At sign
Encyclopedia
The at sign also called the ampersat, apetail, arroba, atmark, at symbol, commercial at or monkey tail, is formally an abbreviation of the accounting and commercial invoice
term "at the rate of" (e.g., 7 widget
s @ $2 = $14). In recent years its meaning has changed to also mean "at" in the sense of "located at", especially in email addresses
. Increasingly, @ has also been used as a prefix to user names (e.g., @username) on social websites, either simply as a textual addition to direct their attention or denote an attribution/link, as on forums and suchlike; or used so that the site's parser will detect and notify the person using that user name of the reference, as on Twitter
and Facebook
(although the latter's parsing now automatically detects user names without the symbol).
The Underwood Typewriter Company included the symbol on the keyboard of "Underwood No. 5" in 1900, and it was included on subsequent typewriters and their successors' keyboards.
, including "at sign", "at the rate", "at symbol", "at mark", "commercial at" or "ampersat". This is not to be confused with the ampersand
. In keeping with its obvious etymology, it is usually pronounced at.
In Italian
, the symbol is informally called the "snail" (chiocciola); its French
name is arobase or sometimes arrobe or arobe (from the arroba, an old Spanish and Portuguese unit of weight); in Dutch
it is called the "(little) monkey-tail" (apenstaartje); in Hebrew
, it is informally called Strudel
(שטרודל); in Korean
it is called golbaengi or "sea snail" ("골뱅이"); in Japanese
it is the , and similarly, in German
it is called the "at symbol" or "spider monkey
" (Klammeraffe); and in Chinese
, it is known as the "little mouse".
In Spanish
and Portuguese
it is the symbol for arroba
, an archaic unit of weight, and in some Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries it is still pronounced this way, even when related to an email address.
In Russian
, the symbol is informally called the "dog" (sobaka, собака) or "doggie" (sobachka, собачка). The Finnish
sometimes call the symbol miukumauk ("meow meow") owing to the symbol's resemblance to a cat and its tail. In Bulgarian
it is called maimunka (маймунка), "little monkey" and in Polish
, it is called małpa, meaning "monkey," for its resemblance to a monkey with its arm extended over its head. In Romanian
, it is called colloquially A, coadă de maimuţă ("A, monkey-tail") or arond ("a-round").
In Greek
the sign is known as the "papaki" ("παπάκι") (literally meaning "little duck"). In Swedish
and Danish
the sign is known as the snabel-a (literally "trunk a"), owning to the resemblance between the sign and the trunk of an elephant. In Norwegian
the term most commonly used is krøllalfa (literally: curled alpha
). In Greek
the sign is known as papaki (παπάκι) meaning small duck. In Slovenian
, the most common word for it is afna, colloquially meaning "monkey", much like in Polish
. In Hungarian
, it is called kukac meaning "worm". In Czech
and Slovak
, it is called zavináč meaning "rollmop".
@ was present in the 1902 model Lambert typewriter made by Lambert Typewriter Company of New York. Its inclusion in the original 1963 ASCII character set was unremarkable as it was a standard commercial typewriter character (the 1961 IBM Selectric typewriter
's keyboard included @).
.
), as in
' Ray Tomlinson
is credited with introducing this usage in 1971. This idea of the symbol representing located at in the form
command
connection to the computer with the hostname
On web pages, organizations often obscure email addresses of their members or employees by omitting the @. This practice, known as address munging
, makes the email addresses less vulnerable to spam programs that scan the internet for them.
Another contemporary use of the @ symbol in American English is adding information about a sporting event. Opposing sports teams sometime have their names separated by a v. (versus). However, the "v." may be replaced with "@" when also conveying at which team's home field the game will be played. In this case, the away team is written first.
On some online forums without threaded discussions, @ is used to denote a reply; for instance: "@Jane" to respond to a comment Jane made earlier. Similarly, in some cases, @ is used for "attention" in email messages originally sent to someone else. For example, if an email was sent from Catherine to Steve, but in the body of the e-mail, Catherine wants to make Keirsten aware of something, Catherine will start the line "@Keirsten" to indicate to Keirsten that the following sentence concerns her. This also helps with mobile email users who cannot see bold or color in email.
In microblogging
(such as Twitter
and StatusNet-based microblogs), @ before the user name is used to send publicly readable replies (e.g. "@otheruser: Message text here"). The blog and client software can automatically interpret these as links to the user in question. This use of the @ symbol was also made available to Facebook users on September 15, 2009. In Internet Relay Chat
(IRC), it is often shown before a user's nick to mark the operator of a channel.
@ may sometimes be used to substitute for other symbols or meanings:
@ is also used on many wireless router
s/modem
s, where a solid green @ symbol indicates the router is connected and a solid amber @ indicates there is a problem.
s although there is not a consistent theme to its usage. For example:
and Spanish
, as well in other West Iberian languages
where many words end in '-o' when in the masculine gender
and end '-a' in the feminine, '@' can be used as a gender-neutral
substitute for the default 'o' ending, which some advocates of gender-neutral language-modification
feel indicates implicit linguistic disregard for women. These languages do not possess a neutral gender and the masculine forms are also used traditionally when referring to groups of mixed or unknown sex. The at-sign is intended to replace the desinence '-o', including its plural form '-os', due to the resemblance to a digraph of an inner letter 'a' and an outer letter 'o'.
As an example of the '@' being used for gender-inclusive purposes, we can consider the Spanish and Portuguese word amigos. When the word represents not only male friends, but also female ones, the proponents of a gender-inclusive language replace it with amig@s. In this sense, amigos would be used only when the writer is sure the group referred to is all-male. Usage of amigas is the same in traditional and such new forms of communication. Alternative forms for a gender-inclusive at-sign would be the slash sign
(amigos/as) and the circle-A (amigⒶs), maybe as a kind of "bisexual digraph". More about it in Satiric misspelling.
The Real Academia Española
disapproves the use of the at-sign as a letter. Many Portuguese and Spanish speakers may also consider this usage degrading. Some argue it is just more cultural imperialism
. Others that there is no established pronunciation, although there is at least one proposal in this sense. Português Com Inclusão de Gênero (Portuguese With Inclusion of Gender) recommends that Spanish and Portuguese speakers pronounce the at-sign as ɔ, for /aˈmiɡɔ/. This [ɔ] is the vowel sound between "feminine" a (/aˈmiɡa/) and "masculine" o (/aˈmiɡo/).
Portuguese With Inclusion of Gender (see Gender-neutrality in Spanish and Portuguese
) has also other proposals, including a lower case at-sign '@', since the original sign is as big as an upper-case letter.
s included the symbol. Consequently, it is often perceived in those languages as denoting "The Internet", computerization, or modernization in general.
