Note added 4/12/99: I have put "number sign" and "star" in italics relating to the fact that they are the official telephone company names for # and *. We might have to come to grips with this issue since these characters are the only non-numerics on the universal keyboard.
Glyph | Modern name | Archaic name |
! | BANG | Exclamation Point |
? | EH | Question Mark |
# | HASH or CRUNCH or WAFFLE | Number sign (dumb) Pound sign (dumber) Octothorpe |
$ | BUCK | Dollar sign, Currency symbol |
| | BAR | Vertical Bar |
% | FOO
(If you have a BAR, you need a FOO to go with it.) | Percent sign |
^ | CAP (as in Dunce Cap) | Caret |
& | PRETZEL | Ampersand ("and, per se and") |
@ | STRUDEL | At sign |
* | SPLAT | Star, Asterisk |
( | FROWN | Left Parenthesis |
) | SMILE | Right Parenthesis |
_ | SKID | Underscore |
; | WINK | Semicolon* |
/ | SLASH | OK, so it's a Slash already |
And now the big one ... | ||
\ | OOPS | Backslash |
Please help: There are still glyphs that need to be liberated, notably the pairs of brackets [ ] { } < > . There are also names that are looking for a glyph to associate with, like frammis, weenie, and frob. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. Drop a note to: ebear@zianet.com (Eric Bear Albrecht) Thanx.
P.S. I've heard that in Holland they call @ "monkey tail". Cool.
Meanwhile, check out my home page.