Look up @ in Wiktionary, the free dictionary

A commercial at, @, also called an at symbol, an at sign, or just at, is a symbolic abbreviation for the word at. It is assigned to Unicode code point U+0040 (ASCII character 64). Its formal name comes from its commercial use in invoices, as in, "7 widgets @ £2 ea. = £14". It is also known as: about; ampersat or asperand (compare ampersand); amphora; ape; arobase; atgry; cabbage; cat; cinnabun or cinnamon bun; commercial symbol; cyclone; each; mercantile symbol; rose; schnable; scroll or scroll-a; snail; strudel; these; vortex; whirlpool; or whorl. Some of these are based on specialized usage, others are visual descriptions, and atgry (plural atgrynge) is a recurring joke proposed on Usenet as the answer to a longstanding linguistic riddle [1]. File links The following pages link to this file: Alchemy Ada Adventure Apartheid Abbreviation Airplane (disambiguation) Abduction Alder Anno Domini Air ABC (disambiguation) Ad hominem Afghan AD Aether Aba Anus Affinity Ai AZ Albinism Accumulator Binary Chess Computer Carbon Cow Cricket (disambiguation) Collection Convex Culture Ceramics Case Creation Crow (disambiguation... Wiktionary is a sister project to Wikipedia intended to be a free wiki dictionary (thesaurus, lexicon therein) in every language. ... In computing, Unicode is the international standard whose goal is to provide the means to encode the text of every document people want to store in computers. ... There are 95 printable ASCII characters, numbered 32 to 126. ... Widget is a general-purpose term, or placeholder name, for any unspecified device, including those that have not yet been invented. ... The roman ampersand on the left is stylised, but the italic one on the right is clearly similar to et. This article is about the roman character, ampersand, to learn about the group called Ampersand, see Team_Ampersand An ampersand (&) is a logogram representing the word and. ... A strudel is a type of Austrian pastry. ... Usenet is a distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP network of the same name. ... A riddle is a puzzle, consisting of text with a question to answer. ...

Modern uses

The symbol's most familiar modern use is in e-mail addresses (sent by SMTP), as in jdoe@example.com ("the user named jdoe working at the computer named example in the com domain"). Ray Tomlinson is credited with the introduction of this use in 1972. This idea of user@host is seen in many other tools and protocols as well: for example, the command ssh jdoe@www.example.com would try to establish a ssh connection to the box with the hostname www.example.com using the username jdoe. An e-mail address identifies a location to which e-mail can be delivered. ... Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is the de facto standard for email transmission across the Internet. ... Raymond Tomlinson (born 1941) is a programmer who first used the @ symbol for sending email in 1972. ... In computing, Secure shell or SSH is both a computer program and an associated network protocol designed for logging into and executing commands on a networked computer. ... A hostname (occasionally also, a sitename) is the unique name by which a computer is known on a network. ...

In the programming language Perl, the symbol prefixes variables which contain arrays, as opposed to scalar values (indicated with '$') and hash tables / associative arrays ('%'). If the code were to be treated as a sentence, this prefix would be the equivalent of a determiner, so "@animals" might be read as "these animals". A programming language or computer language is a standardized communication technique for expressing instructions to a computer. ... Programming Republic of Perl logo Perl, also Practical Extraction and Report Language (a backronym, see below), is an interpreted procedural programming language designed by Larry Wall. ... In computer science and mathematics, a variable is a symbol denoting a quantity or symbolic representation. ... In computer programming, an array, also known as a vector or list, is one of the simplest data structures. ... The concept of a scalar is used in mathematics, physics, and computing. ... Alternate uses: Dollar (disambiguation) The dollar is the name of the official currency in several countries, dependencies and other regions (see list below). ... In computer science, a hash table is a data structure that speeds up searching for information by a particular aspect of that information, called a key. ... In computing, an associative array, also known as a map, lookup table, or dictionary, is an abstract data type very closely related to the mathematical concept of a function with a finite domain. ... A percentage is a way of expressing a proportion, a ratio or a fraction as a whole number, by using 100 as the denominator. ... Determiners are words which quantify or identify nouns. ...

In the IRC protocol, @ is the symbol for a channel operator. IRC also uses the user@host form (often preceded by nick!) for identifying and banning users. In this case the user@ part was originally an ident response and the host part was a reverse dns name from the user's IP. However, most modern IRC networks provide some mechanism for users to hide their real reverse dns hostname and/or for admins/privileged users to pick one arbitrarily. Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a form of instant communication over the Internet. ... An IRC channel operator (commonly abbreviated to op) is a person that runs an IRC channel on a given IRC network. ... The Ident Protocol, specified in RFC 1413, is an internet server system that helps identify the user of a particular TCP connection. ...