On the final episode of the second series of BBC Radio 4
show The Museum of Curiosity
, recorded in London on 19 May 2009 and broadcast on 8 June 2009, author Philip Pullman
added the category of "things that were invented for one purpose, but are used for another" to the museum's collection. As an example, Pullman referred to @. The host of the show, QI
creator John Lloyd
, noted that in other languages the symbol has a proper name, and pledged on QI series A DVD to support widespread use of the term "Astatine" to refer to the symbol. This name was chosen as the chemical element astatine
has the chemical symbol "At".
character for a small at-sign: , located in the Small Font Variants code chart Depending on the font type this small at-sign can have the size of lower-case letter, but it is often smaller than that. In addition, the "full-width ASCII variants" code chart has .
Invoice
An invoice or bill is a commercial document issued by a seller to the buyer, indicating the products, quantities, and agreed prices for products or services the seller has provided the buyer. An invoice indicates the buyer must pay the seller, according to the payment terms...
term "at the rate of" (e.g., 7 widget
Widget (economics)
The word widget is a placeholder name for an object or, more specifically, a mechanical or other manufactured device. It is an abstract unit of production. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as "An indefinite name for a gadget or mechanical contrivance, esp. a small manufactured item" and...
s @ $2 = $14). In recent years its meaning has changed to also mean "at" in the sense of "located at", especially in email addresses
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
. Increasingly, @ has also been used as a prefix to user names (e.g., @username) on social websites, either simply as a textual addition to direct their attention or denote an attribution/link, as on forums and suchlike; or used so that the site's parser will detect and notify the person using that user name of the reference, as on Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
and Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
(although the latter's parsing now automatically detects user names without the symbol).
The Underwood Typewriter Company included the symbol on the keyboard of "Underwood No. 5" in 1900, and it was included on subsequent typewriters and their successors' keyboards.
Names
The @ symbol is known by various names in EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, including "at sign", "at the rate", "at symbol", "at mark", "commercial at" or "ampersat". This is not to be confused with the ampersand
Ampersand
An ampersand is a logogram representing the conjunction word "and". The symbol is a ligature of the letters in et, Latin for "and".-Etymology:...
. In keeping with its obvious etymology, it is usually pronounced at.
In Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, the symbol is informally called the "snail" (chiocciola); its French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
name is arobase or sometimes arrobe or arobe (from the arroba, an old Spanish and Portuguese unit of weight); in Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
it is called the "(little) monkey-tail" (apenstaartje); in Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
, it is informally called Strudel
Strudel
A strudel is a type of layered pastry with a — most often sweet — filling inside, often served with cream. It became well known and gained popularity in the 18th century through the Habsburg Empire....
(שטרודל); in Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
it is called golbaengi or "sea snail" ("골뱅이"); in Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
it is the , and similarly, in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
it is called the "at symbol" or "spider monkey
Spider monkey
Spider monkeys of the genus Ateles are New World monkeys in the subfamily Atelinae, family Atelidae. Like other atelines, they are found in tropical forests of Central and South America, from southern Mexico to Brazil...
" (Klammeraffe); and in Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, it is known as the "little mouse".
In Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
and Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
it is the symbol for arroba
Arroba
The word arroba has its origin in Arabic ar-rubʿ , the fourth part .Arroba was a Spanish and Portuguese customary unit of weight, mass or volume. Its symbol is @. In weight it was equal to 25 pounds in Spain, and 32 pounds in Portugal.The unit is still used in Portugal by cork merchants, and in...
, an archaic unit of weight, and in some Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries it is still pronounced this way, even when related to an email address.
In Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, the symbol is informally called the "dog" (sobaka, собака) or "doggie" (sobachka, собачка). The Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
sometimes call the symbol miukumauk ("meow meow") owing to the symbol's resemblance to a cat and its tail. In Bulgarian
Bulgarian language
Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
it is called maimunka (маймунка), "little monkey" and in Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
, it is called małpa, meaning "monkey," for its resemblance to a monkey with its arm extended over its head. In Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
, it is called colloquially A, coadă de maimuţă ("A, monkey-tail") or arond ("a-round").
In Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
the sign is known as the "papaki" ("παπάκι") (literally meaning "little duck"). In Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
and Danish
Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
the sign is known as the snabel-a (literally "trunk a"), owning to the resemblance between the sign and the trunk of an elephant. In Norwegian
Norwegian language
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
the term most commonly used is krøllalfa (literally: curled alpha
Alpha
Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. Alpha or ALPHA may also refer to:-Science:*Alpha , the highest ranking individuals in a community of social animals...
). In Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
the sign is known as papaki (παπάκι) meaning small duck. In Slovenian
Slovenian language
Slovene or Slovenian is a South Slavic language spoken by approximately 2.5 million speakers worldwide, the majority of whom live in Slovenia. It is the first language of about 1.85 million people and is one of the 23 official and working languages of the European Union...
, the most common word for it is afna, colloquially meaning "monkey", much like in Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
. In Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
, it is called kukac meaning "worm". In Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
and Slovak
Slovak language
Slovak , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages .Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by 5 million people...
, it is called zavináč meaning "rollmop".
History
There are several theories about the origin of the commercial at character:- The symbol developed as a mercantile shorthand symbol of "each at"—the symbol resembling a small "a" inside a small "e"—to distinguish it from the different "at" (symbolized by the mere letter "a") or "per." For example, the cost of "12 apples @ $1" would be $12, whereas the cost of "12 apples at $1" would be $1—a crucial and necessary distinction.
- Medieval monks abbreviated the Latin word (at, toward, by, about) next to a numeralNumerical digitA digit is a symbol used in combinations to represent numbers in positional numeral systems. The name "digit" comes from the fact that the 10 digits of the hands correspond to the 10 symbols of the common base 10 number system, i.e...
. One reason for this abbreviation had to do with the saving of space and ink. Since thousands of pages of Bible documents were copied onto expensive papyrus or hides, and the words at, toward, by, about repeated millions of times throughout the ages, a considerable amount of resources could be spared this way. A theory concerning this graphic puts forward the idea that the form derives from the Latin word ad, where the d is spelled in capital, and then inversed back over the alpha in front of it, thus forming a shape that resembles the @. - It was originally an abbreviation of the Greek preposition ανά (transliterated ana), meaning at the rate of or per.
- An ItalianItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
academicAcademiaAcademia is the community of students and scholars engaged in higher education and research.-Etymology:The word comes from the akademeia in ancient Greece. Outside the city walls of Athens, the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning...
claims to have traced the @ symbol to the Italian RenaissanceItalian RenaissanceThe Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe...
