The Symbol With Too Many Names
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SOURCES & FURTHER READING
Number Sign Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.o...
Number Sign Britannica: www.britannica...
What’s The #’s Real Name?: www.dictionary...
The Symbol Made Famous By Twitter: www.pixartprin...
Hash On OED: www.oed.com/di...
Hash Etymology: www.etymonline...
Why Aren’t Hashtags Monetised?: www.quora.com/...
What's your favourite name for this symbol?
I call this the hashtag normally but sharp when it comes to music. I mean, I wouldn't write a piece in A hashtag.
In British medical short hand it means fracture. I don’t know how it came to mean this, but goes back to at least the 70’s. So #NOF = fractured neck of femur ( broken hip)
i call it Raute or Doppelkreuz.
yes German has other names and not as much as English
I grew up calling it "jogo da velha", which roughly translates to tic-tac-toe
Blank noughts & crosses board!
To me, the symbol changes names depending on context. For example,
-If it's on a telephone, it's a pound sign.
-If it's used in a numerical list, it's shorthand for "number."
-If it's used before a word or phrase, it's a hashtag.
-If it's used after a letter, it's pronounced "sharp" (whether it be music notation or in names for programming languages).
If I see a piece with a name 'hashtag a' then I won't be playing in 'a sharp' but in 'a' but I will also see a list of other music in the 'key of a.'
That sounds reasonable.
Incorrect. Those having worked in the telecom industry know that this is an octothorpe on a telephone keypad.
And if it's in a Chinese sentence, it's not #, it is the Chinese character 井
It represents checkmate in chess notation.
(e.g. "Nxf7#")
Re: calling # the 'hex': In the 80's a specific use case of the # sign as the "number sign" in early coding was as a prefix to a number in hexadecimal rather than decimal. When read aloud, the # would be read as "Hex" to indicate the same thing.
I was using assembly language and machine code on the 6502 processor starting in the mid 70s before I got an Apple ][ computer which used this processor. I was reading 8080 code before that, and both used # as hexadecimal. Its digits are 0123456789ABCDEF so 16 bits would store 4 digits 0000 to FFFF
#00CC00 is a color hex number that uses #
We Filipinos call it the "hash".
That can get hairy; I've seen $, & and &H all used to mark hex numbers, as well as C's 0x.
@@fnjesusfreakTrue, different programming languages (and even different assemblers) use different notation.
Hashtag isn't the symbol, it's the kind of tag, which includes the hash symbol at the beginning. When we read "hashtag winning" from #winning, we are not reading the symbol as the word "hashtag", we are labeling the whole thing as a "hashtag" (which is a tag labeled with the hash symbol) and then providing the word or phrase it includes as a tag
hashtag can be a name for the symbol. people on roblox get messages censored/"tagged" using #s, also called "tags"
In medicine it is used as an abbreviation of fracture. A “#NOF” is fractured neck of femur or “broken hip”
It's still the pound sign to me. I know hashtag is probably more common now, but I still hear it as "pound" on phone menus. I don't think I've ever called a number and gone through a menu where it told me to push "hashtag" to choose a specific option.
'Hashtag' is literally an internet creation - a tag that is denoted by the hash symbol. It's still called a hash in the UK but as US keyboards don't have use for the £ symbol, it was allocated to # with the same ASCII code. So # became "Pound" and it's stuck in general use. Modern keyboards have different layouts so it's no longer the case though.
If I'm talking about the symbol itself, I call it "number sign". If it's denoting a tag in a social media post, I call it "hashtag". If it's in code (e.g., #include ), I call it "hash".
Over here in America I have NEVER heard Octothorpe in my LIFE. Autocorrect doesn’t like the word either, keeps putting a red line under it lol
Checked on my tablet - doesn't get recommended for quick entry, but doesn't get red-lined as a misspelling.
If you had worked in the telecom industry then you would know this as an octothorpe on a telephone keypad.
I often have to correct spellcheckers.
I've heard of octothorpe, but only because I'm a Unix-head.
I had many family members who worked for "Ma Bell". To THEM it WAS an "octothorpe", To everyone else "pound" (for phone use), Otherwise, "number sign".
1:22 The % sign was also used to denote "c/o", as in "care of", in mailing addresses, back when typewriters were commonplace.
