We have recently had some casual discussion here about the '#' character and our admittedly informal agreement from 1995 to refer to it as 'pound'. But someone wrote here a couple days ago saying 'pound' as not correct; that is a British currency word. I went back to our archives and checked through the articles on same; I am still at a loss about what the '#' symbol should be called. Maybe by re-reading these 1988 and 1995 articles from the Digest you can reach some decision. If so, then please tell me.
To: snipped-for-privacy@bu-cs.bu.edu Subject: Octothorpe source Date: 19 Nov 88 15:25:08 PST (Sat) From: ucla-an!bongo! snipped-for-privacy@ee.UCLA.EDU (julian macassey)
I am looking for an authoritative reference for the term OCTOTHORPE.
An octothorpe is an # , which is what is usually referred to as "the pound sign" or "the hash mark", sometimes as "the number symbol". I know the correct term is octothorpe, I have seen references to it in some Bell docs, I have even seen a news clipping years ago that mentioned it.
My problem is that every now and again, some smart Alec asks me where it comes from. I have even been accused of making it up. No dictionary I have seen has ever given me a definition. Yes I have looked it up in the 24 Volume Oxford English Dictionary. I have checked the encyc Brit and alleged Telecommunications Dictionaries.
I do know that Octo means eight and Thorpe means beam. So the word has some roots.
There is a good term paper here for someone.
Yours Julian Macassey Julian Macassey, n6are julian@bongo voice (213) 653-4495 To: snipped-for-privacy@ncar.ucar.edu From: snipped-for-privacy@ibiza.Miami.Edu (a.e.mossberg) Subject: Re: Octothorpe source Date: 21 Nov 88 14:52:27 GMT
Indeed, that's the same place I learned the term, but usually have to revert to 'number sign' or 'pound sign'.
Yep, same here. I've never been able to find it in a dictionary, nor have I been able to find the original reference from where I learned it. I was beginning to think I made it up in some frenzied nightmare. Perhaps Bell invented it, and then changed their collective mind.
aem
a.e.mossberg - snipped-for-privacy@mthvax.miami.edu - snipped-for-privacy@mthvax.span (3.91) Man is here for the sake of other men. - Albert Einstein
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 88 09:19:28 PST From: HECTOR MYERSTON Subject: Octothorpe source To: snipped-for-privacy@bu-cs.bu.edu Cc: snipped-for-privacy@KL.SRI.COM
All my Bell System references call # The Number Sign (or Pound). The only times I see it called an Octothrope is in Northern Telecom Inc publications talking about Digipulse Dialing, "their name" for DTMF.
The Japanese routinely call it a "Sharp". Obscure to me, logical to the musically inclined.
+HECTOR+To: snipped-for-privacy@bu-cs.bu.edu From: westmark! snipped-for-privacy@rutgers.edu (Dave Levenson) Subject: Re: Octothorpe source Date: 24 Nov 88 00:52:41 GMT
# # # # ####### # # ####### # # # #
Can't you see the eight beams here?
Dave Levenson Westmark, Inc. The Man in the Mooney Warren, NJ USA {rutgers | att}!westmark!dave
TELECOM Digest Tue, 29 Nov 88 0:23:56 EST Volume 8 : Issue 187
Today's Topics:
Octothorpe re: Octothorpe source Re: Octothorpe source Cordless Phone Recommendations Re: Building your own phone projects off-hook indicator Converting T1 from #5 ESS to Analog
[Moderator's note: It has been a crazy couple of weeks. Jon Solomon has experimented diligently with various versions of sendmail in an effort to see to it that each of you receive one copy -- and one copy only -- of the Digest. Our mailing list was so large the bu-cs send mail apparatus belched everytime I logged on. We broke the large list down into many smaller parts. Then, the sun.arpa > sun.com gateway apparently was out of service for awhile. At least, we audited some copies going to Portal and found they had sat in the gateway que for two days at a time.Some machines are still disconnected from the net as a result of the worm experience, and the end result of all this has been -- I'm almost ashamed to say -- extremely poor and unreliable delivery of the Digest since issue 180 until now. We received conflicting reports of delivery on some issues (like 186), with Mailer-Daemon assuring us the copies had NOT been delivered, only to remail them and find some of you got THREE copies, etc. For any of you where FTP can be used to aquire missing issues, please use that method. FTP bu-cs.bu.edu and ls telecom-archives. Then look at the file called telecom-recent. If you cannot FTP, then let me know, and as time permits I will retransmit individual copies.
