Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!wuarchive!zazen!uwvax!margay.cs.wisc.edu!dws From: dws@margay.cs.wisc.edu (DaviD W. Sanderson) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: Name that character! Message-ID: <1991May29.172818.14331@spool.cs.wisc.edu> Date: 29 May 91 17:28:18 GMT References: <10599@castle.ed.ac.uk> <448@mwuk.UUCP> Sender: news@spool.cs.wisc.edu (The News) Distribution: comp Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept Lines: 21 In article <448@mwuk.UUCP> tony@mwuk.UUCP (Tony Mountifield) writes: >I have never understood why this gets called a "pound" sign in the US. >Could it be something to do with the fact that many UK terminals and >printers put the pound-sterling symbol on ASCII 0x23, which comes out on >US equipment as '#' (which is DEFINITELY "hash" :-) ? No, the reason the "tic-tac-toe" character is commonly called "pound" in the US has nothing to do with UK monetary units. It denotes the "pound" unit of weight (synonymous with "lb"). I have seen it used this way in butcher shops: a two pound package of meat might be marked "2#". This meaning is documented in the WEIGHTS table in my Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. DaviD W. Sanderson (dws@cs.wisc.edu) -- ___ / __\ U N S H I N E DaviD W. Sanderson | | | I N E dws@cs.wisc.edu _____| | |_____ ________ \ / \ |__/ /////__ Fusion Powered Locomotives Made to Order \____/ \__|_/ \\\\\______ (TARDIS model available at extra cost)