The @ character is also used for typing in some Romance languages as a politically correct substitute for the masculine "o" in mixed gender groups and in cases where the gender is unknown. For example, the Spanish word "amigos," which could either mean male and female "friends" or all male "friends" would be replaced with "amig@s." The character is intended to resemble a mix of the masculine letter "o" and the feminine "a". The usefulness of this is debated; in Spanish the masculine grammatical gender may include both males and females, while the feminine gender is exclusive to females, and there is no neuter gender. Some advocates of gender-neutral language-modification feel that using the male grammatical gender as a generic gender is sexist against women. Many Spanish speakers feel that this use of the "@" is degrading to their language, and some allege that it is an example of cultural imperialism. This construction is generally only used in informal writing. The Romance languages, also called Romanic languages or New Latin Languages, are a subset of the Italic languages, specifically the descendants of the Latin dialects spoken by the common people in what is known as Latin Europe (Italian/Portuguese/Spanish Europa latina, French Europe latine, Romanian Europa latină) as Vulgar... Political correctness is the alteration of language to redress real or alleged injustices and discrimination or to avoid offense. ... Spanish is a relatively inflected language, with a two-gender system and about fifty conjugated forms per verb, but no noun declension and limited pronominal declension. ... Gender-neutral language (gender-generic, gender-inclusive, non-sexist, or sex-neutral language) is language that attempts to refer neither to males nor females when discussing an abstract or hypothetical person whose sex cannot otherwise be determined. ... Cultural imperialism is the practice of promoting the culture or language of one nation in another. ...

History

A commonly accepted theory is that the symbol is derived from the Latin preposition "ad" (which means "to" rather than "at"). The @ is supposed to be a ligature developed by transcribing monks. However no document showing this usage has been presented. Latin is the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more letterforms are written or printed as a unit. ...

A more recent idea concerning the history of the @ symbol has been proposed by Giorgio Stabile, a professor of history in Rome. He claims to have traced the symbol back to the Italian Renaissance in a Venetian mercantile document signed by Francesco Lapi on May 4, 1536. The document talks about commerces with Pizarro and in particular the price of an @ of wine in Peru. The symbol is still called arroba in Spanish and Portuguese, and it represents a unit of weight with the same name (1 arroba = 25 U. S. pounds), an old (Antonio Nebrjia, Salamanca, 1492) Spanish/Latin dictionary translates arroba with amphora. Under this view, the symbol was used to represent one amphora, which was a unit of weight or volume based upon the capacity of the standard terracotta jar. The symbol came into use with the modern meaning "at the price of" in northern Europe. History Forums - History is Happening -Discuss all historical topics, as well as current events, in an academic setting. ... City motto: Senatus Populusque Romanus – SPQR (The Senate and the People of Rome) Founded 21 April 753 BC mythical, 1st millennium BC Region Latium Mayor Walter Veltroni (Democratici di Sinistra) Area  - City Proper  1290 km² Population  - City (2004)  - Metropolitan  - Density (city proper) 2,546,807 almost 4,000,000 1... By Region: Italian Renaissance Northern Renaissance -French Renaissance -German Renaissance -English Renaissance The Italian Renaissance was the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century following the Middle Ages. ... May 4 is the 124th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (125th in leap years). ... // Events February 2 - Spaniard Pedro de Mendoza founds Buenos Aires, Argentina. ... Francisco Pizarro ( 1475–June 26, 1541) was a Spanish conquistador, conqueror of the Inca Empire and founder of the city of Lima. ... Salamanca: Plaza Mayor Salamanca (population 156,006 (2002)) is a city in central Spain, the capital of the province of Salamanca in the autonomous community of Castile-Leon. ... Events January 2 - Boabdil, the last Moorish King of Granada, surrenders his city to the army of Ferdinand and Isabella after a lengthy siege. ... Amphoræ on display in Bodrum Castle, Turkey Pottery An amphora is a type of ceramic vase with two handles, used for the transportation and storage of perishable goods and more rarely as containers for the ashes of the dead or as prize awards. ... Weight is the force exerted upon an object by virtue of its position in a gravitational field. ... Volume (also called capacity) is a quantification of how much space an object occupies. ... Terra cotta is a hard semifired waterproof ceramic clay used in pottery and building construction. ...

