On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe
Donald E. Kimberlin
Recent dialog in forii (could that be the plural of "forum?")
on other networks leads me to poll this august assemblage in search of
a lexicographer of telecommunications.
The subject: Searching for the detail origin and the ultimate
demise of the name "octothorpe" for the <#> character we commonly call
a "number sign."
What we've found: At the time Bell put a "#" on tone telephone
keypads, it was, to all knowledge, just "there," and available for
non-specified future applications, as was the asterisk <*>. There
_may_ have been a Bell System Technical Journal publication at the
time indicating what possible uses the designers had. (And some may
recall that early Bell tone keypads didn't have any <*> or <#> keys,
too. They were added early on.)
The _one_ use of the <#> seems to have been one of Bell self-
interest, assigning the <#> as an End-of-Number delimiter to signal
the electromechanical registers of crossbar exchanges, so they didn't
sit and time out (for some _long_ times) on International DDD calls.
It was the necessary American action, as of course, a great
convenience of the fixed number length here had been to be able to
simply count digits to identify the End of Number.
But, to our story: At the time the <#> came to public view,
there was some public news that Bell Labs had given the character <#>
a name, "octothorpe," descriptive of its eight points. I have recall
of mentions in newsmagazines of the Time/Newsweeks ilk, crediting the
Labs for giving what had previously no name a proper name.
The current track has found some folks who worked inside local
switching plant at the time recalling they got Drawing Change Notices
describing the EON modification to crossbar registers (essentially a
wire mod that ran the output of the <#> detector channel to the same
logic point as the digit counters..ain't hardware logic fun?), so
either the proper digit count _or_ the <#> would send the digits off
to translators and markers, releasing the register to serve another
call. Those Drawing Change Notices told the character had been named
"octothorpe."
Meantime, a short time later, the public newsmagazines had
follow-up stories that Bell Labs had retracted its claim to inventing
a name for the character; saying that the attribution to Bell Labs was
perhaps a hoax.
Today, the octothorpe's namer should get credit where due.
Who really _did_ think through the form of the character and come up
with a descriptive name? Can people in this readership do a text
search of Bell System Tech Journals and Bell Labs Record, etc., of the
1950's-early 1960's and perhaps find some relevant material? If
there's nothing better, finding the names of suthors who wrote any
pieces using that term should be close to the individual source.
We should by now have reached a point in time when the Labs
should no longer be embarrassed by what they must once have perceived
as beneath or beyond their function.
(Items like this should lead us to being able to write more
powerful documentation. For example, how many people say or write
"slash' and "reverse slash" for the </> and <\> we use some much, when
they really have the proper name "virgule" and "reverse virgule?"
Check it out in your Funk & Wagnalls.)
Kari Hardarson
I thought that the : # sign was called a 'Hash' mark before I came to
the states. Maybe that's British English? Here in the States, a lot of
my colleagues refer to it as the 'Pound sign', something that I can't
understand since the pound sign is distinctly different. In UK-ASCII
tables, the pound sign usually gets placed where the # is in American
ASCII, that may explain something. Incidentally, in my language
(Icelandic) we refer to the sign as 'The mill'. ;
-> Kari Hardarson
217 Jackson Circle
27514 Chapel Hill, NC
Erik Naggum
Prelude: "Octothorp" (sans final `e') is listed in (Merriam) Webster's
Third New Int'l Dictionary with etymology "octo + thorp, of unknown
origin; from the eight points on its circumference". "Thorp(e)" is
archaic for "village, hamlet", but that can't be it. I've heard the
`=' sign referred to as "quadrothorp". (I have not seen the natural
extensions for `-' (bithorp?) and `.' (monothorp?).) Anyone know what
"thorp" is?
Kari Hardarson <hard...@weiss.cs.unc.edu> writes in TELECOM Digest
V10 #449:
>I thought that the : # sign was called a 'Hash' mark before I came to
>the states. Maybe that's British English? Here in the States, a lot of
>my colleagues refer to it as the 'Pound sign', something that I can't
>understand since the pound sign is distinctly different. In UK-ASCII
>tables, the pound sign usually gets placed where the # is in American
>ASCII, that may explain something. Incidentally, in my language
>(Icelandic) we refer to the sign as 'The mill'. ;
Ah, I remember the first time I heard about it as the "pound sign".
