rick@iddic.UUCP (Rick Coates) (06/18/85)
I suspect that this issue has come up before, if anyone has pointers and/or archives of relevant material, it might save going over the same ground again. What names are in use for the non-alpha characters in the ASCII code? For example, ! is often 'shriek' or 'bang' # is 'sharp' or 'pound' and so on. And on a related topic, does anyone know of names for the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) symbols? I have looked in reference materials for the IPA and in the Encyclopaedia Britannica to no avail. Rick Coates ...!tektronix!iddic!rick
mmar@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Mitchell Marks) (06/18/85)
I recall an article posted a Recording for the Blind, making recommendations
about names for symbols (these weren't their own conventions, but somebody
thought it useful and clipped it). For # the suggested term was
'octothorp'. The octo- part is clear enough, there are eight line-ends,
but I have no idea what the thorp was.
-- Mitch Marks
@ UChicago (linguistics)
ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!mmarmmar@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Mitchell Marks) (06/18/85)
Sorry for the double posting, I should have done this all at once.
For the IPA symbols, we have the problem ourselves here of referring to
them, since they won't go out over ASCII. I could try to draw them, but...
The velar nasal consonant (n with right leg extended like descender of g) is
often called ENGMA. The mid-high mid-back vowel ("uh") is CARET, since
indeed the symbol in other uses is just that. The Greek letters of course
inherit their regular names. The voiced "th" is "crossed d" or "barred d"
for some people, and thorn for others -- though it's not exactly the
same as the old thorn character.
Throughout that, I should have been saying "The symbol for ... is called".
-- Mitch Marks
@ UChicago (linguistics)
ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!mmarbarryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Lee Gold) (06/20/85)
Yes, I'm used to saying ! as "bang." (And of course ~ is a tilda.)
For the rest,
# is prosaically merely "number."
\ is "backwhack."
` is "baquote."
| is "vertical" or "pipe."
< and > are "angle brackets"; { and } are "curly brackets." [ and ] are
just "brackets."
Now, how do you pronounce the difference between FILENAME, filename,
and Filename?
--Lee Goldellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) (06/20/85)
>The velar nasal consonant (n with right leg extended like descender of g) is >often called ENGMA. The mid-high mid-back vowel ("uh") is CARET, since >indeed the symbol in other uses is just that. The Greek letters of course >inherit their regular names. The voiced "th" is "crossed d" or "barred d" >for some people, and thorn for others -- though it's not exactly the >same as the old thorn character. -- Mitch Marks AngloSaxon texts use two symbols interchangeably in the words now written `th': `thorn': looks like cross between lowercase `p' and `b' `eth': looks like a barred `d' (`eTH' has the TH in `THe') Sometimes modern transcriptions of Anglo-Saxon regularize these so that eth is used where we now use a voiced-th (then, that) and thorn elsewhere (thin, thatch), as in modern Icelandic, which, I believe, uses those same names. IPA discards thorn and uses theta instead. Other IPA symbols required for English are `ash', the AngloSaxon character for the vowel in `ash', apparently derived from the Latin digraph `ae', and `shwa', the upside-down `e' whose name comes from Hebrew. These letters all look somewhat as below: ASH SHWA CARAT ENGMA ETH THORN THETA # ## ### ##### # # # ### ## ### ### # ### # #### # # # # # # # # ### # # ##### ##### #### # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # ## ### ### ### ### ### # ### #### ### # # ### ### -michael
rob@ptsfa.UUCP (Rob Bernardo) (06/21/85)
