GalacticCactus Forum
Forums => English & Linguistics => Topic started by: Tante Shvester on September 14, 2008, 11:37:19 PM
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"Lb" is the abbreviation for "pound"? How does that make any sense? Is it some kind of Latin thing, like "Pb" being the symbol for lead?
And how did a "z" creep into the abbreviation for ounces?
My father in law was once trying to tell me an email address, and he called the "@" "that thing that looks like a lowercase a with a long tail that almost circles it".
"That's called 'the at sign' or just 'at'", I told him.
"At? Of all the words that they had to come up with an abbreviation for, they picked 'at'?"
He has a point. Why do we need a special symbol for that tiny word?
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"Lb" is the abbreviation for "pound"? How does that make any sense? Is it some kind of Latin thing, like "Pb" being the symbol for lead?
Yes. You're probably familiar with Libra:
(http://www.myfreegraphics.com/images/fulls/1libra.0.gif)
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Is Libra related to libraries and librarians?
And if Libra is the pound sign, then how does # tie in to that?
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Wikipedia suggests (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_sign#Naming_conventions_in_North_America)
lb -> (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e7/U%2B2114.svg/24px-U%2B2114.svg.png) -> #
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Interesting.
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Wikipedia suggests (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_sign#Naming_conventions_in_North_America)
lb -> (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e7/U%2B2114.svg/24px-U%2B2114.svg.png) -> #
I dunno. Seems like a stretch to me.
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It's not nearly as much of a stretch as some of the letters in our alphabet have undergone.
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Yeah, have you *seen* the ascenders and descenders on carolingian miniscule?
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Yeah, have you *seen* the ascenders and descenders on carolingian miniscule?
Are you talking dirty to me?
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Not unless you want her to. If so, then yes.
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"Lb" is the abbreviation for "pound"? How does that make any sense? Is it some kind of Latin thing, like "Pb" being the symbol for lead?
And how did a "z" creep into the abbreviation for ounces?
Both abbreviations comes from Italian (or maybe lb. is from Latin and oz. is from Italian). So yeah, it's kind of like Pb for lead.
My father in law was once trying to tell me an email address, and he called the "@" "that thing that looks like a lowercase a with a long tail that almost circles it".
"That's called 'the at sign' or just 'at'", I told him.
"At? Of all the words that they had to come up with an abbreviation for, they picked 'at'?"
He has a point. Why do we need a special symbol for that tiny word?
We've talked about this before. @ is not an abbreviation of "at," but simply a variant graphic representation of it. It probably evolved from the French à written rapidly.
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We've talked about this before.
Yeah, but I can never talk about it enough.
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I know we've talked about it before, but what was "@" used for before the internet? Why was it important enough to become a standard typewriter symbol?
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It was used for commercial and accounting stuff. I'm not sure how that justified its inclusion in typewriter keyboards, but the same could be said for most of the special characters on the keyboard.
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Hmm. Although this was probably some kind of misinformation itself, I was trained to believe the symbol for @ was a "q" with the tail wrapped around the letter and indicated "quantity".
i.e. 20 @ $2.15 each. (there used to be an @ key on cash registers that did exactly that.)
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A brief seach, however does not support that idea.
Wikipedia reports it as "at the rate of".
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To be fair, the Wikipedia article makes it sound like it's the subject of some debate. The à origin makes the most sense to me. "Quantity" doesn't make much sense to me from a semantic point of view.
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To me either.
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It was used for commercial and accounting stuff. I'm not sure how that justified its inclusion in typewriter keyboards, but the same could be said for most of the special characters on the keyboard.
You think? Looking at my keyboard, the only signs that seem terribly specialized are the "@" and "^" symbols.
Hmmm...where was the cent symbol on keyboards, back when it was included?
::off to google::
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I would love to play with a Hansen writing ball (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hansen_Writing_Ball).
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Steampunk-tastic!!!
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Isn't it? I may have to make a picture of one of those an avatar.
I haven't found the answer to my question yet, but this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout) has been pretty interesting to read over.
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Noemon, I think you should develop a typewriter based on that design.
And then rule the world.
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It was used for commercial and accounting stuff. I'm not sure how that justified its inclusion in typewriter keyboards, but the same could be said for most of the special characters on the keyboard.
You think? Looking at my keyboard, the only signs that seem terribly specialized are the "@" and "^" symbols.
The tilde and grave accent are kind of odd choices, especially considering that the acute is used so much more (not that any are very common in English). We've got the plus and minus signs (sort of), but no multiplication or division signs. We've got an asterisk but no dagger. We've got three different kinds of brackets, plus the pipe and backslash, but no bullet, no degree symbol, and no prime. When you do typesetting, you realize pretty quickly that a lot of the symbols you need are not on the keyboard, while a lot of symbols on the keyboard are actually used pretty rarely.
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Could it be that the grave accent ` is meant as a counter part to the apostrophe ' ?
What was the original thinking behind the pipe | ?
I wish the keyboard had a bullet • .