, in a Venetian mercantile document signed by Francesco Lapi on May 4, 1537. The document is about commerce with PizarroFrancisco PizarroFrancisco Pizarro González, Marquess was a Spanish conquistador, conqueror of the Incan Empire, and founder of Lima, the modern-day capital of the Republic of Peru.-Early life:...
, in particular the price of an @ of wine in PeruPeruPeru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
; @ has long been used in SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
and PortuguesePortuguese languagePortuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
as an abbreviation of arrobaArrobaThe word arroba has its origin in Arabic ar-rubʿ , the fourth part .Arroba was a Spanish and Portuguese customary unit of weight, mass or volume. Its symbol is @. In weight it was equal to 25 pounds in Spain, and 32 pounds in Portugal.The unit is still used in Portugal by cork merchants, and in...
, a unit of weight equivalent to 25 pounds, and derived from the ArabicArabic languageArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
expression of "a quarter". In Italian, the symbol was interpreted to mean amphoraAmphoraAn amphora is a type of vase-shaped, usually ceramic container with two handles and a long neck narrower than the body...
(). Currently, the word arroba means both the at-symbol and a unit of weight. In Italian, the symbol represents one amphora, a unit of weight and volume based upon the capacity of the standard amphora jar, and entered modern meaning and use as "at the rate of" or "at price of" in northern Europe.
- From Norman French "à" meaning "at" in the "each" sense, i.e. "2 widgetWidget (economics)The word widget is a placeholder name for an object or, more specifically, a mechanical or other manufactured device. It is an abstract unit of production. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as "An indefinite name for a gadget or mechanical contrivance, esp. a small manufactured item" and...
s à £Pound signThe pound sign is the symbol for the pound sterling—the currency of the United Kingdom . The same symbol is used for similarly named currencies in some other countries and territories, such as the Irish pound, Gibraltar pound, Australian pound and the Italian lira...
5.50 = £11.00" is the accountancyAccountancyAccountancy is the process of communicating financial information about a business entity to users such as shareholders and managers. The communication is generally in the form of financial statements that show in money terms the economic resources under the control of management; the art lies in...
shorthand notation in EnglishEnglish peopleThe English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
commercial voucherVoucherA voucher is a bond which is worth a certain monetary value and which may be spent only for specific reasons or on specific goods. Examples include housing, travel, and food vouchers...
s and ledgerLedgerA ledger is the principal book or computer file for recording and totaling monetary transactions by account, with debits and credits in separate columns and a beginning balance and ending balance for each account. The ledger is a permanent summary of all amounts entered in supporting journals which...
s to the 1990s, when the email usage superseded the accountancy usage. It also is so used in Modern French and Swedish; in this view, the at-symbol is a stylised form of à that avoids raising the writing hand from the page in drawing the symbol; this compromise between @ and à in French handwriting is in street market signs.
- The AragonAragonAragon is a modern autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. Located in northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces : Huesca, Zaragoza, and Teruel. Its capital is Zaragoza...
ese historian Jorge Romance located the appearance of the @ symbol at the "taula de Ariza" registry from 1448, to denote a wheat shipment from CastileKingdom of CastileKingdom of Castile was one of the medieval kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula. It emerged as a political autonomous entity in the 9th century. It was called County of Castile and was held in vassalage from the Kingdom of León. Its name comes from the host of castles constructed in the region...
to the Kingdom of Aragon.
@ was present in the 1902 model Lambert typewriter made by Lambert Typewriter Company of New York. Its inclusion in the original 1963 ASCII character set was unremarkable as it was a standard commercial typewriter character (the 1961 IBM Selectric typewriter
IBM Selectric typewriter
The IBM Selectric typewriter was a highly successful model line of electric typewriters introduced by IBM on July 31, 1961.Instead of the "basket" of individual typebars that swung up to strike the ribbon and page in a traditional typewriter, the Selectric had a type element that rotated and...
's keyboard included @).
Commercial
In contemporary English usage, @ is a commercial symbol, called at site or at rate meaning at and at the rate of. It has been used, rarely, in financial documents or grocers' price tags, and is not used in standard typographyTypography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading , adjusting the spaces between groups of letters and adjusting the space between pairs of letters...
.
Contemporary usage
The most familiar contemporary use of @ is in email addresses (transmitted by SMTPSimple Mail Transfer Protocol
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol is an Internet standard for electronic mail transmission across Internet Protocol networks. SMTP was first defined by RFC 821 , and last updated by RFC 5321 which includes the extended SMTP additions, and is the protocol in widespread use today...
), as in
jdoe@example.com (the user jdoe located at site the example.com domain). BBN TechnologiesBBN Technologies
BBN Technologies is a high-technology company which provides research and development services. BBN is based next to Fresh Pond in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA...
' Ray Tomlinson
Ray Tomlinson
Raymond Samuel Tomlinson is a programmer who implemented an email system in 1971 on the ARPANET. Email had been previously sent on other networks such as AUTODIN and PLATO. It was the first system able to send mail between users on different hosts connected to the ARPAnet...
is credited with introducing this usage in 1971. This idea of the symbol representing located at in the form
user@host also is seen in other tools and protocols; for example the Unix shellUnix shell
A Unix shell is a command-line interpreter or shell that provides a traditional user interface for the Unix operating system and for Unix-like systems...
command
ssh jdoe@example.net tries to establish a sshSecure Shell
Secure Shell is a network protocol for secure data communication, remote shell services or command execution and other secure network services between two networked computers that it connects via a secure channel over an insecure network: a server and a client...
connection to the computer with the hostname
Hostname
A hostname is a label that is assigned to a device connected to a computer network and that is used to identify the device in various forms of electronic communication such as the World Wide Web, e-mail or Usenet...
example.net using the username jdoe.On web pages, organizations often obscure email addresses of their members or employees by omitting the @. This practice, known as address munging
Address munging
Address munging is the practice of disguising, or munging, an e-mail address to prevent it being automatically collected and used as a target for people and organizations who send unsolicited bulk e-mail...
, makes the email addresses less vulnerable to spam programs that scan the internet for them.
Another contemporary use of the @ symbol in American English is adding information about a sporting event. Opposing sports teams sometime have their names separated by a v. (versus). However, the "v." may be replaced with "@" when also conveying at which team's home field the game will be played. In this case, the away team is written first.
On some online forums without threaded discussions, @ is used to denote a reply; for instance: "@Jane" to respond to a comment Jane made earlier. Similarly, in some cases, @ is used for "attention" in email messages originally sent to someone else. For example, if an email was sent from Catherine to Steve, but in the body of the e-mail, Catherine wants to make Keirsten aware of something, Catherine will start the line "@Keirsten" to indicate to Keirsten that the following sentence concerns her. This also helps with mobile email users who cannot see bold or color in email.