In article <2041@iddic.UUCP> rick@iddic.UUCP (Rick Coates) writes: >And on a related topic, does anyone know of names for the IPA (International >Phonetic Alphabet) symbols? I have looked in reference materials for the >IPA and in the Encyclopaedia Britannica to no avail. Here are some. Properly speaking the names belong to the sounds, not to the symbols. Many vowel sounds not represented by simple letters 'i', 'e', 'a', 'o', and 'u' are called by their sound. This cannot be done with consonants since a vowel is needed to make a pronounceable syllable. Many consonants are named by the Greek letter used to represent them. name sound ash 'a' in 'cat' shwa 'u' in 'cut' ezh 'z' in 'azure' esh 'sh' in 'she' beta bilabial voiced fricative phi bilabial voiceless fricative delta 'th' in 'the' theta 'th' in 'think' gamma velar voiced fricative chi velar voiceless fricative -- Rob Bernardo, San Ramon, California ihnp4!ptsfa!rob {nsc,ucbvax,decwrl,amd,fortune,zehntel}!dual!ptsfa!rob
jeff@rtech.UUCP (Jeff Lichtman) (06/22/85)
> > What names are in use for the non-alpha characters in the ASCII code? > > For example, ! is often 'shriek' or 'bang' > # is 'sharp' or 'pound' > > Rick Coates Names I use or have heard: Symbol Names $ dollar (as opposed to "dollar sign") ^ hat & and * star ( paren or left ) paren or right ~ squiggle or wiggle ' squote (for "single quote") I once worked for a company that produced a word processor, and we had a contract with Rank Xerox in England to modify our system to be sold in Europe. This system made heavy use of the '\' character. In the U.S. we call this a "backslash". A fellow from Rank Xerox insisted that we change our documentation to read "back-oblique" (the British word for the same character). He said that "backslash" sounded like someone was being murdered. -- Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.) aka Swazoo Koolak {amdahl, sun}!rtech!jeff {ucbvax, decvax}!mtxinu!rtech!jeff
sck@elsie.UUCP (Steve Kaufman) (06/24/85)
In article <2086@sdcrdcf.UUCP>, barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Lee Gold) writes from a site in California: > Yes, I'm used to saying ! as "bang." (And of course ~ is a tilda.) > For the rest, > # is prosaically merely "number." > \ is "backwhack." > ` is "baquote." > | is "vertical" or "pipe." > < and > are "angle brackets"; { and } are "curly brackets." [ and ] are > just "brackets." Maybe this is another example of different ways of speaking in different parts of the country. The symbol names I've heard (along with where I first heard them) are as follows: ! shriek Madison, WI \ backslash " ` grave accent " < > pointy brackets Pittsburgh, PA # pound sign "
ken@boring.UUCP (06/25/85)
In article <2086@sdcrdcf.UUCP> barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Lee Gold) writes: > \ is "backwhack." In Australia we used to call this "slosh". I thought the symmetry slash-slosh was pleasing and less of a mouthful than "backquote". Does anybody else do this? So what do we call the ` character? Quate? :-) Ken -- UUCP: ..!{seismo,okstate,garfield,decvax,philabs}!mcvax!ken Voice: Ken! Mail: Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica, Kruislaan 413, 1098 SJ, Amsterdam.
zben@umd5.UUCP (06/25/85)
@ "at"
! "bang"
< "corner brackets" >
~ "twiddle"
--
Ben Cranston ...{seismo!umcp-cs,ihnp4!rlgvax}!cvl!umd5!zben zben@umd2.ARPAdave@uwvax.UUCP (Dave Cohrs) (06/25/85)
After seeing Madison mentioned, I couldn't resist putting in my two-cents
worth of local naming conventions. Here we go:
! shreik (Madison is the only place I've heard this used)
# pound
$ dollar
^ up
( open
) close
<> angle brackets or brockets
[] square brackets or open and close square
{} open and close squiggle
~ tilda or twiddle to some
\ back
| pipe
` back quote
--
dave cohrs
...!{allegra,harvard,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!dave
dave@wisc-limburger.arpa
(bug? what bug? that's a feature!)landauer@drivax.UUCP (Doug Landauer) (06/26/85)
Rick Coates (...!tektronix!iddic!rick) asks > What names are in use for the non-alpha characters in the ASCII code? > I suspect that this issue has come up before ... Yup. A few months ago, a fairly complete list was posted of the spoken names for many of the non-alpha characters in ASCII. I forgot which newsgroup it was posted to, but judging by the number of responses your message got, it wasn't this one. Unfortunately, I forgot who posted it. Fortunately, I did save a copy of it. Here it is... Thanks to that unknown previous poster. (I added a couple...) ------------- TERMINAL MUMPS: Popular and Bizarre Character Names Summarized from USENET articles, circa 1983. Single characters