"Dog" symbol: occurrence history, meaning and correct name

On the Internet, the well-known symbol "dog" is used as a separator between the name of this user and the domain name (host) in the syntax of e-mail addresses.

Fame

Some Internet figures consider this symbol as a sign of the common human communication space and one of the most popular signs in the whole world.

One of the evidences of worldwide recognition of this designation is the fact that in 2004 (in February) the International Telecommunication Union introduced a special code for the designation @ in the general morse code. It combines the codes of two Latin letters: C and A, which shows their joint graphical spelling.

The history of the symbol "dog"

Italian researcher Giorgio Stabil was able to find in the archive, which was owned by the Institute of Economic History in the city of Prato (near Florence), a document in which this sign is first encountered in writing. Such an important testimony turned out to be a letter from a merchant from Florence, which was donated back to 1536.

It deals with three merchant ships that have arrived in Spain. In the cargo of the vessels, containers with wine transport marked with the @ sign were featured. After analyzing the data on the price of wine, as well as the capacity of various medieval vessels, and comparing the data with the general system of measures used in those times, the scientist concluded that the @ sign was used as a special dimensional unit that replaced the word anfora (in translation "amphora"). So from the ancient times was called the universal measure of volume.

The theory of Berthold Ullmann

Berthold Ullman is an American scientist who suggested that the @ symbol was designed by medieval monks to reduce the widespread word ad of Latin origin, which was often used as a universal term meaning "in relation to", "in", "on".

It should be noted that in French, Portuguese and Spanish, the name of the designation is derived from the term "arroba", which in turn denotes the Old Spanish measure of weight (about 15 kg), abbreviated as a letter @.

Modernity

Many people are interested in the name of the symbol "dog". Note that the official modern name of this symbol sounds like "commercial at" and originates from accounts in which it was applied in the following context: 7widgets @ $ 2each = $ 14. This can be translated as 7 pieces to 2 dollars = 14 dollars

Since the symbol "dog" was used in business, it was placed on the keyboards of all typewriters. He was present even at the first typewriter in the history of mankind , Underwood, which was released in the distant 1885. And only after long 80 years the symbol "dog" inherited the first computer keyboards.

the Internet

Let's look at the official history of the World Wide Web. She claims that the Internet symbol "dog" appeared in e-mail addresses thanks to an American engineer and computer technician named Ray Tomlinson, who in 1971 managed to send the first-ever electronic message through the network. At the same time, the address had to be composed of two parts - the name of the computer through which the registration was made, and the user's name. As a separator between the specified parts, Tomilson chose the "dog" symbol on the keyboard, since he was not part of either computer names or user names.

Versions of the origin of the famous name "dog"

In the world there are several possible versions of the origin of such an amusing name. First of all, the icon is really very similar to the dog, curled up.

In addition, the abrupt sounding of the word at (the dog symbol in English is read in this way) reminds a bit of dog barking. It should also be noted that with good imagination, you can look at the symbol almost all the letters that are part of the word "dog", except that, excluding "k".

However, the most romantic is the following legend. Long ago, at a good time, when all the computers were very large, and the screens - only text, in the virtual kingdom there was one popular game that received the name reflecting its content - "Adventure" (Adventure).

Its meaning consisted in traveling through a labyrinth created by a computer in search of various treasures. There were, of course, also battles with underground harmful creatures. The labyrinth on the display was drawn with the symbols "-", "+", "!", And the playing, hostile monsters and treasures were indicated by different icons and letters.

And, according to the plot, the player was friends with a faithful assistant - a dog who could always be sent for reconnaissance to the catacombs. This was just the @ sign. Was this the root cause of the now generally accepted name, or, on the contrary, did the developers of the game choose the icon, for it was so called? These questions are not answered by the legend.

What is the virtual "doggie" in other countries?

It is worth noting that in our country the symbol "dog" is also called a sheep, ear, bun, frog, dog, even kryakozyabroy. In Bulgaria, it is "maimunsko a" or "klomba" (monkey A). In the Netherlands - ape-tail (apenstaartje). On the territory of Israel, the sign is associated with a whirlpool ("strudel").

Spaniards, French and Portuguese call the designation similar to the weight measure (respectively: arroba, arrobase and arrobase). If you ask about the meaning of the dog symbol from the inhabitants of Poland and Germany, they will tell you that it's a monkey, a clip, a monkey's ear or a monkey's tail. A snail is considered in Italy, calling chiocciola.

The least poetic names were given to the symbol in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, calling it "snout-a" (snabel-a) or elephant tail (tail a). The most appetizing name can be considered a variant of the Czechs and Slovaks who consider the sign of herring under a fur coat (rolmops). Associations with the cuisine and conduct the Greeks, calling the designation of "little pasta."

For many, it's still a monkey, namely for Slovenia, Romania, Holland, Croatia, Serbia (mamun, alternative: "crazy A"), Ukraine (alternatives: snail, dog, dog). From the English language borrowed the term Lithuania (eta - "this", borrowing with the addition of the Lithuanian morpheme at the end) and Latvia (et - "et"). A gloomy variant may result from the Hungarians, where this cute sign became a mite.

Cat-and-mouse is played by Finland (cat's tail), America (cat), Taiwan and China (mouse). Romantics were the inhabitants of Turkey (rose). And in Vietnam, this icon is called "twisted A".

Alternative hypotheses

There is an opinion that the name of the designation "dog" in Russian speech appeared thanks to the famous computers of the DCK. In them, the "dog" appeared while the computer was loading. And indeed the designation resembled a small dog. All users of DCK, without speculating, came up with a name for the symbol.

It is curious that the original version of writing the Latin letter "A" assumed adornment with its curls, thus it was very similar to the current writing of the sign "doggies". The translation of the word "dog" into Tatar sounds like "et".

Where else can you meet the "dog"?

There are a number of services that use this symbol (except e-mail): HTTP, FTP, Jabber, Active Directory. In IRC, the symbol is placed before the name of the channel operator, for example, @oper.

Widely used in the sign of the main programming languages. In Java, it is used to declare an annotation. In C #, it is necessary to escape the characters in the line. The operation of taking the address is appropriately indicated in Pascal. For Perl, this is the array identifier, and in Python, respectively, the decorator declaration. The field identifier for the class instance is the Ruby character.

As for PHP, here the "dog" is used to suppress the output of the error, or to warn about the task that has already occurred at the moment of execution. The prefix of indirect addressing was the symbol in assembler MCS-51. In XPath, this shortens the attribute axis, which selects the set of attributes for the current element.

Finally, Transact-SQL assumes that the name of the local variable must begin with @, and the global variable name with two @. In DOS Batch files, thanks to the character, the echo repetition for the executable command is suppressed. The designation of an action, like the echo off mode, is usually applied before entering a mode to prevent the display of a specific command (for clarity: @echo off).

So we looked at how many aspects of virtual and real life depend on the ordinary symbol. However, let's not forget that he became the most recognizable thanks to e-mails sent by thousands every day. We can assume that you will receive a letter with a "dog" today, and it will bring only good news.