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From: montante@silver.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: smail pronounciation (or in this case '#')
Message-ID: <238@silver.bacs.indiana.edu>
Date: Sun, 8-Mar-87 13:08:28 EST
Article-I.D.: silver.238
Posted: Sun Mar  8 13:08:28 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 10-Mar-87 04:06:03 EST
References: <6905@clyde.ATT.COM> <246@roosta.btnix.uucp>
Reply-To: montante@silver.UUCP (RAMontante)
Organization: Indiana University BACS, Bloomington
Lines: 24


In article <246@roosta.btnix.uucp> winton@btnix.uucp (Neil Winton) writes:
# 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.
#   [...]
# 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).

In my sordid youth in the American midwest I once learned '#' as 'pound sign'
-- as in "a 10# sack of potatoes" (about 5Kg, that is).  I can't relate that
to Lire, Sestertii, and Denarii (at the time, 10# of potatoes cost less than
a buck :-).

An Australian professor of mine seems to have infected me with 'hash' (or
'hatch') disease.  It does look vaguely like hashmarks/crosshatching, the word
is one syllable long, and fits okay with other phonemes (as in "hashinclude
studio H").