To me, that's the "Libra" symbol used by the British to denote their
currency symbol, which is what they have in IA5 location 2/3 (that's
ASCII 0x23 to you folks :-). However, I heard, much to my surprise,
that the `#' symbol's meaning is context dependent:
#5 means "number five"
5# means "five lbs (pounds)"
This has later been confirmed by several good dictionaries and
reference works (read: theory), but I've never seen in it practice.
The Norwegian pager service uses the octothorpe as a regular "end-of-
number", which is explained in the taped recording you hear when you
dial the service as "the sqaure key" ("quadrilateral key" is closer to
the Norwegian term "firkanttast", literally "four-side-key"). To
paraphrase the last few words spoken at the end of Pink Floyd's Dark
Side of the Moon: "Matter of fact, they're all quadrilateral."
I have to ask someone around here what they call it in Norwegian, I've
forgot. I don't think it's used other than in telephones around here.
Which reminds me ... The Norwegian key layout is like this:
7 8 9
4 5 6
1 2 3
0 * #
When you dial somewhere around two hundred digits a day, and you find
yourself in the U.S., where it's generally completely different
(except for 4, 5, and 6), it would have been faster to use a rotary
dial (except they are different from the Norwegian ones, too).
Is there any interest in the particularities of Norway, and especially
Oslo?
[Erik Naggum]
Dave Newman
Some people I know call it (the 'octothorpe') a 'sharp'. I think this
is the result of a very similar character's use in musical scores. (I
don't know, since I don't read music.)+
Has anyone thought to check with someone in typography? F'rinstance,
Donald Knuth might know, or you might find the character referenced by
name in one of his books on TEX.
Dave
Nigel Allen
If you refer to the symbol on the # key as a "tic-tac-toe sign", you
may not come across as terribly sophisticated, but you will be
understood.
Nigel Allen
VLD/VMB
Yes, the # is the musical "sharp".
Kevin Mitchell
In PostScript the name of the character is /numbersign.
Kevin A. Mitchell (312) 266-4485
Datalogics, Inc Internet: k...@dlogics.UUCP
441 W. Huron UUCP: ..!uunet!dlogics!kam
Chicago, IL 60610 FAX: (312) 266-4473
Kevin Mitchell
Rob Warnock
| 5# means "five lbs (pounds)"
| This has later been confirmed by several good dictionaries and
| reference works (read: theory), but I've never seen in it practice.
It is often seen in the U.S. in the trucking/shipping/hauling environments.
It's quite common for packages or crates to get their weight in pounds marked
on the side with crayon or chalk in the "<number>#" form, usually as the
package is accepted into the shipper's system. (Many forms of shipping are
weight-based.)
Rob Warnock, MS-9U/510 rp...@sgi.com rp...@pei.com
Silicon Graphics, Inc. (415)335-1673 Protocol Engines, Inc.
2011 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, CA 94039-7311
Rob Warnock
Steven King
>However, I heard, much to my surprise,
>that the `#' symbol's meaning is context dependent:
> #5 means "number five"
> 5# means "five lbs (pounds)"
>This has later been confirmed by several good dictionaries and
>reference works (read: theory), but I've never seen in it practice.
On the rare occasions when I need to write the weight of something
(say, when I'm putting meat in my freezer) I'll use the "5#" notation
to indicate "five pounds". I think I picked up the habit from my
father. Since I can't recall the last time someone else had to read
my notes I can't say how widely known the notation is.
I prefer calling it the "sharp" sign. It doesn't get confused with
the British pound, and is much less of a mouthful than "octothorpe".
That last sounds like it should be on the menu at a seafood
restaurant.
Steve King, Motorola Cellular (...uunet!motcid!king)
Danial Hamilton
I did some work on some telephone firmware where the ASCII value for
the '#' was equated to the symbol "MESH". I don't know if that is a
common name for '#' or just the original program author's personal
favorite.
Kari Hardarson
I want to collectively thank everyone that set me straight on the
american definition of the pound. I am much the wiser now.
Kari Hardarson
217 Jackson Circle
Chapel Hill, NC 27514