12.0452 octothorpe = make room!

Humanist Discussion Group (humanist@kcl.ac.uk)
Mon, 22 Feb 1999 22:09:02 +0000 (BST)

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 12, No. 452.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 22:08:01 +0000
From: Francois Crompton-Roberts <F.Crompton-Roberts@qmw.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: eight villages, a.k.a. the octothorpe!

....
> Whilst there seems to be general agreement that octothorp(e) refers to the
> hash, pound, pound sign, number, number sign, sharp, (garden) fence,
> crunch, mesh, hex, flash, grid, pig-pen, tictactoe, scratch (mark),
> (garden) gate, hak, oof, rake, sink, corridor, unequal, punch mark,
> crosshatch (#) (see http://taro.poi.net/unix.html), there is not
> overall agreement on how this character came to be termed the octothorp in
> particular.
....

It's odd that, with our literary connections, nobody mentionned the
use of the # sign in proofreading, to indicate that a space is
needed. I must say that I find the word less than satisfying, but
then I'm one of the old fogies who dislikes mixed-language word
formations; I still don't really approve of "television"...

Francois C-R
F.Crompton-Roberts@qmw.ac.uk

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Humanist Discussion Group
Information at <http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
=========================================================================