by John Calian |
Topics:
ampersand |
commercial at |
twitter
Before understanding twitter in its entirety, I started noticing folks using an ampersand a commercial at (the @ symbol) in front of peoples names (and nicknames, handles, user names, etc) in email correspondence, blog posts, forums, etc.
I was certainly curious.
I began to use twitter, and quickly understood that the use of the ampersand commercial atindicating that a twitter post (tweat) was talking directly to the person referenced, as in this:
@john hey, that was a great idea!
And now, this form is entering other online correspondence. Really? Does the following not work:
john, hey, that was a great idea?
3 comments:
Really good post, @jerk.
BTW, why did you feel the need to clog up my reader just now?
Skillet tomorrow?
R
"using an ampersand (the @ symbol)"
That is not an ampersand. Ampersand is the "&" symbol. "@" is commonly referred to as simply "at".
I stand corrected. Thank you.
And I found a list containing the following:
IN ENGLISH, the symbol is boringly known as "commercial at", but other languages offer more imaginative names. In Swedish, it is called snabel-a , ("a" with an elephant's trunk), or kanelbulle , the Swedish equivalent of the Chelsea bun. In German it is called Klammerraffe , (a clinging monkey) - presumably hanging from a tree by one arm.
From http://bit.ly/NXosR
Post a Comment
Post a Comment