At sign explained

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The at sign, , is an accounting and invoice abbreviation meaning "at a rate of" (e.g. 7 widgets @ £2 per widget = £14),[1] now seen more widely in email addresses and social media platform handles. It is normally read aloud as "at" and is also commonly called the at symbol, commercial at, or address sign.

The absence of a single English word for the symbol has prompted some writers to use the French arobase,[2] Occitan arròba and Aragonese, Catalan, Portuguese and Spanish arroba, or to coin new words such as ampersat[3] and asperand,[4] or the (visual) onomatopoeia strudel,[5] but none of these have achieved wide use.

Although not included on the keyboard of the earliest commercially successful typewriters, it was on at least one 1889 model[6] and the very successful Underwood models from the "Underwood No. 5" in 1900 onward. It started to be used in email addresses in the 1970s, and is now routinely included on most types of computer keyboards.

History

The earliest yet discovered symbol in this shape is found in a Bulgarian translation of a Greek chronicle written by Constantinos Manasses in 1345. Held today in the Vatican Apostolic Library, it features the @ symbol in place of the capital letter alpha "Α" as an initial in the word Amen; however, the reason behind it being used in this context is still unknown. The evolution of the symbol as used today is not recorded.

It has long been used in Catalan, Spanish and Portuguese as an abbreviation of arroba, a unit of weight equivalent to 25 pounds, and derived from the Arabic expression of "the quarter" (Arabic: الربع pronounced ar-rubʿ).[7] A symbol resembling an @ is found in the Spanish "Taula de Ariza", a registry to denote a wheat shipment from Castile to Aragon, in 1448. An Italian academic, Giorgio Stabile, claims to have traced the @ symbol to the 16th century, in a mercantile document sent by Florentine Francesco Lapi from Seville to Rome on May 4, 1536.[8] The document is about commerce with Pizarro, in particular the price of an @ of wine in Peru. Currently, the word arroba means both the at-symbol and a unit of weight. In Venetian, the symbol was interpreted to mean amphora (Italian: anfora), a unit of weight and volume based upon the capacity of the standard amphora jar since the 6th century. It could also mean “adi” (standard Italian “addì”, i. e. ‘on the day of’) as used on a health pass in Northern Italy in 1667.[9]

Modern use

Commercial usage

In contemporary English usage, @ is a commercial symbol, meaning at and at the rate of or at the price of. It has rarely been used in financial ledgers, and is not used in standard typography.[10]

Trademark

In 2012, "@" was registered as a trademark with the German Patent and Trade Mark Office.[11] A cancellation request was filed in 2013, and the cancellation was ultimately confirmed by the German Federal Patent Court in 2017.[12]

Email addresses

A common contemporary use of @ is in email addresses (using the SMTP system), as in jdoe@example.com (the user jdoe located at the domain example.com). Ray Tomlinson of BBN Technologies is credited for having introduced this usage in 1971.[13] This idea of the symbol representing located at in the form user@host is also seen in other tools and protocols; for example, the Unix shell command ssh jdoe@example.net tries to establish an ssh connection to the computer with the hostname example.net using the username jdoe.

On web pages, organizations often obscure the 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.

Social media

On some social media platforms and forums, usernames may be prefixed with an @ (in the form @johndoe); this type of username is frequently referred to as a "handle".

On online forums without threaded discussions, @ is commonly 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 email, Catherine wants to make Keirsten aware of something, Catherine will start the line to indicate to Keirsten that the following sentence concerns her. This also helps with mobile email users who might not see bold or color in email.

In microblogging (such as on Twitter, GNU social- and ActivityPub-based microblogs), an @ 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. When included as part of a person's or company's contact details, an @ symbol followed by a name is normally understood to refer to a Twitter handle. A similar use of the @ symbol was also made available to Facebook users on September 15, 2009.[14] In Internet Relay Chat (IRC), it is shown before users' nicknames to denote they have operator status on a channel.

