pound signs

[ROOD DAVID S]

This is way out of the realm of Siouanist discussions, but since we're
naming the # sign in various cultures, I'm reminded of a problem I had
programming my German cellphone.  I was supposed to do something and then
press the "raute Taste" (Taste - key, button), which experimentation
finally showed me to be the pound sign. "Raut" refers to either a rhomboid
in technical geometry terms, or the diamond in a deck of cards.  Neither
of those meanings struck me as right for #; does that say something about
the way we match and categorize abstract symbols in various cultures, or
am I just dumb about such things?


David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

On Thu, 13 Jun 2002, Anthony Grant wrote:

> What you guys call the pound sign, the noughts and crosses sign (I know what tic-tac-toe is but I've spent a lot of time in the US and most Brits would just be puzzled) is called the Hash sign here.  Probably from French hache 'axe'.  It's fairly recent in use in Britain: we wouldn't have understood what the sign in (say) 'Riot in Cell Block #9' meant 20 years ago.  Now that we have it, I wonder how we ever lived without it.
>
> I customarily use $ for the posatalveolar sibilant in postings to people I think will understand.  British keyboards don't have the cent sign, though, which is a pity as I've long liked it as a quick way of signalling /ts/ in the way that Mayanists use it.
>
> Anthony
>