Ex.:
NAME
% OTHER NAME
173 SOMEWHERE PLACE
NOWHERE, LB 10000
I'm British, in my '70s, and went to primary school in the '50s/early '60s. The short form for pound weight was always "lb". The short form for number was No (with a cocked-up - i.e. superscript 'o'). My maternal grandparents had had a grocery, and still had the scales, till, and various other items from the shop. There was no '#' symbol to be seen anywhere. The scales were labelled "lb". Shops sold things by the "lb", not by the '#'.
I would therefore speculate that the '#' symbol being used for "pound weight" , or "number", is American as those usages were not encountered in normal life by people from my grandparents' (19C) age.
I became involved in Computing when I went to university in 1971. This is when I encountered the '#' symbol, which was universally verbalised "hash". I went on the teach Computer Science at a Russell Group university, and the symbol was always the hash. Some students might initially call it something else, such as 'sharp', or 'pound sign', but they were soon corrected. (Since retirement I have been learning piano and guitar, and see that the sharp symbol is different from the hash symbol, so calling '#' "sharp" would be wrong.
"hashtag" is a display of ignorance by computer users whose focus is on antisocial media.
I like "hash" because it's the shortest and most violent
"hex" is shorter, but definitely one of the worse names due to not being very exclusive to that symbol.
Me too, but also cos it makes me think of fried potato. =:o}
A couple of years ago, I (in my 20's) had a prof (in her 30's) call it a hashtag when I used it for the number meaning. An older student (late 40's) mentioned it means number too. I have heard it as a pound, number, hashtag, and sharp sign.
In Spanish this symbol was always called "numeral" as far as I was aware, so when people started calling it "hashtag" unironically and outside of the context of social media I was very confused.
"Hash" is the name for the symbol, "hashtag" is only the name for the smybol with corresponding word(s) attached (eg #pinkshoes), as in a tag made using a hash.
In over thirty years working with telephone service, I used to enjoy finding and reading old documentation regarding standards and practices (BSPs) but I had never heard of an octothorpe! Everyone called it the pound sign. Also, knowing how Bell Labs operated, I’m sure the ‘thorpe’ has a more scientific meaning. Interesting video, thanks!
I personally usually call it the number sign, but in the northeastern US, I'd say the most common name aside from hashtag is "pound sign." That's what every automated phone menu will call it.
I think it is incorrect to state that the name "pound sign" is not used very much anymore. It's used by both construction workers who use it as a shorthand for pounds, and also by telephone operators who instruct people to press the pound key. That's the name I would label it generally, and from its history of being originally used for the pound by weight, it seems the most accurate name for it. As another commenter said, however, its name should vary based on its usage. It's a different but identical symbol whether it's used in music, numerical lists, internet key phrases, or on a telephone.
It's called the well sign, well, by Hanji/Kanji/Hanja users anyway. It's because it looks like the character for a well where you go fetch water from, 井.
A guy from Poland here: I grew up hearing that this symbol is called "krzyżyk" (cross) and "hasz" (hash).
In Hungary it is traditionally called “dual cross” which i always found weird growing up, as it is more like four crosses
The German language includes:
#1 Rautezeichen (Diamond sign)
#2 Doppelkreuz (Double cross)
#3 Gartenzaun (Garden fence)
Back in school I learned the English names
#4 Pound / number sign (for number pads)
#5 Hashtag (for social networks)
#6 Sharp (for music Notation)
I grew up with this called a pound sign on the phone. Now I know where that came from. I played violin; there it was a sharp. It was also shorthand for number. Now it’s a hashtag on social media. It has many names for many different functions.
# is really giving main character vibes, he is The Chosen One
In Hebrew we call it sulamit, which means small ladder. I find this name very cute
In medical terminology shorthand # means fracture, like " 92yo M pt L hip #, would be a 92 year old male patient with a left hip fracture.
Using # for groups was literally stolen from IRC which used it to label chat rooms in the late 80s
In the Netherlands we mostly refer to it as "fence" and "number", love the video
@NameExplain
Thank you so much for shouting out your two books; I had no idea this was available. Add to cart ✔️
Bell Telephone (here in Canada) used to (and probably still) calls it the pound sign. That is what I grew up knowing it as. Or the number sign.
Interesting how LB turned into #. The same evolution, I dare say, can be found in the medical shorthands Dx (Diagnosis), Sx (Surgery), Rx (Prescription), Tx (Treatment) , etc.
I was taught it was called the number sign in the 1960's. When phones stopped being rotary, it became the pound key on the telephone. When Twitter became a thing, it is now hashtag. For me, it has been 3 different things. All in one lifetime, and I'm not dead yet.