"Commercial at" in other languages

• In Dutch, it is called apenstaartje ("little monkey-tail").
• In Spain, Portugal and Brazil, it denotes a weight of about 25 pounds. The weight and the symbol are called arroba. (In Brazil, cattle is still priced by the arroba -- now rounded to 15 kg)
• The French name is arobase or a commercial, and sometimes escargot ("snail"). Other names include queue de singe (monkey-tail) and a dans le rond (a in the circle).
• In Modern Hebrew, it is colloquially known as Shtrudel (שטרודל). The normative term, invented by the Academy of the Hebrew Language, is kruhit (כרוכית), which is a Hebrew word for Shtrudel.
• In Italian it is chiocciola ("snail") or chiocciolina ("little snail").
• In German, it is Klammeraffe, meaning "clinging monkey", or kaufmännisches A, meaning "commercial A".
• In Danish, it is either grisehale ("pig's tail") or snabel-a ("(animal's) trunk-a").
• In Finnish, 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 ("the miaow sign").
• In Korean, it is golbaeng-i (골뱅이), a dialectal form of daseulgi (다슬기), a small freshwater snail with no tentacles.
• In Lithuanian, it is eta (equivalent to English at but with Lithuanian ending)
• In Mandarin Chinese, it is xiao laoshu (小老鼠), meaning "tiny mouse", or laoshu hao (老鼠號, "mouse sign").
• In Persian it is at (using the English pronunciation).
• In Polish, officially it is called atka, but commonly małpa (monkey) or małpka (little monkey).
• In Romanian, it is Coadă de maimuţă (monkey-tail) or "a-rond"
• In Russian, sobachka (собачка) (doggy)
• In Swedish, it is called snabel-a ("(elephant's) trunk-a")
• In Slovenian, it is called afna (little monkey)
• In Hungarian, it is called kukac (worm or maggot).
• In Czech and Slovak, it is called zavináč (rolled pickled herring).
• In Norwegian, it is officially called krøllalfa ("curly alpha" or "alpha twirl"). (The alternate alfakrøll is also common.)
• In Catalan it is called arrova or ensaïmada, the roll brioche tipical from Majorca.
• In Japanese it is called "at mark" (アットマーク) a combination of English words, known as wasei-eigo.
• In Turkish it is at (using the English pronunciation).
• In Greek it is called παπάκι (small duck).
• In Esperanto, it is called ĉe-signo ("at"), po-signo ("each" -- refers only to the mathematical use) or heliko ("snail").

Cynomolgus Monkey at Batu Caves, Malaysia Monkeys, Mori Sosen (1749-1821) A monkey is any member of two of the three groupings of simian primates. ... This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Officially the pound is the name for at least three different units of mass: The pound (avoirdupois). ... Binomial name Bos taurus Linnaeus, 1758 Cattle are domesticated ungulates, a member of the subfamily Bovinae of the family Bovidae. ... KG, Kg or kg may indicate: A Kampfgeschwader, a bomber squadron of the former German Luftwaffe Basketball Player Kevin Garnett An abbreviation for kilogram (always kg) Knight of the Garter, a British decoration Kongo language (ISO 639 alpha-2) An abbreviation for konig or king Kwansei Gakuin University (Japan) [1... In French cuisine, escargot is a dish of cooked land snails. ... Giant African Snail (Achatina fulica) The name snail applies to most members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells. ... The Modern Hebrew language is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. ... The Academy of the Hebrew Language (האקדמיה ללשון העברית) is the Supreme Foundation for the Science of the Hebrew Language, that was founded by the Israeli Government in 1953. ... Giant African Snail (Achatina fulica) The name snail applies to most members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells. ... Cynomolgus Monkey at Batu Caves, Malaysia Monkeys, Mori Sosen (1749-1821) A monkey is any member of two of the three groupings of simian primates. ... Binomial name Sus scrofa Linnaeus, 1758 Synonyms The domestic pig is usually given the scientific name Sus scrofa, though some authors call it , reserving for the wild boar. ... This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... This article is on all of the Northern Chinese dialects. ... Feral mouse Feral mouse A mouse is a mammal that belongs to one of numerous species of small rodents in the genus Mus and various related genera of the family Muridæ (Old World Mice). ... Persian (فارسی), (local name in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan: Fârsi), Pârsi (older local name, but still used by some speakers), Tajik (a Central Asian dialect) or Dari (Another local name in Tajikistan, Afghanistan), is a language spoken in Iran,Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Bahrain. ... Alpha (uppercase Α, lowercase α) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. ... Catalan (Català, Valencià) is a Romance language understood by as many as 12 million people in portions of Spain, France, Andorra and Italy, although the majority of active Catalan speakers are in Spain. ... Majorca (Mallorca in Catalan and Spanish (sometimes also encountered in English), from Latin insula maior, later Maiorica major island) is one of the Balearic Islands (Catalan: Illes Balears, Spanish: Islas Baleares), which are located in the Mediterranean Sea and are a part of Spain. ... Wasei-eigo (和製英語 wasei eigo, lit. ... Esperanto flag Esperanto is the most widely spoken constructed international language. ...

References

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (FOLDOC) is an on-line, searchable encyclopedic dictionary of computing subjects. ... GNU logo The GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL or simply GFDL) is a copyleft license for free content, designed by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for the GNU project. ...

External links

• A Natural History of the @ Sign: Names in various language
• Linguist's view
• Article about the history of @ Contains more names in other languages