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From: dai@icxn.com (Davidson Corry)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Octothorpes
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Date: 10 Sep 90 21:12:22 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 635, Message 9 of 13


In article <11513@accuvax.nwu.edu> Jeremy Grodberg (jgro@cad.berkeley.
edu) writes:

>I have also heard (and continue to use) "hook" for ? and "hash" for #

"Hash" is, I believe, a corruption of "hatch": "to mark with lines,
esp. closely-set parallel lines" (American College Dictionary 1959 --
old but serviceable!).  I have seen # referred to as a "hatch mark".

I have also seen # as "thorn" or "thorne", but I believe this is a
mistake, either a misspelling "octothorne", or a misapplication of the
name of the Norse rune for the "th" sound, still used in Icelandic.  I
_think_ the rune is
                       \/
                       /
                          but maybe we have someone on the net from
Reykjavik who can help me out... <grin>


Davidson Corry  dai@icxn.com   uunet!icxn!dai