Sports usage

In American English the @ can be used to add information about a sporting event. Where opposing sports teams have their names separated by a "v" (for versus), the away team can be written first – and the normal "v" replaced with @ to convey at which team's home field the game will be played.[15] This usage is not followed in British English, since conventionally the home team is written first.

Computer languages

@ is used in various programming languages and other computer languages, although there is not a consistent theme to its usage. For example:

Gender neutrality in Spanish

See main article: Gender neutrality in Spanish.

In Spanish, where many words end in "-o" when in the masculine gender and end "-a" in the feminine, @ is sometimes used as a gender-neutral substitute for the default "o" ending.[41] For example, the word amigos traditionally represents not only male friends, but also a mixed group, or where the genders are not known. The proponents of gender-inclusive language would replace it with amig@s in these latter two cases, and use amigos only when the group referred to is all-male and amigas only when the group is all female. The Real Academia Española disapproves of this usage.[42]

Other uses and meanings

Names in other languages

In many languages other than English, although most typewriters included the symbol, the use of @ was less common before email became widespread in the mid-1990s. Consequently, it is often perceived in those languages as denoting "the Internet", computerization, or modernization in general. Naming the symbol after animals is also common.

Unicode

In Unicode, the at sign is encoded as . The named entity @ was introduced in HTML5.[55]

