What is the official name and origin of the "@" (at symbol)?

Answer 1

The @ symbol (pronounced in English as the word "at") has the official name "commercial at" under the ANSI/CCITT/Unicode character systems. It is often referred to informally as the "at symbol", the "at sign", or just "at".

The origin of the symbol is debated, but is most likely a cursive form of ā, or possibly à (the French word for "at"). It was most commonly used as an abbreviation in accounting and commercial invoices, in statements such as "7 widgets @ £2 ea. = £14". More recently, the @ symbol has become ubiquitous due to its use in email addresses.

Other names in English for the symbol include: about; ampersat; asperand (not to be confused with ampersand); ape; apothrope; arroba; arobase; cabbage; cat; cinnabun or cinnamon bun; commercial symbol; cyclone; each; mercantile symbol; schnable; scroll or scroll-a; snail; strudel; vortex; whirlpool or whorl.[1],[2],[3],[4] Some of these are based on specialized usage, others are visual descriptions, and atgry (plural atgrynge) is a recurring joke proposed on Usenet as the answer to a pair of longstanding linguistic riddles — the singular atgry is a fourth word that ends in gry, along with angry, hungry, and gry; and the plural atgrynge provides a word that rhymes with orange.[5]

The @ sign may have evolved from the Norman French "à"

@ appears to be the cursive form of ā, an abbreviation of an unknown word beginning with a. In medieval European manuscripts, abbreviations were generally indicated by drawing a line over or through the letters, as in the common IX for Jesus Christ (see Christogram), or # from lb for libra 'pound'. In the typeface of the Gutenberg Bible, ā stands for either an or am within words. However, it is not known which particular word gave rise to modern @.

Some linguists say @ first appeared in the Middle Ages, when monks used it to shorten the Latin word ad which means "at, toward, or by." Others claim that @ stood for the measurement of weight in Spain in the 1400s. The measurement was "a jar" or an arroba, of something. Yet another contingent says @ was used by market sellers in the 1700s to show how much something might cost. They put signs like "5 potatoes @ 10 pence" in front of their stands.

A commonly accepted theory is that the symbol is derived from the Latin preposition ad, which means about with numerals. However, no document showing this usage has been presented.

A similar idea is that @ is the abbreviation of the Greek preposition ana (ανά), which means 'at the rate of' when used with numerals, exactly its modern commercial usage.

A more recent idea has been proposed by Giorgio Stabile, a professor of history in Rome. He claims to have traced the symbol back to the Italian Renaissance in a Venetian mercantile document signed by Francesco Lapi on May 4, 1536. The document talks about commerces with Pizarro and in particular the price of an @ of wine in Peru, where <@> stood for amphora (Italian anfora; Spanish and Portuguese arroba). The word arroba still means both the @ symbol and a unit of weight (see below). Under this view, the symbol was used to represent one amphora, which was a unit of weight or volume based upon the capacity of the standard terra cotta jar, and came into use with the modern meaning "at the rate of" in northern Europe.

However, @ could be the abbreviation of any word beginning in a, and more than one such symbol was likely in use, but there is no continuous record between any of the possibilities and the modern symbol.

An alternative view is that it derives from Norman French "à" meaning "at" in the sense of "each". "2 widgets à £5.50 = £11.00" is the sort of accountancy shorthand notation you will see on English commercial vouchers and ledgers all the way into the 1990s, where the usage was superseded for accountants with its e-mail usage. It is used in this way in Modern French also.

According to this view, the @ symbol is simply a stylish way of writing the à, so as not to remove the hand from the page in making the symbol. You can see hybrids between @ and à in French handwriting in street markets to this day.

The French call the symbol, among other things, "at" bâclé (using its English form). It may be that this is a deliberate pun on "atbash clé" - i.e. the ancient Hebrew key or cypher atbash - using a reversed alphabet - is to be used to decipher a hidden item of the text. There may even be a similar code indication of the ampersand - reading in German and French "am persan[d]" - i.e. "to Persian" - suggesting a language translation or perhaps reading R to L.


The @ symbol was present on the Lambert, a single element typewriter manufactured in 1902 by Lambert Typewriter Company of New York. Its inclusion in the original 1963 ASCII character set seems to have been unremarkable, so it was probably a standard character on commercial typewriters by that time.

Answer 2

@ is called amphora

This symbol & its name dates back about 500 years and had it origins in Italy. Its use indicated either a unit of weight or of volume, representing one amphora, a measure based on the capacity of the terracotta jars, standard at that time for transporting grain and liquids about the Mediterranean regions. The amphora equaled about one thirtieth of a barrel. The symbol originally began as a handwritten letter A to indicate an amphora, and a flourish added to the letter A set it apart from other letters and symbols.

Later, other European countries began to use the symbol to indicate a certain amount of some comodity AT a price per measurement. Corn @ $2 per bushel. This use changed the common name to "commercial at" or "commercial symbol." Most countries have different names for the symbol, the most common names having some type of animal reference. The most popular references a monkey's tail, though some countries use other animal references.