In microblogging
Microblogging
Microblogging is a broadcast medium in the form of blogging. A microblog differs from a traditional blog in that its content is typically smaller in both actual and aggregate file size...
(such as Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
and StatusNet-based microblogs), @ before the user name is used to send publicly readable replies (e.g. "@otheruser: Message text here"). The blog and client software can automatically interpret these as links to the user in question. This use of the @ symbol was also made available to Facebook users on September 15, 2009. In Internet Relay Chat
Internet Relay Chat
Internet Relay Chat is a protocol for real-time Internet text messaging or synchronous conferencing. It is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication via private message as well as chat and data transfer, including file...
(IRC), it is often shown before a user's nick to mark the operator of a channel.
@ may sometimes be used to substitute for other symbols or meanings:
- A schwaSchwaIn linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
, as the actual schwa character "ə" may be difficult to produce on many computers. It is used in this capacity in the ASCII IPAInternational Phonetic AlphabetThe International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
schemes SAMPASAMPAThe Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet is a computer-readable phonetic script using 7-bit printable ASCII characters, based on the International Phonetic Alphabet ....
, X-SAMPAX-SAMPAThe Extended Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet is a variant of SAMPA developed in 1995 by John C. Wells, professor of phonetics at the University of London. It is designed to unify the individual language SAMPA alphabets, and extend SAMPA to cover the entire range of characters in the...
and KirshenbaumKirshenbaumKirshenbaum, sometimes called ASCII-IPA or erkIPA, is a system used to represent the International Phonetic Alphabet in ASCII. This way it allows typewriting IPA-symbols by regular keyboard. It was developed for Usenet, notably the newsgroups sci.lang and alt.usage.english...
. - In leetLeetLeet , also known as eleet or leetspeak, is an alternative alphabet for the English language that is used primarily on the Internet. It uses various combinations of ASCII characters to replace Latinate letters...
it may substitute for the letter "A". - It is frequently used in typing and text messagingText messagingText messaging, or texting, refers to the exchange of brief written text messages between fixed-line phone or mobile phone and fixed or portable devices over a network...
as an abbreviation for "at". - In online discourse, @ is used by some anarchistsAnarchismAnarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
as a substitute for the traditional circle-A. - The at sign has also been used when spelling out Latina/o (Latin@); this brings together the o and the a, placing neither gender first.
@ is also used on many wireless router
Wireless router
A Wireless router is a device that performs the functions of a router but also includes the functions of a wireless access point and a network switch. They are commonly used to allow access to the Internet or a computer network without the need for a cabled connection. It can function in a wired...
s/modem
Modem
A modem is a device that modulates an analog carrier signal to encode digital information, and also demodulates such a carrier signal to decode the transmitted information. The goal is to produce a signal that can be transmitted easily and decoded to reproduce the original digital data...
s, where a solid green @ symbol indicates the router is connected and a solid amber @ indicates there is a problem.
Computer programming
@ is used in various programming languageProgramming language
A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....
s although there is not a consistent theme to its usage. For example:
- In ALGOL 68ALGOL 68ALGOL 68 isan imperative computerprogramming language that was conceived as a successor to theALGOL 60 programming language, designed with the goal of a...
, the @ symbol is brief form of the at keyword, it is used change the lower bound of an array. For example: arrayx[@88] now refers to an array starting at index 88. - In C#, it denotes "verbatim strings", where no characters are escaped and two double-quote characters represent a single double-quote. As a prefix it also allows keywords to be used as identifiers.
- In Forth, it is used to fetch values from the address on the top of the stack. The operator is pronounced as "fetch".
- In JavaJava (programming language)Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
, it is used to denote annotations, a kind of metadata, since version 5.0 - In modal logicModal logicModal logic is a type of formal logic that extends classical propositional and predicate logic to include operators expressing modality. Modals — words that express modalities — qualify a statement. For example, the statement "John is happy" might be qualified by saying that John is...
, specifically when representing possible worldPossible worldIn philosophy and logic, the concept of a possible world is used to express modal claims. The concept of possible worlds is common in contemporary philosophical discourse and has also been disputed.- Possibility, necessity, and contingency :...
s, @ is sometimes used as a logical symbol to denote the actual world (the world we are 'at'). - In Objective-CObjective-CObjective-C is a reflective, object-oriented programming language that adds Smalltalk-style messaging to the C programming language.Today, it is used primarily on Apple's Mac OS X and iOS: two environments derived from the OpenStep standard, though not compliant with it...
, @ is prefixed to language-specific keywords such as @implementation, and also to form string literals. - In PascalPascal (programming language)Pascal is an influential imperative and procedural programming language, designed in 1968/9 and published in 1970 by Niklaus Wirth as a small and efficient language intended to encourage good programming practices using structured programming and data structuring.A derivative known as Object Pascal...
, @ is the "address of" operator (it tells the location at which a variable is found). - In PerlPerlPerl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
, @ prefixes variablesVariable (programming)In computer programming, a variable is a symbolic name given to some known or unknown quantity or information, for the purpose of allowing the name to be used independently of the information it represents...
which contain arrays. - In PHPPHPPHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...
, it is used just before an expressionExpression (programming)An expression in a programming language is a combination of explicit values, constants, variables, operators, and functions that are interpreted according to the particular rules of precedence and of association for a particular programming language, which computes and then produces another value...
to make the interpreterInterpreter (computing)In computer science, an interpreter normally means a computer program that executes, i.e. performs, instructions written in a programming language...
suppress errors that would be generated from that expression. - In PythonPython (programming language)Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...
2.4 and up, it is used to decorate a function (wrap the function in another one at creation time). - In RubyRuby (programming language)Ruby is a dynamic, reflective, general-purpose object-oriented programming language that combines syntax inspired by Perl with Smalltalk-like features. Ruby originated in Japan during the mid-1990s and was first developed and designed by Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto...
, @ prefixes instance variableInstance variableIn object-oriented programming with classes, an instance variable is a variable defined in a class , for which each object of the class has a separate copy. They live in memory for the life of the object....
s, and @@ prefixes class variableClass variableIn object-oriented programming with classes, a class variable is a variable defined in a class of which a single copy exists, regardless of how many instances of the class exist.A class variable is the opposite of an instance variable...
s. - In Scala, it is used to denote annotations (as in Java), and also to bind names to subpatterns in pattern-matching expressions.
- In ML, it denotes list concatenation.
- In several xBaseXBasexBase is the generic term for all programming languages that derive from the original dBASE programming language and database formats. These are sometimes informally known as dBASE "clones"...
