Why was the "@" symbol decided upon for e-mail addresses?

Answer 1

From Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%40

The symbol's most familiar modern use is in e-mail addresses (sent by SMTP), as in [e-mail] ("the user named ‘jdoe’ working at the computer named ‘example’ in the ‘com’ domain"). Ray Tomlinson is credited with the introduction of this use in 1972. This idea of user@host is seen in many other tools and protocols as well: for example, the command ssh [e-mail] tries to establish a ssh connection to the computer with the hostname www.example.com using the username jdoe.

In the programming language Perl, the symbol prefixes variables which contain arrays, as opposed to scalar values (indicated with '$') and hash tables / associative arrays ('%'). If the code were to be treated as a sentence, this prefix would be the equivalent of a determiner, so "@animals" might be read as "these animals".

In the IRC protocol, @ is the symbol for a channel operator. IRC also uses the user@host form (often preceded by nick!) for identifying and banning users. In this case the user@ part was originally an ident response and the host part was a reverse dns name from the user's IP. However, most modern IRC networks provide some mechanism for users to hide their real reverse dns hostname and/or for admins/privileged users to pick one arbitrarily.

The @ character is also used as an alternative political spelling for typing in some Romance languages as a gender-neutral substitute for the masculine "o" in mixed gender groups and in cases where the gender is unknown. For example, the Spanish word "amigos," which could either mean male and female "friends" or all male "friends" would be replaced with "amig@s." The character is intended to resemble a mix of the masculine letter "o" and the feminine "a". The usefulness of this is debated; in Spanish the masculine grammatical gender may include both males and females, while the feminine gender is exclusive to females, and there is no neutral gender. Some advocates of gender-neutral language-modification feel that using the male grammatical gender as a generic gender indicates an implicit linguistic disregard for women. Many Spanish speakers feel that this use of the "@" degrades their language, and some allege that it is an example of cultural imperialism. This construction is generally only used in informal writing. There is no established pronunciation of this writing. Alternative forms would be amigos/as and amigⒶs using the circle-A of anarchism.

In a similar fashion, Pokémon fans often write "Lati@s" to denote Latios and Latias.
Look up @, at sign in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

In most roguelike games (such as NetHack), the "@" sign is used to denote the player character (or more generally, any human).

The "@" sign is also used sometimes (for example in articles relating to missing persons, obituaries, or brief reports) to denote an alias after a person's proper name, for instance: "John Smith @ Jean Smyth".

@ may sometimes be used to represent a schwa, as the actual schwa character "ə" may be difficult to produce in many computers. It is used in this capacity in the ASCII IPA or Kirshenbaum IPA scheme.

In online discourse, the "@" sign is used by some anarchists as a substitute for the traditional circle-A.

It is frequently used in Leet as a substitute for the letter A.

In the MMORPG game MapleStory, players who buy and sell items use long strings of "@" signs to heighten their chat bubbles and make their messages easier to see. The "@" sign is very wide compared to other ASCII characters, making it practical for this purpose.

In Malagasy, @ is an informal abbreviation for amin'ny.

In the programming language PHP, the @ sign can be placed just before a function to make the interpreter suppress errors that would be generated when using that function.

Answer 2

Jesus did not tutor scripture on my own. and far of what hes stated and did is element of our -- Catholic -- unwritten historic past. the recent testomony isn't a transcript of each second of Jesus's existence or ministry. that's the tale of the fondation and early formation of the catholic churhc. The Gosples are the speivifc trainng that Jesus first bishops recived at his hand -- He hadn selections them trains them appoints a frontrunner, ordains him is crucified rises style the ded and ordains the finest. Int he period in-between instuting the scaraments. The gosples are more effective and outline highlighten the most iimportant spects of Jesus's mission which replaced into to found His kingdom in the international, including teh instution of the sacraments. UNderstood in this contxt sripture makes suited experience. outside of this context it makes no experience and all sorts of errenous notions and missunderstandings are produced. This si why -- the context -- it truly is really undemanding for a catholic to communicate a protestant particualrly the sola -scrupture or "fundies" becasue all of us recognize the trutht and the actual context so we've the actuality with us, and may easliy straineout pretend recommendations brough about with the help of each indiviudal inperpting the owrds for themselves. So no no longer something may be further fro the actuality Jesu gave scripture that's best and positively exalted palce yet he did not exhibit the idea of sola sripture or he could have wrote himslef, he could have spent his time writng and under no circumstances fouodning he church. Sola scripture is a kind of idolatry which negates the actul jesus, aND UINDEED a own REALTIONSTHP WITH HIM that is in straightforward words available by ability of the sacrametns.. It elavtes the bible to the sataus of God. certainly many call it the word of god at the same time as truly weknow that jesus is the word of god and the bible includes the words of god.

Answer 3

the @ symbol was used as an abbreviation for the word amphora. Amphora was the unit of measurement that determined the amount held by the large terra cotta jars that were used to ship grain, spices and wine. Giorgio Stabile, an Italian scholar, discovered the @ symbol in a letter written in 1536 by a Florentine trader named Francesco Lapi. It seems likely that some industrious trader saw the @ symbol in a book transcribed by monks using the symbol and appropriated it for use as the amphora abbreviation. This would also explain why it became common to use the symbol in relation to quantities of something.

Answer 4

While I agree that it was a poor choice because of it's position on the keyboard, it made perfect sense at the time. You see the "@" symbol means AT. So when I email you [e-mail] the e-mail will be directed to your name for the account at Yahoo.com. It makes perfect sense.

I am so happy that I can answer a question for one of the honorable Yahoo Answers Points leaders. Have a great day.

Answer 5

@ stands for "at". So your email-id reads
Its a logical choice.

Answer 6

at o.O

Answer 7

@ = at

For instance, person123-at-yahoo.com.
[e-mail].

See?