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From: leichter@lrw.com (Jerry Leichter)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe
Message-ID: <59806@bu.edu.bu.edu>
Date: 30 Jun 90 16:03:03 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 461, Message 3 of 12


 Several people noted (ahem) that # and the musical sharp sign were
"the same".  This is not quite true.  The musical sharp sign is
normally smaller and has its four lines at an angle to the vertical
and horizontal - often almost a 45 degree angle.  Even more noticable
is that the sharp is a superscript - it's not placed quite as high as,
say, a superscript 2 for "squared" - for one thing, it's bigger - but
it is definitely well above the baseline.

Obviously, different fonts will choose slightly different
representations for each character, so there may be some overlap.
However, the character is never raised (much) above the baseline when
used for "number" or "pounds", but is always raised when used for
"sharp".

BTW, yet another name for "#" is "hash mark".  Knuth uses that in The
TeXbook, for example.  Both "number sign" and "pound sign" appear in
the index marked "see hash mark".  (On the other hand, so does "sharp
sign".  However, an example in the book defines a \sharp macro as a
hash mark - but a hash mark raised above the baseline by .4 ex, .4
times the nominal height of an "x" character in the font.)


	-- Jerry