We -- jsol and I -- keep thinking this long nightmare is almost over. A special program has been written to transmit the Digest beginning with this issue we hope will do the job. Patrick Townson]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
From: snipped-for-privacy@cup.portal.com To: snipped-for-privacy@xx.lcs.mit.edu Subject: Octothorpe Date: Sat, 26-Nov-88 09:52:20 PST
But...a # doesn't have eight beams...only 4...two really if you define beam as being horizontal...just call it a pound sign...
which, I suppose, refers to some typewriter which have the British pound sign over the 3...I just call it the number sign...I've also heard it referred to as a ticktacktoe...
snipped-for-privacy@cup.portal.com
From: minow% snipped-for-privacy@decwrl.dec.com (Repent! Godot is coming soon! Repent!) Date: 28 Nov 88 14:17 To: snipped-for-privacy@bu-cs.bu.edu, MINOW% snipped-for-privacy@decwrl.dec.com Subject: re: Octothorpe source
According to legend, "octothorpe" is a name that the Bell people made up for the # on the telephone keypad. I suspect that they couldn't agree as to whether it was a "pound sign", "sharp", or "number sign" and eventually compromised (making everyone equally miserable).
Martin Minow minow% snipped-for-privacy@decwrl.dec.com
[Moderator's question: I am wondering if our correspondent is related to Newton Minow, well known FCC executive. Just curious. P. Townson]To: snipped-for-privacy@bu-cs.bu.edu From: Henry Troup Subject: Re: Octothorpe source Date: 22 Nov 88 15:57:48 GMT
I believe AT&T named the little beastie. Anyone at AT&T wanted to claim responsibility?
Henry Troup utgpu!bnr-vpa!bnr-fos!hwt%bnr-public | BNR is not Bell-Northern Reseach hwt@bnr (BITNET/NETNORTH) | responsible for Ottawa, Canada (613) 765-2337 (Voice) | my opinions
From snipped-for-privacy@bu-cs.BU.EDU Thu Dec 1 21:43:21 1988 Received: by bu-cs.BU.EDU (4.0/4.7) id AA07601; Thu, 1 Dec 88 21:43:21 EST Message-Id: Date: Thu, 1 Dec 88 21:05:28 EST From: The Moderator Reply-To: snipped-for-privacy@bu-cs.BU.EDU Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #190 To: snipped-for-privacy@bu-cs.bu.edu
TELECOM Digest Thu, 1 Dec 88 21:05:28 EST Volume 8 : Issue 190
Today's Topics:
All You Ever Wanted To Know About Octothorpes
[Moderator's Note: This is a just-for-fun special issue of the Digest with a random sampling of the mail received pertaining to your favorite touch-pad key and mine, the lowly octothorpe, or #. As is our custom, we have even provided a rebuttal message from someone who says the # is not known as an octothorpe at all....Now can we get this out of our systems once and for all please? Let's call it quits on the subject of #, by whatever name. P. Townson] ----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: snipped-for-privacy@nvuxr.UUCP (L Lang) Subject: Re: Octothorpe source Date: 22 Nov 88 15:36:53 GMT Organizati> I am looking for an authoritative reference for the term
When I count "thorpes" (the beams or lines), I only see four, two vertical and two horizontal.
Perhaps it should be called the QUADROTHORPE. And does that make the * a TRITHORPE?