Variants

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. See, for example, Browns Index to Photocomposition Typography (p. 37), Greenwood Publishing, 1983,
  2. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n10/daniel-soar/short-cuts "Short Cuts"
  3. News: David Bowen . 23 October 2011 . Bits & bytes . The Independent . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20180709013247/https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/bits-bytes-1317440.html . 9 July 2018 . … Tim Gowens offered the highly logical "ampersat" ….
  4. News: Jemima Kiss . 28 March 2010 . New York's Moma claims @ as a design classic . The Observer . 14 December 2016 . 5 March 2017 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170305004857/https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2010/mar/28/moma-asperand-ray-tomlinson-design . live .
  5. Web site: strudel . 2014-11-21 . FOLDOC . 2014-11-29 . https://web.archive.org/web/20141129145120/http://foldoc.org/strudel . live .
  6. http://www.shadycharacters.co.uk/2011/08/the-symbol-part-2-of-2/ "The @-symbol, part 2 of 2"
  7. Web site: arroba . 3 August 2012 . Diccionario de la Real Academia Española . 29 October 2012 . https://web.archive.org/web/20121029023131/http://lema.rae.es/drae/?val=arroba . live .
  8. News: Willan . Philip . 2000-07-31 . Merchant@Florence Wrote It First 500 Years Ago . The Guardian . London . 2010-04-25 . 2022-01-26 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220126032007/https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2000/jul/31/internetnews.internationalnews . live .
  9. https://geschichte-s-h.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Mitteilungen-100.pdf
  10. [Bringhurst, Robert]
  11. German Patent and Trademark Office, registration number 302012038338 .
  12. Bundespatentgericht, decision of 22 February 2017, no. 26 W (pat) 44/14 (online).
  13. Web site: Ray Tomlinson . Ray Tomlinson . The First Email . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20060506003539/http://openmap.bbn.com/~tomlinso/ray/firstemailframe.html . 2006-05-06 . BBN Technologies.
  14. Web site: Tag Friends in Your Status and Posts – Facebook Blog . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20091026120029/http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=109765592130 . 2009-10-26.
  15. For an example, see: http://www.nfl.com/schedules
  16. Web site: Operators – Adobe ActionScript® 3 (AS3) API Reference . 2023-05-12 . help.adobe.com . en-us . 2023-05-12 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230512112456/https://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/operators.html#attribute_identifier . live .
  17. Web site: Ada Reference Manual (Ada 2022). Target Name Symbols . ada-auth.org . 2024-07-16.
  18. van Wijngaarden . A. . 1981-08-16 . Revised Report of the Algorithmic Language Algol 68 . ALGOL Bulletin . Sup 47 . 121, 532 . 0084-6198 . 2023-05-12 . 2023-05-12 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230512112455/https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1064084.1064085 . live .
  19. Web site: Phil Haack . Razor syntax quick reference . 6 January 2011 . 12 January 2013 . 26 January 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220126032007/http://haacked.com/archive/2011/01/06/razor-syntax-quick-reference.aspx/ . live .
  20. Web site: ASP.NET MVC 3: Razor's @: and <text> syntax . 2020-04-30 . weblogs.asp.net . 16 December 2010 . en-US . 2020-07-26 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200726111727/https://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/asp-net-mvc-3-razor-s-and-lt-text-gt-syntax . live .
  21. Web site: assembly – @ sign in assembler? – Stack Overflow . stackoverflow.com . 2021-05-02 . 2021-10-05 . https://web.archive.org/web/20211005220705/https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11214675/sign-in-assembler . live .
  22. Web site: At-rules . 2020-04-30 . MDN Web Docs . en . 2020-05-05 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200505194617/https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/At-rule . live .
  23. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa691090%28v=vs.71%29.aspx 2.4.4.5 String literals
  24. Web site: 2.4.2 Identifiers . 2012-08-16 . 2012-08-10 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120810204003/http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa664670(v=vs.71).aspx . live .
  25. Web site: Attributes – D Programming Language . dlang.org . 2018-06-22 . 2018-12-08 . https://web.archive.org/web/20181208115642/https://dlang.org/spec/attribute.html . live .
  26. Web site: Character Entity Reference Chart . World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) . 2022-02-08 . 2021-02-27 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210227130216/https://dev.w3.org/html5/html-author/charref . live .
  27. Web site: in java what does the @ symbol mean? . 2020-04-30 . Stack Overflow . 2020-07-26 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200726125845/https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31822020/in-java-what-does-the-symbol-mean . live .
  28. Web site: Metaprogramming · The Julia Language . docs.julialang.org . 2023-08-23 . 2023-06-23 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230623204719/https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/metaprogramming/ . live .
  29. Web site: LXSession - LXDE.org . 2020-04-30 . wiki.lxde.org . 2020-07-14 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200714075921/https://wiki.lxde.org/en/LXSession#Settings . live .