In Brazil we officially call it "tic tac toe". Before social media, everybody call it that way, now we just say hashtag as well
Why no crosshatch.
Given that in British English, crosshatch was **by far** the most common way to refer to this symbol prior to the rise of "hashtag" this seems a huge oversight.
Its also a huge oversight as the term "hash" to refer to it is almost certainly an abbreviation from crosshatch.
That was my thought exactly. Before all the 'hashtag' business began, I had a couple of terms for the '#' symbol depending upon context: crosshatch was the common or garden term to refer to it appearing on a touchpad phone or a keyboard whilst programming, and 'number' if it was being used as a substitute for the word number. I possibly used 'hash' as a shortening of crosshatch when in conversation about programming languages, but I don't recall using it extensively.
The only other name I commonly heard it being called was 'gate' when I was talking to US colleagues about the telephone keypad button.
English guy here, born mid-1960s. I don't recall ever hearing it called a cross-hatch, but then I don't think I encountered much before we started using computers at school (1980), where it was called hash.
We call it "grate" - "решітка" in regards of dialing up a phone number. And hash tag for social media
you wouldn't be able to patent the hashtag, because it's just a single text character. Patents apply to things. you can't even patent a recipe let alone a single character of text. that would be more of a copyright issue but you can't even copy right it because it's a single text character. And even if you meant to say patent the idea of using a hashtag followed by words without spaces as a search tag, you wouldn't be able to do that as it's too simple and there's nothing really unique about it. it can easily be recreated by anyone with a keyboard of some form or even just a pen or pencil, and, as you have said, it has already been in use in this manner prior to twitter, so it's in the public domain and you can't copyright or patent something that already exists or existed(meaning you can't copyright or patent something just because it fell out of common usage and hasn't been heard of for centuries, though if no one knew about it's prior existence, a patent or copyright may be issued unless someone else could prove that it had already existed)
The # is also used in URL's to specifically point out a place on the page where you can have #summary #references and such and that was used well before any social media also so I doubt a patent application would have stood a chance to succeed anyway ;)
In the US its still very common to hear "pound sign", but only in the context of like phone call menus.
I just call it a hash, because it's pretty ambiguous so it works in most contexts, and can be taken as a shortening to the "hashtag" word, meaning most people understand what I mean when I say Hash
In chess notation # stands for checkmate.
Also in chess + indicates check, which maybe sort of makes sense as it means something additional. But on the other hand, why does + stand for addition? Why does $ mean dollars?
# is simple to write and stands out from other characters. One can use it for whatever one likes and call it by whatever it is used for.
In Spanish we called that simbol "numeral" before social media took over and now everybody calls it "hashtag", saying numeral sounds old now haha
61 year old American here. Even though "octothorpe" was invented by an American for the Bell Telephone for telephone use, I always called it the "pound sign" when referring to phone use, Otherwise it's a "number sign".
I have always called it the pound sign. When people started calling it the Hash Tag, I was super confused. I am still confused. I still call it the pound sign and don't plan on changing that.
There’s a similar looking character in China/Japan. ‘井’ this symbol represents (by looking from above) a water well.
In Brazil we call tic-tac-toe "old womans game" but most people call # "hashtag", still old people call it "old womans game"
The pound sterling is called the pound as it was originally refering to a poind of gold at the Bank of England.
In France it's called "Dièse" For music or on phone pads and "hashtag"
In Hong Kong (and possibly other Chinese-speaking regions) we call this a “well” symbol, because we have this Chinese character “井” that means… well, a well.
In Italy it's called cancelletto
In turkey it was called just square "kare". Because its use outside of telephones was limited.
While the term hashtag has soared in popularity, I still see it as the pound sign. American phone and keypad systems (like entry keypads) still call it a pound sign, and it *might* outlast or at least keep a strong foothold alongside hashtag.
In finnish this is sometimes called ”risuaita” which translates to something like twig-fence.
In Dutch, it's called a little fence, or hekje.
When it appeared on my father's mobile phone, back in the early 80s we just called it the double cross. #
I always called it "the Pound sign" growing up. Good to know my parents were based.
# for hex comes from it being used to prefix rgb(a) color codes in hexadecimal
RUclips does indeed have #tags. You can even add them to a video in the uploading process.
I call it hash, because that's what the voice activated menus on phones used to call it.
