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From: winton@btnix.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: smail pronounciation (or in this case '#')
Message-ID: <246@roosta.btnix.uucp>
Date: Mon, 2-Mar-87 06:46:05 EST
Article-I.D.: roosta.246
Posted: Mon Mar  2 06:46:05 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Mar-87 00:35:30 EST
References: <6905@clyde.ATT.COM>
Organization: British Telecom, Ipswich, UK.
Lines: 48

in article <6905@clyde.ATT.COM>, jona@moss.ATT.COM says:
> 
> I always pronunce the '#' sign as a 'pound' sign - that is one of its
> meanings and it is quicker to say than 'number' - besides, who ever
> heard of 'number-define (== #define) - everyone here says 'pound-define'.
> 

Hmmmmm.... at the risk of seeming pedantic (but why should that bother me,
no-one else seems TOO worried :-), here in the UK, where it actually matters
how we represent our currency, a `#' is most definitely NOT a `pound' sign.
A real pound sign looks rather like this
			__
		       /
		       |		There used to be a double bar across
		      ===	<--- 	the centre, but these days we seem to
		       |		have been reduced to one...
		      -----

Now it may not be worth much these days, but it's all we've got!

The confusion probably arises from the fact that the UK version of the ASCII
character set often has `#' replaced by a pound sign (as do UK keyboards).

Incidentally, I believe the origin of the `real' pound sign is from a modified
`L' standing for `Lire' (latin (?) for `pound').

Back in the not-so-good-old days before we went decimal we used to earn our
daily bread in Lsd --- that's pounds, shillings and pence, or really Lire,
Sestertii and Denarii. In fact it came as quite a shock to me a couple of years
ago when visiting Italy to discover that the Italians too use the `pounds' sign
for Lire. Being as the exchange rate at the time was 1 pound = 2200 lire
seeing apples sold for several hundred `pounds' seemed very odd...

Oh, on the vexed question as to what to call a `#', well, I'm of the `hash'
school (hash-include-stud-eye-oh-dot-aitch).

Anyway, that's my twopennuth... (reach for a dictionary of British slang :-)

	Neil

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