet")

------
carlob
Technically in Italian: lumaca is slug and chiocciola is snail, but people
often improperly use lumaca for snail as well.

------
alexcp_
We also say "Arobas" in french.

~~~
groue
French native here as well. I personnally say "at" when spelling out email
addresses. "Arobase" ou "et commercial" are names of the symbol itself - not
commonly used because one rarely has to name the symbol.

------
StavrosK
In Greek, we call it "papaki". It means "duckling". I have no idea how that
happened.

------
muyueh
In Taiwan it's "小老鼠", which means "little mouse".