Interesting, in the country I live in, Portugal, it also has several meanings and words for it:
1# Cerquilha - comes from "Cerca", or fence (which funnily fits in with pig pen which you thought to call it) and "Ilha", or Island, apparently this second part came to be because of phonetics. The word Cerquilha in this case is the most common word used for it in mathematics, although funnily in portuguese we actually tend to use the superscript of O and A, as in º and ª, we have both since portuguese is a gendered language, fun fact, portuguese and spanish keyboards, and maybe more, also have keys for this and they are called the ordinal indicators.
2# Cancela - which means gate, but again it's just another word to describe the symbol, maybe from less educated people.
3# Antífen - which I couldn't find any reason why it's also called this.
4# Cardinal - this is the word usually used to describe the symbol in programming and phone dials, pretty much like the word octothorpe in english.
5# Octótropo - this one is funnily also used in portuguese, but apparently very sparsely, and I believe it just came from translating the aforementioned english word.
I'm wondering if it became octothorpe because the inventor flashed subconsciously on the name Oglethorpe. Maybe he had a Georgian connection. I tend to use "pound sign".
We call it 井字號 in Mandarin. It is literally "井-shape mark". 井 means "well", but it looks like #.
In the USA, pound is probably the most common name for this, alongside hashtag. We use it as a number sign a lot, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard some say “hit the number sign key”. Never heard of octothorm, must be a Britishism…
한국에서는 한자井과 비슷하다고 “우물 정”으로 부릅니다. 물론 “샵”으로도 부르죠.
In Korea, we call it in many time as “U-mul(a well, 井’s meaning) Jeong(井’s reading sound)” mark, which is similar with hanja(Chinese character) 井. We also call it as “sharp”.
In Denmark it was called a garden gate. Sadly, now hashtag seems to have taken over.
Edit: On the phone it's simply called a square.
Don't get me started on what < > are called.
can you make a smoother animation of the development of “LB” to “#”
To me, it's been the pound sign since I was a kid. But then I'm rather old (over 70).
'OCTOTHORPE'
Never heard octothorpe before. We always just called that button on the phone the pound sign.
I call it the pound cuz on phone calls, they always say "or press pound" n my mom likes using that as a sign for random sign needing things. Unless I need to shorten number for some reason, usually math related. Then I write the symbol instead of trying to shorten the word some other way. But I also know n use it as hashtag cuz I used a lot of social media apps when I was in my teens n had to figure out how to use those for that (still rarely use them in that manner tho. Especially since I don't use most social media anymore). N I never think of it as the sharp symbol even tho I played violin throughout most of my schooling n saxophone for a lot of it (not to mention chior) cuz I generally just blurred it as a tiny symbol on the page that's boxish. Now imma watch the rest of this n be reminded of the ways I'm forgetting about that I do use it but don't easily recall.
Edit: forgot to add I am american (usa northeast). That might be important context. Not sure.
Personally I call it either the sign of a comment or a preprocessor directive
That explains why it's sometimes called the pound sign still.
Growing up in the 80's, we called it the Tic Tac Toe sign.
in Spanish we call it “gato” it is also how they call tic-tac-toe but it literally translates to “cat”.
£ is a Pound Sterling - Literally one pound in weight of Sterling Silver ... so it is of the same root, but needed to be more specific ...
In the 70's west coast US this means Number
As in #5
In Indonesia we call it "Pagar", which means "Fence" in English.
I’m a gen-Z-er and I would probably call it a number sign if it were just by itself. I would probably expect most of my friends to do the same as well. Being in school, it’s seen and used a lot to represent the word number, and I don’t honestly think hashtags are used super commonly
I like the name Octothorpe the best. It has the same vibe as ampersand (&) and pilcrow (¶)
Being a piano player, I thought of this as a sharp sign.
Do people really call the symbol “hashtag”??
I thought they call the symbol hash, and when it is together with a word, the whole thing is the hashtag (the post is tagged with a word marked by the hash symbol).
"tic tac toe board"
3:39 A Name Theory!
fyrkant (swedish for ”square”)
It's called "fyrkant" (square) in Swedish.
In Norwegian it's called firkant, square
I call this simple a Hash but I have heard Americans call it Pound.
programmer: octothorp/hex
baker: pound
telephone: octothorp
artist: hex
social media: hashtag
only ways i could think of.
Its fence here
So no one has ever called # a waffle?
Interrobang is one of the coolest symbols‽‽
[#] is loona’s best album
TIL why they put LB after a weight to symbolize pounds.