-type programming languages, like DBASEDBASEdBase II was the first widely used database management system for microcomputers. It was originally published by Ashton-Tate for CP/M, and later on ported to the Apple II and IBM PC under DOS...
, FoxProFoxPro 2FoxPro is a text-based procedurally-oriented programming language and DBMS, originally published by Fox Software and later by Microsoft, for MS-DOS, MS Windows, Apple Macintosh, and UNIX....
/Visual FoxProVisual FoxProVisual FoxPro is a data-centric object-oriented and procedural programming language produced by Microsoft. It is derived from FoxPro which was developed by Fox Software beginning in 1984. Fox Technologies merged with Microsoft in 1992, after which the software acquired further features and the...
or Clipper, it is used to denote position on the screen. For example: @1,1 SAY "HELLO" to show the word "HELLO" in line 1, column 1. - In FoxProFoxPro 2FoxPro is a text-based procedurally-oriented programming language and DBMS, originally published by Fox Software and later by Microsoft, for MS-DOS, MS Windows, Apple Macintosh, and UNIX....
/Visual FoxProVisual FoxProVisual FoxPro is a data-centric object-oriented and procedural programming language produced by Microsoft. It is derived from FoxPro which was developed by Fox Software beginning in 1984. Fox Technologies merged with Microsoft in 1992, after which the software acquired further features and the...
, also is used to indicate explicit pass by reference of variables when calling procedures or functionsSubroutineIn computer science, a subroutine is a portion of code within a larger program that performs a specific task and is relatively independent of the remaining code....
(but it's not an addressMemory addressA digital computer's memory, more specifically main memory, consists of many memory locations, each having a memory address, a number, analogous to a street address, at which computer programs store and retrieve, machine code or data. Most application programs do not directly read and write to...
operatorOperator (programming)Programming languages typically support a set of operators: operations which differ from the language's functions in calling syntax and/or argument passing mode. Common examples that differ by syntax are mathematical arithmetic operations, e.g...
).
Gender-neutrality in Spanish and Portuguese
In PortuguesePortuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, as well in other West Iberian languages
West Iberian languages
West Iberian is a branch of the Romance languages which includes Castilian, Ladino, the Astur-Leonese group , and the modern descendants of Galician-Portuguese...
where many words end in '-o' when in the masculine gender
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
and end '-a' in the feminine, '@' can be used as a gender-neutral
Gender-neutral pronoun
A gender-neutral pronoun is a pronoun that is not associated with any gender. It designates two distinct grammatical phenomena, the first being pronouns/periphrastics that have been assigned nontraditional meanings in modern times out of a concern for gender equity, and the second being genderless...
substitute for the default 'o' ending, which some advocates of gender-neutral language-modification
Gender-neutral language
Gender-neutral language, gender-inclusive language, inclusive language, or gender neutrality is linguistic prescriptivism that aims to eliminate reference to gender in terms that describe people...
feel indicates implicit linguistic disregard for women. These languages do not possess a neutral gender and the masculine forms are also used traditionally when referring to groups of mixed or unknown sex. The at-sign is intended to replace the desinence '-o', including its plural form '-os', due to the resemblance to a digraph of an inner letter 'a' and an outer letter 'o'.
As an example of the '@' being used for gender-inclusive purposes, we can consider the Spanish and Portuguese word amigos. When the word represents not only male friends, but also female ones, the proponents of a gender-inclusive language replace it with amig@s. In this sense, amigos would be used only when the writer is sure the group referred to is all-male. Usage of amigas is the same in traditional and such new forms of communication. Alternative forms for a gender-inclusive at-sign would be the slash sign
Slash (punctuation)
The slash is a sign used as a punctuation mark and for various other purposes. It is now often called a forward slash , and many other alternative names.-History:...
(amigos/as) and the circle-A (amigⒶs), maybe as a kind of "bisexual digraph". More about it in Satiric misspelling.
The Real Academia Española
Real Academia Española
The Royal Spanish Academy is the official royal institution responsible for regulating the Spanish language. It is based in Madrid, Spain, but is affiliated with national language academies in twenty-one other hispanophone nations through the Association of Spanish Language Academies...
disapproves the use of the at-sign as a letter. Many Portuguese and Spanish speakers may also consider this usage degrading. Some argue it is just more cultural imperialism
Cultural imperialism
Cultural imperialism is the domination of one culture over another. Cultural imperialism can take the form of a general attitude or an active, formal and deliberate policy, including military action. Economic or technological factors may also play a role...
. Others that there is no established pronunciation, although there is at least one proposal in this sense. Português Com Inclusão de Gênero (Portuguese With Inclusion of Gender) recommends that Spanish and Portuguese speakers pronounce the at-sign as ɔ, for /aˈmiɡɔ/. This [ɔ] is the vowel sound between "feminine" a (/aˈmiɡa/) and "masculine" o (/aˈmiɡo/).
Portuguese With Inclusion of Gender (see Gender-neutrality in Spanish and Portuguese
Gender-neutrality in Spanish and Portuguese
Two of the ten most widely spoken languages, Portuguese and Spanish, are similar to a degree of considerable mutual intelligibility, spoken and written. Orthographically, phonetically and syntactically they are very similar in many repects...
) has also other proposals, including a lower case at-sign '@', since the original sign is as big as an upper-case letter.
Other
- In (especially English) science and technical literature, @ is used to describe the conditions under which data are valid or a measurement has been made. E.g. the density of saltwater may read d = 1.050 g/cm³ @ 15°C (read "at" for @), density of a gas d = 0,150 g/L @ 20°C, 1 bar, or noise of a car 81 dB @ 80 km/h (speed).
- @ is also sometimes used (e.g. in articles about missing persons, obituaries, brief reports) to denote an alias after a person's proper name; for instance: "John Smith @ Jean Smyth" (a possible abbreviation of aka).
- In chemical formulae, @ is used to denote trapped atoms or molecules. For instance, La@C60 means lanthanumLanthanumLanthanum is a chemical element with the symbol La and atomic number 57.Lanthanum is a silvery white metallic element that belongs to group 3 of the periodic table and is the first element of the lanthanide series. It is found in some rare-earth minerals, usually in combination with cerium and...
inside a fullereneFullereneA fullerene is any molecule composed entirely of carbon, in the form of a hollow sphere, ellipsoid, or tube. Spherical fullerenes are also called buckyballs, and they resemble the balls used in association football. Cylindrical ones are called carbon nanotubes or buckytubes...
cage.
- In MalagasyMalagasy languageMalagasy is the national language of Madagascar, a member of the Austronesian family of languages. Most people in Madagascar speak it as a first language as do some people of Malagasy descent elsewhere.-History:...
