octothorpe
J. Katherine Rossner
ookpik at MINDSPRING.COM
Thu Jun 29 16:44:31 UTC 2000
At 12:08 PM 6/29/00 -0400, Mark Mandel wrote:
>I have read that the name was given by a telephone company (Bell, at the time)
>engineer who needed a name for the damn thing as a glyph -- a character, apart
>from any significance that might be attached to it -- and combined "octo-" for
>the number of "arms" it has with "Thorpe", his own surname. But I can't give a
>cite.
I've read (possibly in William Safire's column?) that the "thorpe" part
refers not to a surname but to the "fields" into which the octothorpe is
divided. Though that doesn't make sense, unless the central square is
omitted...
Katherine
--
Ye knowe ek, that in forme of speche is chaunge
Withinne a thousand yere, and wordes tho
That hadden pris, now wonder nyce and straunge
Us thinketh hem, and yit they spake hem so.
- Chaucer, "Troilus and Criseyde"
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