How much do you need a prime ? when you have the apostrophe ' ?
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When you do typesetting, you realize pretty quickly that a lot of the symbols you need are not on the keyboard, while a lot of symbols on the keyboard are actually used pretty rarely.
I think it's interesting that a lot of things that have built up around the standard keyboard, such as the internet and programming languages, have made use of these readily available but useless characters to the point that they're now essential.
For example, in programming, the pipe | character means OR.
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I believe the same goes with the @ sign in email addresses. I've heard that it was originally just an arbitrary separator between the account name and the domain name, but now we couldn't do without it.
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Could it be that the grave accent ` is meant as a counter part to the apostrophe ' ?
I don't believe so. Actual apostrophes are curved, not angled, and the grave actually goes the wrong way.
What was the original thinking behind the pipe | ?
I'm not sure, but I'll look into it later.
How much do you need a prime ? when you have the apostrophe ' ?
The prime is used for mathematical stuff and for inches and feet. As with the apostrophe versus the grave accent, it's a very different mark.
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I believe the same goes with the @ sign in email addresses.
Yup. That was the example I was thinking of when I mentioned the internet.
The prime is used for mathematical stuff and for inches and feet.
Really? I don't think I've ever typed that out or seen it typed out.
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The prime is used for mathematical stuff and for inches and feet.
Really? I don't think I've ever typed that out or seen it typed out.
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Like in carpentry instructions?
Or a math textbook?
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Nope -- in those situations, I'd expect to see "in." or "ft." instead.
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That makes sense for the carprentry example, but for the math book example I meant the use of a prime to indicate a derivative.
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What's the purpose or origin of this character?
?
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I'm 5'4", but I use the apostrophe and quotes for that.
Maybe with the prime, I'd be taller.
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I think I'm going to write a scifi story about what the world would be like if the Chinese had invented the keyboard.
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I'm 5'4", but I use the apostrophe and quotes for that.
Maybe with the prime, I'd be taller.
I'd always imagined you tall. *revises mental image*
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What's the purpose or origin of this character?
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To be extra exclamatory, I guess. Seems kind of pointless to me.
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I think it's for double negatives.
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I'm 5'4", but I use the apostrophe and quotes for that.
Maybe with the prime, I'd be taller.
I'd always imagined you tall. *revises mental image*
Tall? No. Down to Earth. Way down.
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For some reason, I always imagined Tante as short and her son as much taller than her.
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I'm 5'4". Where I come from, that's not short. In fact, I had no idea that I was short until I left home and went away to college. I was definitely taller than most of my friends and family. There was one girl in our circle of friends who was 5'8", and bemoaned her freakishly tall stature. After she left home and went away to college, she discovered that she was a normal height.
My son is somewhat, but not "much" taller than I am. But I think he's still growing.
I had a boyfriend in college who was 6 feet tall. I thought he was a giant. I couldn't understand why he didn't play on the basketball team. He failed to understand why I was so impressed, since he didn't think that he was particularly tall. Where I came from, guys just didn't get that tall.
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I had a boyfriend in college who was 6 feet tall. I thought he was a giant.
One of my brothers is only six feet tall. The rest of us mock him mercilessly as a dwarf.
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Wow. It's like the Lilliputians and the Brobdingnagians.
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One of my brothers is only six feet tall. The rest of us mock him mercilessly as a dwarf.
Other than the fact that apparently my brothers are nicer than yours (huh!), that sounds like them. One is 6 feet -- the other two considerably taller.
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Your brothers don't love the short one enough to good-naturedly rib him? That's the saddest thing I've heard all day.
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Good thing it's not an accurate assessment of the situation. :P
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There's a difference between prime and apostrophe? Huh. I had no idea.
I'd guess the | was included on the typewriter for making vertical columns, perhaps as dividers.
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There's a difference between prime and apostrophe? Huh. I had no idea.
Oh good. It's not just me.
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prime (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_(symbol))
apostrophe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe_(mark))
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Possessive apostrophe
See also: Saxon genitive
I should have guessed that Saxon had something to do with it.
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prime (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_(symbol))
apostrophe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe_(mark))
I saw the difference the first time; I just had never realized before that there was one.
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When you do typesetting, you realize pretty quickly that a lot of the symbols you need are not on the keyboard, while a lot of symbols on the keyboard are actually used pretty rarely.
This (http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus/) is the keyboard you need.
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Wow. That keyboard costs almost twice as much as my whole computer. It does look pretty awesome, though.
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More than three times as much as mine, but then, I got mine from Danny the Computer Guy, and he always gives me such a good deal.
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I cut out the middleman and built it myself. Though I suppose retailers are middlemen, too.
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Danny builds some and sells some, but he installs all the software for me, included in the base price, which saves me a lot of money.
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Wow. That keyboard costs almost twice as much as my whole computer. It does look pretty awesome, though.
oooooh.
Want. Never, ever gonna have, but the ability to toggle between a Hebrew and English key layout would be very cool. (I always forget certain keys/letters when I'm typing in Hebrew.)