, @ is an informal abbreviation for the prepositional form amin'ny.
- In geneticsGeneticsGenetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
, @ is the abbreviation for locusLocus (genetics)In the fields of genetics and genetic computation, a locus is the specific location of a gene or DNA sequence on a chromosome. A variant of the DNA sequence at a given locus is called an allele. The ordered list of loci known for a particular genome is called a genetic map...
, as in IGL@IGL@Immunoglobulin lambda locus, also known as IGL@, is a region on human chromosome 22 that contains genes for the lambda light chains of antibodies .- Function :...
for immunoglobulin lambda locus.
- In the Koalib languageKoalib languageKoalib is a Niger–Congo language in the Heiban family spoken in the Sudan. The Koalib Nuba, Turum, and Umm Heitan ethnic groups speak this language....
of SudanSudanSudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...
, @ is used as a letter in ArabicArabic languageArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
loanwords. The Unicode ConsortiumUnicode ConsortiumThe Unicode Consortium is a non-profit organization that coordinates the development of the Unicode standard. Its stated goal is to eventually replace existing character encoding schemes with Unicode and its standard Unicode Transformation Format schemes, claiming that many of the existing...
rejected a proposal to encode it separately as a letter in UnicodeUnicodeUnicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
, but SIL InternationalSIL InternationalSIL International is a U.S.-based, worldwide, Christian non-profit organization, whose main purpose is to study, develop and document languages, especially those that are lesser-known, in order to expand linguistic knowledge, promote literacy, translate the Christian Bible into local languages,...
uses Private Use Area code points U+F247 and U+F248 for lowercase and capital versions.
"Commercial at" in other languages
In most languages other than English, @ was less common before email became widespread in the mid-1990s, although most typewriterTypewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces...
s included the symbol. Consequently, it is often perceived in those languages as denoting "The Internet", computerization, or modernization in general.
- In ArabicArabic languageArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, it is at spelled آتْ (using the English pronunciation). - In ArmenianArmenian languageThe Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The language is also widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora...
, it is "shnik" (շնիկ) which means puppy. - In AzeriAzerbaijani languageAzerbaijani or Azeri or Torki is a language belonging to the Turkic language family, spoken in southwestern Asia by the Azerbaijani people, primarily in Azerbaijan and northwestern Iran...
, it is at (using the English pronunciation). - In BasqueBasque languageBasque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
, it is "a bildua" (wrapped a). - In BelarusianBelarusian languageThe Belarusian language , sometimes referred to as White Russian or White Ruthenian, is the language of the Belarusian people...
, it's called "сьлімак" ("helix", "snail") - In BosnianBosnian languageBosnian is a South Slavic language, spoken by Bosniaks. As a standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect, it is one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina....
, it is "ludo a" ("crazy a"). - In BulgarianBulgarian languageBulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
, it is called кльомба ("klyomba", means nothing else) or маймунско а (maymunsko a "monkey A"). - In CatalanCatalan languageCatalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
, it is called 'arrova' (which means a unit of measure), or 'ensaïmadaEnsaimadaThe Ensaïmada is a pastry product from Majorca, Spain. It is a common cuisine eaten in most former Spanish territories in Latin America and the Philippines, which has been continuously made and eaten for a very long time. The first written references to the Majorcan ensaïmada date back to the 17th...
' (because of the similar shape of this food speciality) - In Chinese
- In mainland ChinaMainland ChinaMainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
, it is quan A (圈A), meaning "circled A / enclosed AEnclosed AEnclosed A or circled Latin A is a typographical symbol. It is an "A" within a circle, and it occurs alongside many other enclosed alphanumerics.-Uses:...
" or hua A (花A), meaning "lacy A". Sometimes as xiao laoshu (小老鼠), meaning "little mouseMouseA mouse is a small mammal belonging to the order of rodents. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse . It is also a popular pet. In some places, certain kinds of field mice are also common. This rodent is eaten by large birds such as hawks and eagles...
". Nowadays, for most of China's youth, it is at (using the English pronunciation). - In TaiwanTaiwanTaiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, it is xiao laoshu (小老鼠). - In Hong KongHong KongHong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
and MacauMacauMacau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
, it is at (using the English pronunciation).
- In mainland China
- In CroatianCroatian languageCroatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
, it is most often referred to by the English word at. Informally, it is called a manki, coming from the local pronunciation of the English word, monkey. Note that the Croatian word for monkey, majmun, is not used to denote @. - In CzechCzech languageCzech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
, and SlovakSlovak languageSlovak , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages .Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by 5 million people...
, it is called zavináč, which is an abbreviation of zavinuté A, meaning "voluted A". Most of people, not knowing the origin, are connecting it with (rollmopsRollmopsRollmops are pickled herring fillets, rolled into a cylindrical shape around slices of onion, pickled gherkin, or green olive with pimento. Rollmops can be served held together with one or two small wooden skewers....
), which are also called zavináč. - In DanishDanish languageDanish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
, it is snabel-a ("(elephant's) trunk-a"). - In DutchDutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, it is called apenstaartje ("(little) monkeyMonkeyA monkey is a primate, either an Old World monkey or a New World monkey. There are about 260 known living species of monkey. Many are arboreal, although there are species that live primarily on the ground, such as baboons. Monkeys are generally considered to be intelligent. Unlike apes, monkeys...
-tailTailThe tail is the section at the rear end of an animal's body; in general, the term refers to a distinct, flexible appendage to the torso. It is the part of the body that corresponds roughly to the sacrum and coccyx in mammals, reptiles, and birds...
"). - In EsperantoEsperantois the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887...
, it is called ĉe-signo ("at" – for the email use, with an address pronounced zamenhof ĉe esperanto punkto org), po-signo ("each"—refers only to the mathematical use) or heliko ("snail"). - in EstonianEstonian languageEstonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...
, it is also called at, meaning "@". - In FaroeseFaroese languageFaroese , is an Insular Nordic language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 25,000 Faroese people in Denmark and elsewhere...
, it is kurla (sounds "curly"), hjá ("at"), tranta and snápil-a ("(elephant's) trunk-a"). - In FinnishFinnish languageFinnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
, it was originally called taksamerkki ("fee sign") or yksikköhinnan merkki ("unit price sign"), but these names are long obsolete and now rarely understood. Nowadays, it is officially ät-merkki, according to the national standardization institute SFS; frequently also spelled "at-merkki". Other names include kissanhäntä, ("cat's tail") and miukumauku ("miaow-meow"). - In FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, it is arrobase or arrobe or a commercial (though this is most commonly used in French-speaking Canada, and should normally only be used when quoting prices; it should always be called arobase or, better yet, arobas when in an email address), and sometimes a dans le rond (a in the circle). Same origin as SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, which could be derived from ArabicArabic languageArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, ar-roub. In France, it is also common (especially for the younger generations) to say "at" (using the English word) when spelling out an email address. - In GeorgianGeorgian languageGeorgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad...
