Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: Andre@shappski.demon.co.uk (Andre Shapps)
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!udel!gatech!swrinde!pipex!peernews.demon.co.uk!shappski.demon.co.uk!Andre
Subject: @ and all that
Organization: Myorganisation
Reply-To: Andre@shappski.demon.co.uk
X-Newsreader: Newswin Alpha 0.7
Lines:  30
X-Posting-Host: shappski.demon.co.uk
Date: Sun, 5 Mar 1995 20:05:49 +0000
Message-ID: <120677626wnr@shappski.demon.co.uk>
Sender: usenet@demon.co.uk

I've lost the thread, but I just heard on an ad for AT&T on 
CNN (in Europe), the "#" key on the telephone referred to 
as the pound key. It's already been discussed that this 
means variously "number", "hatch" (and its corruption 
"hash") and "gate" (by British Telecom".

I believe that the reason it is called "pound" is because 
the standard (7 bit) ascii character set does not allow for 
the pound sign (usually given ascii value 156, with I think 
is an IBMism), but the British version, instead of 
replacing "$" with "pound" (I can't send the actual 
character over 7 -bit mail of course), replaces the less 
used "#" sign, or rather reconfigures the keyboard handler 
to output the value for "pound" whenever the "#" key is hit.

Consequently you sometimes see documents where the pound 
sign is printed as a "#" and "#" is sometimes read as 
"pound".

British keyboards have a pound sign where the "#" used to 
be (above the "3"). They also have a "#" sign over on the 
right hand side of the top row of keys. I refer only to PC 
keyboards and they have been through a number of varitions 
over the last 13 odd years.

Here endeth a somewhat trivial subject.
-- 
Andre Shapps

