It’s interesting to know that the symbol, @ , that
we all know so well, has its origins in the 6th
century. The monks who copied books used it as a shorthand
version of the Latin “ad”, meaning “at” or “to”.
Ray Tomlinson, the person to send the first e-mail
in 1971, chose the symbol @ to separate the user name from the
host name.
Obviously not everyone calls @ , “at”. In fact,
here is a list of countries and how they translate this symbol
in their language.
The Dutch uses a word which
translated is “ape’s tail”.
The Danish word is “elephant’s trunk”.
The Greek call it “little duck”.
The Hungarians call it “little worm”.
The Russians call it “little dog”.
In Croatia it’s “monkey”.
In France, it’s called “little snail”
And here in Italy it’s just “snail” (chiocciola)
What creative imagination was used!!!
Before it became a standard symbol for e-mails,
it was used to indicate the cost or weight of something. For
example, if you bought 5 oranges for $1.50 each, you could write
it as 5 oranges @ $1.50 each. It is still used in this manner
on a variety of forms and invoices.
The students should find it interesting to
discover how @ came into use. This can lead them to talking
about punctuation symbols, like the question mark, the
exclamation mark etc. It could be a research project for them.
There are numerous sites that can help them find
information. I
suggest www.neatorama.com
A
Nice Thought
“Diamonds are forever. E-mails come
close.”