LINGUIST List 16.2871
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Wed Oct 05 2005
Media: Washington Post: The @ sign
Editor for this issue: Amy Renaud
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1. Karen
Chung,
Washington Post: The @ sign
Message 1: Washington Post: The @ sign
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Date: 04-Oct-2005
From: Karen Chung <karchungntu.edu.tw>
Subject: Washington Post: The @ sign
The Washington Post Sunday, October 2, 2005; Page B02
Where It's At -- and Where It's Not
By Nancy Szokan
...Of course. With a little imagination, I could see that a slice of
strudel resembles the @ sign that separates user name from host in e-mail
addresses. 'Strudel!' I hoot. Winkie, agreeing that it's funny, later sends
me a list of words that people in other countries have used for the @
symbol -- most of them a lot more entertaining (if less efficient) than our
simple 'at.'
The list, it turns out, came from an online site, Herodios.com, and was
based largely on research done in the early days of e-mail by linguist
Karen Steffen Chung of National Taiwan University. Her lengthy collection
of @-words, as well as some additions from Post foreign correspondents,
shows that while many countries have simply adopted the word 'at,' or call
the symbol something like 'circle A' or 'curled A,' more imaginative
descriptions still hold sway in many places.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/30/AR2005093002082.html
Karen Chung
http://ccms.ntu.edu.tw/~karchung/
http://lists.topica.com/lists/phonetics/
Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics
Applied Linguistics
Lexicography
Sociolinguistics
Writing Systems
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