, it is "at" (using the English pronunciation), spelled ეთ–ი(კომერციული ეთ–ი). - In GermanGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, it sometimes used to be referred to as Klammeraffe (meaning "spider monkeySpider monkeySpider monkeys of the genus Ateles are New World monkeys in the subfamily Atelinae, family Atelidae. Like other atelines, they are found in tropical forests of Central and South America, from southern Mexico to Brazil...
"). Klammeraffe refers to the similarity of @ to the tail of a monkey grabbing a branch. Lately, it is mostly called at just like in English - In Greek, it is most often referred to as papaki (παπάκι), meaning "duckling," due to the similarity it bears with comic character designs for ducks.
- In Greenlandic, and Inuit language, it is called aajusaq meaning "a-like" or "something that looks like a"
- In Hebrew, it is colloquially known as shtrudelStrudelA strudel is a type of layered pastry with a — most often sweet — filling inside, often served with cream. It became well known and gained popularity in the 18th century through the Habsburg Empire....
(שטרודל). The normative term, invented by The Academy of the Hebrew Language, is krukhit (כרוכית), which is a Hebrew word for strudel. - In HindiHindiStandard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
, it is "at" (using the English pronunciation). - In Hungarian, it is called kukac ("worm, maggot").
- In IcelandicIcelandic languageIcelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...
, it is referred to as "at merkið ("the at-sign") or "hjá", which is a direct translation of at. - In IndonesianIndonesian languageIndonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....
, it is usually read et. Variations exist – especially if verbal communication is very noisy – such as: a bundar/a bulat (meaning "circleCircleA circle is a simple shape of Euclidean geometry consisting of those points in a plane that are a given distance from a given point, the centre. The distance between any of the points and the centre is called the radius....
A"), a keong ("snailSnailSnail is a common name applied to most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells in the adult stage. When the word is used in its most general sense, it includes sea snails, land snails and freshwater snails. The word snail without any qualifier is however more often...
A"), and (very rarely) a monyet ("monkeyMonkeyA monkey is a primate, either an Old World monkey or a New World monkey. There are about 260 known living species of monkey. Many are arboreal, although there are species that live primarily on the ground, such as baboons. Monkeys are generally considered to be intelligent. Unlike apes, monkeys...
A"). - In ItalianItalian languageItalian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, it is chiocciola ("snailSnailSnail is a common name applied to most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells in the adult stage. When the word is used in its most general sense, it includes sea snails, land snails and freshwater snails. The word snail without any qualifier is however more often...
") or a commerciale, sometimes at or ad. - In Japanese, it is called attomāku (アットマーク, "at mark"). The word is a wasei-eigoWasei-eigoare Japanese pseudo-Anglicisms: English constructions not used in the English-speaking world or by native English speakers, but that appear in Japanese. This should not be confused for foreign words gairaigo, which generally refer to words from European languages, especially American English...
, a loan word from the English language, or GairaigoGairaigoGairaigo is Japanese for "loan word" or "borrowed word", and indicates a transliteration into Japanese. In particular, the word usually refers to a Japanese word of foreign origin that was not borrowed from Chinese, primarily from English. Japanese also has a large number of loan words from...
, referring to foreign loan words in general. It is sometimes called narutoNaruto, Tokushimais a city in Tokushima Prefecture, Japan.In the quinquennial census of 2010, the city had a population of 61,522 . With a total area of the population density is 454 persons per km².The city was founded on March 15, 1947....
, because of Naruto whirlpools or food (NarutomakiNarutomakior is a type of kamaboko, or cured fish surimi produced in Japan. Each slice of naruto has a pink or red spiral pattern, which resembles the Naruto whirlpools in the Naruto Strait between Awaji Island and Shikoku in Japan.-Usage:...
). - In KazakhKazakh languageKazakh is a Turkic language which belongs to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages, closely related to Nogai and Karakalpak....
, it is officially called айқұлақ ("moon's ear"), sometimes unofficial as ит басы ("dog's head"). - In KoreanKorean languageKorean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
, it is called golbaeng-i (골뱅이; bai top shells), a dialectal form of whelkWhelkWhelk, also spelled welk or even "wilks", is a common name used to mean one or more kinds of sea snail. The species, genera and families referred to using this common name vary a great deal from one geographic area to another...
. - In KyrgyzKyrgyz languageKyrgyz or Kirgiz, also Kirghiz, Kyrghiz, Qyrghiz is a Turkic language and, together with Russian, an official language of Kyrgyzstan...
, it is officially called маймылча ("monkey"), sometimes unofficial as собачка ("doggy"), and et (using the English pronunciation). - In LatvianLatvian languageLatvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language...
, it is pronounced same as in English, but, since in Latvian [æ] is written as "e" not "a" (as in English), it's sometimes written as et. - In LithuanianLithuanian languageLithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...
, it is eta (equivalent to English at but with Lithuanian ending) - In LuxembourgishLuxembourgish languageLuxembourgish is a High German language spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 320,000 people worldwide speak Luxembourgish.-Language family:...
it used to be called Afeschwanz (monkey-tail), but due to widespread use it is now pronounced 'at' like in English. - In [FYROM], it is called мајмунче (pronun. my-moon-cheh, little monkey)
- In MalayMalay languageMalay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...
, it is called alias when it is used in name, di when it is used in email. It is also commonly used to abbreviate atau which means or or either. - In Morse Code, it is known as a "commat," consisting of the Morse code for the "A" and "C" run together as one character: (·--·-·). The symbol was added in 2004 for use with email addresses, the only change since World War IWorld War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. - In NorwegianNorwegian languageNorwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
, it is officially called krøllalfa ("curly alphaAlpha (letter)Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 1. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Aleph...