Cheers, Larry Lang
To: snipped-for-privacy@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU From: snipped-for-privacy@Apple.COM (Peter Desnoyers) Subject: Re: Octothorpe source Date: 30 Nov 88 23:20:40 GMT
Just to provide another point of view: from CCITT recommendation E.161 (Arrangement of Figures, Letters and Symbols of Telephones and other Devices that can be used for Gaining Access to a Telephone Network) as revised for the Blue Book:
3.2.2 Symbols ... [drawings, with angle between horiz. and vert. strokes, length of strokes, and length of protruding nubbies labelled alpha, b, and a respectively] in Europe alpha = 90 degrees with a/b = 0.08 (looks funny to a N.A.ican) in North America alpha = 80 deg. with a/b = 0.18 ... The symbol will be known as the square or the most commonly used equivalent term in other languages.* *... alternate term (e.g. "number sign") may be necessary...I suppose it's useful to have a translatable term. That approach worked for "star", but it seems to have failed here. Does anyone refer to '#' as a "square"? Anywhere? Enquiring minds want to know...
Peter Desnoyers
To: snipped-for-privacy@bu-cs.bu.edurom: snipped-for-privacy@Morgan.COM (Erik T. Mueller) Subject: Re: Octothorpe source Date: 1 Dec 88 19:28:06 GMT
The term "octothorpe" appears in issues of the journal -Telesis- from the mid to late 1970's published by Bell Northern Research. (Sorry, I don't have the actual issue numbers handy right now...) I don't know its origin, but vaguely recall reading somewhere that it was a Canadian telephony term. As far as I know, the term is/was never used by AT&T.
-Erik
To: snipped-for-privacy@decwrl.dec.com From: avsd!childers (Richard Childers) Subject: Re: Octothorpe source Date: 25 Nov 88 21:25:03 GMT
Well, this isn't authoritative, it's intuitive, but I _think_ it refers to the symbol as used on a complex organ's key, for a particular mode.
-- richard
- Any excuse will serve a tyrant. -- Aesop
- *
- *
- *
To: comp-dcom-telecom From: snipped-for-privacy@beach.cis.ufl.edu (F. L. Charles Seeger III) Subject: Re: Octothorpe source Date: 1 Dec 88 15:42:09 GMT
| All my Bell System references call # The Number Sign (or Pound). |The only times I see it called an Octothrope is in Northern Telecom Inc |publications talking about Digipulse Dialing, "their name" for DTMF. | The Japanese routinely call it a "Sharp". Obscure to me, logical |to the musically inclined.
I usually refer to as "sharp", but may change to octothorpe -- I sometimes like to tilt at windmills. What are the names of the other ASCII special symbols? For instance, "&" is an ampersand and "*" an asterisk. Are there any fancy (preferrably single word) names for the others? I.e names not of the form "* [sign|mark|symbol]". Does anyone have a reference on these things, probably a typography reference?
The terms that I use, about which I'm fairly confident: ~ tilde () [left|right|open|close] parenthesis [] [left|right|open|close] bracket {} [left|right|open|close] brace [left|right|open|close] carat ^ circumflex _ underscore . period , comma ; semi-colon : colon
What about the following: ? ! @ $ % / \\ | + = - ` ' "
If I get responses by Email, I'll summarize in a couple of weeks. Also, feel free to suggest a more appropriate newsgroup.
-- Charles Seeger 216 Larsen Hall Electrical Engineering University of Florida snipped-for-privacy@iec.ufl.edu Gainesville, FL 32611
[Moderator's inane comment: PUH-LEASE! write direct to Charlie on this; not to me. I do not give an iota what those things are called! And now, here is that rebuttal message...]To: snipped-for-privacy@rutgers.edu From: snipped-for-privacy@ron.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) Subject: Re: Octothorpe Date: 1 Dec 88 22:15:50 GMT
Nope, # is called pound because it is used as a symbol for pounds (weight). I really expect the brits would put the Pound Sterling where the $ is on a typewriter keyboards.