  30. Web site: PHP: Error Control Operators – Manual . 2020-04-30 . www.php.net . 2020-05-08 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200508094533/https://www.php.net/manual/en/language.operators.errorcontrol.php . live .
  31. Web site: syntax – What does the "at" (@) symbol do in Python? . 2020-04-30 . Stack Overflow . 2020-04-24 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200424180918/https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6392739/what-does-the-at-symbol-do-in-python . live .
  32. Web site: The S4 object system . 2023-08-18 . adv-r.had.co.nz/ . 2022-12-06 . https://web.archive.org/web/20221206085835/http://adv-r.had.co.nz/S4.html . live .
  33. Web site: Usage of the @ (at) sign in ASP.NET . 2020-04-30 . www.mikesdotnetting.com . 2020-04-04 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200404105645/http://www.mikesdotnetting.com/article/258/usage-of-the-at-sign-in-asp-net . live .
  34. Web site: syntax – What does @@variable mean in Ruby? . 2020-05-05 . Stack Overflow . 2020-07-26 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200726105629/https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5890118/what-does-variable-mean-in-ruby . live .
  35. Web site: Patterns . The Rust Reference . 21 July 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230618030139/https://doc.rust-lang.org/reference/patterns.html#identifier-patterns . 18 June 2023 . live.
  36. Web site: Scala @ operator . 2020-05-05 . Stack Overflow . 2020-07-26 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200726112338/https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2359014/scala-operator . live .
  37. Web site: Visual FoxPro Programming Language Online Help: SET UDFPARMS (Command), or MSDN Library 'How to: Pass Data to Parameters by Reference'. . 18 June 2008 . 2011-02-19 . Microsoft, Inc. . 2012-10-22 . https://web.archive.org/web/20121022193155/http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/z9b11381.aspx . live .
  38. Web site: echo . docs.microsoft.com . 2018-09-11 . 2018-09-11 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180911191929/https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/echo . live .
  39. Web site: Echo - Windows CMD - SS64.com . ss64.com . 2018-09-11 . 2018-09-11 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180911191818/https://ss64.com/nt/echo.html . live .
  40. Web site: Windows PowerShell Language Specification Version 3.0 . Microsoft Download Center . 2013-10-29 . 2022-01-26 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220126032007/https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36389 . live .
  41. Martell-Otero . Loida . Fall 2009 . Doctoral Studies as Llamamiento, or How We All Need to be 'Ugly Betty' . Perspectivas . 84–106.
  42. Web site: Diccionario panhispánico de dudas . «Diccionario panhispánico de dudas» . 2021-04-02 . 2021-04-06 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210406113617/https://www.rae.es/dpd/ . live .
  43. Web site: When to Use the At Symbol (@) in Writing . 10 November 2021 . 11 December 2019 . 10 November 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20211110171325/https://getproofed.com/writing-tips/when-to-use-the-at-symbol-in-writing/ . live .
  44. Chai, Yan . Guo, Ting . Jin, Changming . Haufler, Robert E. . Chibante, L. P. Felipe . Fure, Jan . Wang, Lihong . Alford, J. Michael . Smalley, Richard E. . 1991 . Fullerenes wlth Metals Inside . Journal of Physical Chemistry . 95 . 20 . 7564–7568 . 10.1021/j100173a002.
  45. Web site: IGL immunoglobulin lambda locus [Homo sapiens (human)] ]. 10 November 2021.
  46. Constable, Peter, and Lorna A. Priest (January 17, 2019) SIL Corporate PUA Assignments 5.2a . SIL International . pp. 59–60. Retrieved on July 20, 2020.
  47. Book: Crystal . David . Txtng: the gr8 db8 . 2008 . New York: Oxford University Press . 978-0-19-162340-0 . 131–137 . 2021-11-10 . 2021-11-10 . https://web.archive.org/web/20211110182712/https://books.google.com/books?id=pKBnEGwmtZoC&pg=PA131 . live .
  48. Web site: 2008-02-28. crazyhouse. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20140416133658/http://www.freechess.org/Help/HelpFiles/crazyhouse.html. 2014-04-16. 2014-04-17. FICS Help. Free Internet Chess Server.
  49. News: Alice Rawsthorn . March 21, 2010 . Why @ Is Held in Such High Design Esteem . . live . April 25, 2010 . https://web.archive.org/web/20100324133723/http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/arts/design/22iht-design22.html . March 24, 2010.
  50. http://www.iol.co.za/scitech/technology/at-last-france-has-a-name-for-the-sign-1.98600 "At last, France has a name for the @ sign"
  51. French: ''Orthographe fixée par la Commission générale de terminologie et de néologie'' (Journal officiel du 8 décembre 2002)|italic=unset
  52. Web site: Paola Antonelli . Paola Antonelli . March 22, 2010 . @ at MoMA . Germans, Poles, and South Africans call @ “monkey’s tail” in each different language. . April 5, 2018 .
  53. Web site: April 30, 2004 . Morse '@'; character official as of May 3 . The ARRL Letter . . 23 . 18 . 2012-04-18 . 2011-11-05 . https://web.archive.org/web/20111105113831/http://www.arrl.org/arrlletter?issue=2004-04-30 . live .
  54. Web site: @ belgisini nima uchun "kuchukcha" deb ataymiz? . Xabardor.uz . 26 February 2024 . uz . 20 December 2019.
  55. HTML5 is the only version of HTML that has a named entity for the at sign, see https://www.w3.org/TR/html4/sgml/entities.html ("The following sections present the complete lists of character entity references.") and https://www.w3.org/TR/2014/CR-html5-20140731/syntax.html#named-character-references ("commat;").