" or "alpha twirl"). (The alternate alfakrøll is also common, but is not its official name.) Sometimes Snabel a, @'s Danish name, (trunk a, as in elephant's trunk) is used. Commonly, people will call the letter [æt] (as in English), particularly when giving their email address. - In PersianPersian languagePersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
, it is at (using the English pronunciation). - In The Philippines, at means 'and' in TagalogTagalog languageTagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila...
which could be used interchangeably in colloquial abbreviations. Ex: Magluto @ kumain. Cook and eat. - In PortuguesePortuguese languagePortuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, it is called 'arroba' (from the Arabic arrub). The word arroba is also used for a weight measure in Portuguese. While there are regional variations, one arroba is typically considered as representing approximately 32 pounds, 14.7 kg, and both the weight and the symbol are called arroba. In Brazil, cattleCattleCattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...
are still priced by the arroba – now rounded to 15 kg. (This occurs because the same sign was used to represent the same measure.) - In PolishPolish languagePolish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
, it is called, both officially and commonly małpa (monkey); sometimes also małpka (little monkey). - In RomanianRomanian languageRomanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
, it is called colloquially (iliterately) Coadă de maimuţă (monkey-tail) or "a-rond". The latter is commonly used and it comes from a-roundCircleA circle is a simple shape of Euclidean geometry consisting of those points in a plane that are a given distance from a given point, the centre. The distance between any of the points and the centre is called the radius....
from its shape, but that is nothing like the mathematical symbol "A-rond" (rounded A). Some even call it "aron". Recommended reading: "at" or "la".
- In RussianRussian languageRussian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, it is most commonly sobaka (собака) (dog). The name "dog" has come from Soviet computers DVK where the symbol had a short tail and similarity to a dog.
- In SerbianSerbian languageSerbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
, it is called лудо А / ludo A (crazy A), мајмунче / majmunče (little monkey) or мајмун / majmun (monkey) - In Slovenian, it is called afna (little monkey)
- In SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
-speaking countries it denotes a pre-metric unit of weight. While there are regional variations in SpainSpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
and MexicoMexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
it is typically considered to represent approximately 25 pounds (11.5 kg), and both the weight and the symbol are called arroba. It has also been used as a unit of volume for wine and oil. - In SwedishSwedish languageSwedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
, it is called snabel-a ("(elephant's) trunk-a"), kanelbulle (Cinnamon rollCinnamon rollA cinnamon roll is a sweet pastry served commonly in Northern Europe and North America. It consists of a rolled sheet of yeast dough onto which a cinnamon and sugar mixture is sprinkled over a thin coat of butter...
) or simply "at" like in the English language. - In Swiss GermanSwiss GermanSwiss German is any of the Alemannic dialects spoken in Switzerland and in some Alpine communities in Northern Italy. Occasionally, the Alemannic dialects spoken in other countries are grouped together with Swiss German as well, especially the dialects of Liechtenstein and Austrian Vorarlberg...
, it is commonly called Affenschwanz ("monkey-tail"). - In ThaiThai languageThai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...
, it is commonly called at like English. - In TurkishTurkish languageTurkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
, it is et (using the English pronunciation). Also called as güzel a (beautiful a), özel a (special a), salyangoz (snail), koç (ram), kuyruklu a (a with a tail), çengelli a (a with hook) and kulak (ear). - In UkrainianUkrainian languageUkrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
, it is commonly called et ("at"), other names being ravlyk (равлик) (snail), slymachok (слимачок) (little slug), vukho (вухо) (ear) and pesyk (песик) (little dog). - In UzbekUzbek languageUzbek is a Turkic language and the official language of Uzbekistan. It has about 25.5 million native speakers, and it is spoken by the Uzbeks in Uzbekistan and elsewhere in Central Asia...
, it is called kuchukcha which means doggy, a direct translation of this term from RussianRussian languageRussian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
. - In VietnameseVietnamese languageVietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
, it is called a còng (bent a) in the North and a móc (hooked a) in the South.
- In WelshWelsh languageWelsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
, it is sometimes known as a malwen or malwoden (a snail).
On the final episode of the second series of BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
show The Museum of Curiosity
The Museum of Curiosity
The Museum of Curiosity, formerly titled The Professor of Curiosity, is a comedy panel game on BBC Radio 4 that was first broadcast on 20 February 2008. It stars John Lloyd as "The Professor of Ignorance at the University of Buckingham" and owner of the fictional "Museum of Curiosity"...
, recorded in London on 19 May 2009 and broadcast on 8 June 2009, author Philip Pullman
Philip Pullman
Philip Pullman CBE, FRSL is an English writer from Norwich. He is the best-selling author of several books, most notably his trilogy of fantasy novels, His Dark Materials, and his fictionalised biography of Jesus, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ...
added the category of "things that were invented for one purpose, but are used for another" to the museum's collection. As an example, Pullman referred to @. The host of the show, QI
QI
QI is a British comedy panel game television quiz show created and co-produced by John Lloyd, hosted by Stephen Fry, and featuring permanent panellist Alan Davies. Most of the questions are extremely obscure, making it unlikely that the correct answer will be given...
creator John Lloyd
John Lloyd (writer)
John Hardress Wilfred Lloyd CBE is a British comedy writer and television producer. He is the great nephew of John Hardress Lloyd.-Early life and career:...
, noted that in other languages the symbol has a proper name, and pledged on QI series A DVD to support widespread use of the term "Astatine" to refer to the symbol. This name was chosen as the chemical element astatine
Astatine
Astatine is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol At and atomic number 85. It occurs on the Earth only as the result of decay of heavier elements, and decays away rapidly, so much less is known about this element than its upper neighbors in the periodic table...
has the chemical symbol "At".
Unicode variants
Besides the in its regular size, there is also a UnicodeUnicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
character for a small at-sign: , located in the Small Font Variants code chart Depending on the font type this small at-sign can have the size of lower-case letter, but it is often smaller than that. In addition, the "full-width ASCII variants" code chart has .
Culture and art
- The upsurge of use of the at sign in society has made it one of the more recognizable symbols of the Internet. The Museum of Modern ArtMuseum of Modern ArtThe Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
went so far as to admit the at sign to its architecture and design collection. - There is a character named @ in the book Syrup by Max BarryMax BarryMax Barry is a contemporary Australian author. He also maintains a blog on various topics, including writing, marketing and politics...
.
External links
- "Daniel Soar on @", London Review of BooksLondon Review of BooksThe London Review of Books is a fortnightly British magazine of literary and intellectual essays.-History:The LRB was founded in 1979, during the year-long lock-out at The Times, by publisher A...
, Vol. 31 No. 10, 28 May 2009 - ascii64 – the @ book – free download (creative commons) – by patrik sneyd – foreword by luigi colani (11/2006)
- A Natural History of the @ Sign The many names of the at sign in various languages
- Linguist's view
- Gender-inclusive use of @ in Portuguese (and in Spanish too): 2 – A língua e o sexo (2 – Tongue and Sex), Quartos (quarters) I, II and III, one of the subjects of Controversial Numbers project
- Where it's At: names for a common symbol Article at World Wide Words
- UK Telegraph Article: Chinese parents choose to name their baby "@"