-Ron
[And there you have it. All the questions you were embarrassed to ask your Mother Company all nicely summarized for you by the Octothorpe Digest people in simple, easy to read format you would not be reluctant to share with your own children when they are old enough to ask the name of that 'funny looking key below the nine.'In issue 191, distributed early Friday morning, news of the increase in network access fees which took effect 12-1-88, and the correspondending decrease in rates by AT&T, Sprint, and MCI.]
End of TELECOM Digest *********************
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Then, after several years, in 1995, someone (Ralph Carlsen) who apparently was a little 'behind in his reading' submitted a rebuttal regards the '#' debate that I had _thought_ was settled several years before. Here is the letter from Ralph Carlsen:From: snipped-for-privacy@hotair.att.com (Ralph Carlsen) Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 16:21:55 -0500 Subject: Octothorpe (The Answer)
Pat,
The following explains where "octothorpe" really came from. I am sending this to you because, as you will see, there are very few people who could know this story. The reason I am writing at this time is because I volunteered for the AT&T Lay Off package after 34 years of service at Bell Labs so I may not be around much longer. During the past year I have enjoyed reading your news group, and I have used your archives a couple of times (once to get "octothorpe"). Your comments and notes on the postings suggest you and I would agree on lots of things related to our telecom industry.
Ralph Carlsen
THE REAL SOURCE OF THE WORD "OCTOTHORPE"
First, where did the symbols * and # come from? In about 1961 when DTMF dials were still in development, two Bell Labs guys in data communications engineering (Link Rice and Jack Soderberg) toured the USA talking to people who were thinking about telephone access to computers. They asked about possible applications, and what symbols should be used on two keys that would be used exclusively for data applications. The primary result was that the symbols should be something available on all standard typewriter keyboards. The * and # were selected as a result of this study, and people did not expect to use those keys for voice services. The Bell System in those days did not look internationally to see if this was a good choice for foreign countries.
Then in the early 1960s Bell Labs developed the 101 ESS which was the first stored program controlled switching system (it was a PBX). One of the first installations was at the Mayo Clinic. This PBX had lots of modern features (Call Forwarding, Speed Calling, Directed Call Pickup, etc.), some of which were activated by using the # sign. A Bell Labs supervisor DON MACPHERSON went to the Mayo Clinic just before cut over to train the doctors and staff on how to use the new features on this state of the art switching system. During one of his lectures he felt the need to come up with a word to describe the # symbol. Don also liked to add humor to his work. His thought process which took place while at the Mayo Clinic doing lectures was as follows:
- There are eight points on the symbol so "OCTO" should be part of the name.
- We need a few more letters or another syllable to make a noun, so what should that be? (Don MacPherson at this point in his life was active in a group that was trying to get JIM THORPE's Olympic medals returned from Sweden) The phrase THORPE would be unique, and people would not suspect he was making the word up if he called it an "OCTOTHORPE".
So Don Macpherson began using the term Octothorpe to describe the # symbol in his lectures. When he returned to Bell Labs in Holmdel NJ, he told us what he had done, and began using the term Octothorpe in memos and letters. The term was picked up by other Bell Labs people and used mostly for the fun of it. Some of the documents which used the term Octothorpe found their way to Bell Operating Companies and other public places. Over the years, Don and I have enjoyed seeing the term Octothorpe appear in documents from many different sources.
Don MacPherson retired about eight years ago, and I will be retiring in about six weeks.
Ralph Carlsen
These are, of course, my remembrances and are not any official statement of AT&T or the subsequent 3 companies.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's 1995 Note: Thank you very much for sharing. This is indeed an interesting report. Do you think you could get Don MacPherson to join us here among the Digest readership? PAT] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Should we do this with the '#' sign again ten or twelve years from now? Probably ... PAT]