#hashtag #interesting #cool #etymology #linguistics #myparentsleftme #help #theysaidtheyjustsearchedformilk #tomfoolery
as a programmer, i have many names for it, such as "hash", "pound", "", or "just kidding":
#!/usr/bin/python -> "hash bang usr bin python" / "shebang usr bin python"
#define struct union -> "pound define struct union"
# don't change, just works -> "don't change, just works"
C# -> "good language, just kidding"
"we actually know who invented it ... already used for smaller groups"
so he didn't invent it, he just popularized it.
yeah i caught that too lol
Yep, it was used on Internet Relay Chat to identify chat channels starting in the early 90s. Not sure if it was used as a social identifier anywhere earlier than that, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did.
Invented the specific usage*
"Invented" in the same sense that Columbus "discovered" the Americas.
It was also used as linking to parts of pages in HTML syntax
one German name for this sign is "Doppelkreuz" (double-cross) wich is also quite fitting and as literal as almost all other German words.
I have heard somebody call it "Lattenzaun" because it seems to resemble the look of a picket fence.
Love the sound of both of these
We do a similar thing in Hungarian but our word for it is "kettős kereszt" (dual cross).
Doppelkreuz souds very confusing to musicians, because there is a symbol in music called Doppelkreuz (Double Sharp) and looks like 𝄪 just like a x and means the same as two sharps. and the single sharp (Kreuz) ♯ looks like the Hashtag.
It’s called „Raute“(rhombus) in telephone tech.
The telephone instruction voice person taught my USA generation to press the "pound sign".
And in my English speaking, not-USA country the telephone always called it "hash". It always irked me as a child/teenager the way the yanks always called it "pound". (It kinda still does, but these days I realise how unreasonable that feeling really is)
His name is Mr. Pound and every evening he takes Mrs. Pound home to Poundtown. #Poundtown
In Canada it was also referred to as pound in automated telephone menus.
I'm Canadian and it's also called "pound" when used on the phone.
At about 3 years old, my daughter started to call it “cartoon bruise”.
You aint even hit puberty yet wdym a daughter😭😭
Archie's temple. Definitely.
@@youhatennnnnnnnnndrink what is bro yapping about 🗣️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥🔥
I always find calling it a "hashtag" to be annoying. The hashtag is the combined construct of '#' and a word; it is a word specially marked as a keyword for tagging whatever contains it. It is a tag marked with a hash, hence hashtag. But once you call the '#' itself a "hashtag" you end up with the apparently recursive definition that a hashtag (the marker) is a hashtag (the symbol) followed by a keyword.
I wanted to comment this exact thing as well. I hoped it would be brought up in the video. It can't be hashtag without the tag part of it. The # is still a hash sign even if it's used in a hashtag. I think this misnomer of calling the sign a hashtag comes from the way you pronounce a hashtag.
hashtagtag
a hashtag tags tags making hashtagtags
yeah I can live with that
Correct. In the context of a hash tag, # is a hash and #hashtag is a hash tag. A hash tag is the symbol plus the word. Not the symbol itself.
@@WilliamLindblomno thanks to Twitter popularizing that term, "hashtag." I thought it was a hash brown with a tag/tail piece, no?!
I couldn't agree more.
I'm a musician (not professionally) so to me it's "sharp". But in my profession it's used to mean "quantity" so I should call it "number".
It isn’t a sharp, a sharp sign has two strictly vertical lines and two diagonal horizontal lines, whereas the octothorpe is the other way around.
@@TheModicaLiszt But that association led to the language name C# pronounced "C-sharp" nevertheless.
In unicode, they are definitely different code points: U+0023 "NUMBER SIGN" and U+266F "MUSIC SHARP SIGN".
@@MattMcIrvin Fun "fact": C# is secretly C++. Take C++, make the two plus signs diagonally adjacent, extend the lines until they cross, and it becomes C#.
@@vibaj16 wouldnt that be C++++ ? :P
@@WacKEDmaN no, still only two plusses
In Brazil, before the rise of Twitter, the most common name for the telephone # key certainly was "jogo-da-velha". Jogo da velha is the Brazilian Portuguese name for tic-tac-toe, but literaly translates to "old woman's game".
I guess that key was pretty much only seen in telephones and # has never had a wide spread use with the meaning of "number" in the Portuguese language.
Here in Chile it's sometimes called "gato" for the same game
The one name it *_can't_* logically have is 'hashtag', because a hashtag needs the 'tag' part as well, like #Pedantry.