The symbol began making its way onto keyboards of typewriters sometime in the early 1880's, though not all manufacturers included the symbol. In the 1960's, computer programmers used the symbol with increasing frequency in order to create more complex coding that became known as ASCII. This is the time when the symbol became a permanent fixture on keyboards.

Sheesh, getting old has some advantages, huh? Who would think that a useless piece of trivia would answer a question on here. LOL!

Good luck!

Will D
Enterprise AL
http://www.notagz.com

Answer 3

The @ symbol (pronounced in English as the word "at") has the official name "commercial at" under the ANSI/CCITT/Unicode character systems. It is often referred to informally as the "at symbol", the "at sign", or just "at".

The origin of the symbol is debated, but is most likely a cursive form of ā, or possibly à (the French word for "at"). It was most commonly used as an abbreviation in accounting and commercial invoices, in statements such as "7 widgets @ £2 ea. = £14". More recently, the @ symbol has become ubiquitous due to its use in email addresses.

Other names in English for the symbol include: about; ampersat; asperand (not to be confused with ampersand); ape; apothrope; arroba; arobase; cabbage; cat; cinnabun or cinnamon bun; commercial symbol; cyclone; each; mercantile symbol; schnable; scroll or scroll-a; snail; strudel; vortex; whirlpool or whorl.[1],[2],[3],[4] Some of these are based on specialized usage, others are visual descriptions, and atgry (plural atgrynge) is a recurring joke proposed on Usenet as the answer to a pair of longstanding linguistic riddles — the singular atgry is a fourth word that ends in gry, along with angry, hungry, and gry; and the plural atgrynge provides a word that rhymes with orange.[5]

Answer 4

The @ symbol (pronounced in English as the word "at") has the official name "commercial at" under the ANSI/CCITT/Unicode character systems. It is often referred to informally as the "at symbol", the "at sign", or just "at".

The origin of the symbol is debated, but is most likely a cursive form of ā, or possibly à (the French word for "at"). It was most commonly used as an abbreviation in accounting and commercial invoices, in statements such as "7 widgets @ £2 ea. = £14". More recently, the @ symbol has become ubiquitous due to its use in email addresses.

Other names in English for the symbol include: about; ampersat; asperand (not to be confused with ampersand); ape; apothrope; arroba; arobase; cabbage; cat; cinnabun or cinnamon bun; commercial symbol; cyclone; each; mercantile symbol; schnable; scroll or scroll-a; snail; strudel; vortex; whirlpool or whorl. Some of these are based on specialized usage, others are visual descriptions, and atgry (plural atgrynge) is a recurring joke proposed on Usenet as the answer to a pair of longstanding linguistic riddles — the singular atgry is a fourth word that ends in gry, along with angry, hungry, and gry; and the plural atgrynge provides a word that rhymes with orange.

Answer 5

The "@" symbol. . .
used by grocers and accountants throughout the English-speaking world to indicate a rate, or cost per unit, as in "10 gal @ $3.95/gal" [ten gallons at three dollars and ninety-five cents per gallon] has become the de facto delimiter in e-mail addresses, separating the user's name from the domain name.

Although the change from at meaning "for a given amount per" to at meaning "in a specified (electronic) location" comes fairly naturally to English speakers, it does not for native speakers of other languages, for whom neither "at" nor @ meant anything until e-mail came around.

Indeed, a fair number of internet users live in countries that don't use the same alphabet English does (Japan, China, former republics of the Soviet Union including Russia, and Arabic-speaking countries, to name some major ones), and where the keyboards did not conveniently include the @ character until after it's widespread use on the internet made it a necessity.

As a result, while in some languages @ is simply called "at," in others, a wide variety of interesting nicknames have been developed for this little symbol. Most are based on the shape of the character, others are more abstract. Some are original and unique, others are derived from other languages. Some have ancient antecedents, others are still "works in progress." (Internet users in Sri Lanka are even now trying to decide what to call @). In some countries, a variety of ideosyncratic names have appeared simultaneously, while in others, government beauracracies are charged with selecting an "official" term.

Metaphors range from animals (snail, worm, little dog, horse) to body parts (elephant's trunk, monkey's tail, cat's foot, pig's ear) to food (rollmops herring, strudel, cinnamon roll, pretzel). This article includes a sampling of the many names of @, world-wide.

Answer 6

The official name is 'the at symbol'. Its origin is in handwritten accounting probably not so much as a contraction or shorthand but to make the word clearly distingishable. Originally it was only used in phrases like "3 items @ £10 10s 0d" where one needed to easily see that the price was the price per item.

Answer 7

Either "commercial at" or "ampersat" are correct, as well as some other names - check good old Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%40 - and I always hear it commonly referred to at the "at sign". So, there you go. Good question by the way.

Answer 8

It has the official name "commercial at"

Answer 9

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%40

Answer 10

The Microsoft Manual of Style calls @ the "at sign".

(FYI, an ampersand is "&".)