listed in ASCII order, followed by multiples. For each character, "official" names appear first, thence others in order of popularity (more or less). ! exclamation point, exclamation, bang, factorial, excl, ball-bat, smash, shriek, cuss, wow, hey !? interrobang (as one overlapped character) " double quote, quote, dirk, literal mark, rabbit ears # pound sign, number sign, sharp, crunch, mesh, hex, hash, flash, grid, pig-pen, tictactoe, scratchmark, octothorp (from Bell System) $ dollar sign, currency symbol, buck, cash, string (from BASIC), escape (from TOPS-10), ding, big-money % percent sign, percent, mod, double-oh-seven & ampersand, amper, and, address (from C), andpersand ' apostrophe, single quote, quote, prime, tick, irk, pop, spark () open/close parenthesis, left/right parenthesis, paren/thesis, parenthisey, unparenthisey, open/close round bracket, ears, so/already, wax/wane * asterisk, star, splat, wildcard, gear, dingle + plus sign, plus, add, cross, intersection , comma, tail - hyphen, dash, minus sign, worm . period, dot, decimal point, radix point, point, full stop, spot / virgule, slash, stroke, slant, diagonal, solidus, over, slat, oblique : colon, two-spot ; semicolon, semi, hybrid <> angle brackets, left/right angle, less/greater than, read from / write to, from/into, from/toward, in/out, comesfrom/ gozinta (all from UNIX), funnel, brokets, crunch/zap, suck/blow = equal sign, equals, quadrathorp, gets, half-mesh ? question mark, whatmark, what, wildchar, ques, huh, quark @ at sign, at, each, vortex, whorl, whirlpool, cyclone, snail, ape, cat, address V vee, book [] square brackets, left/right bracket, bracket/unbracket, bra/ket, square/unsquare, U turns \ reversed virgule, backslash, bash, backslant, backwhack, backslat, escape (from UNIX), back oblique ^ circumflex, caret, uparrow, hat, chevron, sharkfin, to ("to the power of"), fang _ underscore, underline, underbar, under, score, backarrow, flatworm ` grave accent, grave, backquote, left quote, open quote, backprime, unapostrophe, backspark, birk, blugle, back tick, push {} open/close brace, left/right brace, brace/unbrace, curly bracket, curly/uncurly, leftit/rytit, embrace/bracelet | vertical bar, bar, or, v-bar, spike, pipe, gozinta, thru, pipesinta (last four from UNIX) ~ tilde, swung dash, squiggle, approx, wiggle, twiddle, enyay /* slashterisk */ asterslash >> cat-astrophe ------------- -- Doug Landauer -- ...[ ihnp4 | mot | ucscc | amdahl ] !drivax!landauer
gjerawlins@watdaisy.UUCP (Gregory J.E. Rawlins) (06/27/85)
In article <2041@iddic.UUCP> rick@iddic.UUCP (Rick Coates) writes: >What names are in use for the non-alpha characters in the ASCII code? Good question! Surprisingly, no one i know has a reference for this (can anyone from Bureau of Standards help out?). My names for these symbols depend on occasion (programming in Pascal vs C or the shell or in conversation or on the phone or while reading) and (apparently) on where i first saw them used (or pronounced). I remember seeing a poem in OMNI a while ago (yes, i read OMNI) which used the symbol "#"; it was in the form of a puzzle where you had to get all the names (there were 8) for this symbol. My personal names are: ! - "bang"/"exclam"/"exclamation point" ~ - "tilde"/"twiddle" ` - "back quote" ' - "single quote" " - "double quote" \ - "back slash" | - "pipe" # - "hash"/"number"/"pound" @ - "at" ^ - "up arrow"/"caret"/"pointer" & - "and"/"ampersand" * - "star"/"asterisk"/"times" < - "less than"/"pointy brackets" { - "curly brackets"/"braces" [ - "hard brackets" ( - "brackets" -- Gregory J.E. Rawlins, Department of Computer Science, U. Waterloo {allegra|clyde|linus|inhp4|decvax}!watmath!watdaisy!gjerawlins
darryl@ISM780.UUCP (06/27/85)
[]
I haven't seen these two yet, so...
* splat
? hook
Also, remember that . is a period or a decimal point, not a "dot".
--Darryl Richman, INTERACTIVE Systems Corp.
...!cca!ima!ism780!darryl
The views expressed above are my opinions only.andersa@kuling.UUCP (Anders Andersson) (06/28/85)
In article <2041@iddic.UUCP> rick@iddic.UUCP (Rick Coates) writes: >What names are in use for the non-alpha characters in the ASCII code? Here in Sweden, we use (or at least I've heard someone use) the following: " hartass (rabbit's foot) / dubbel-blipp (double blip) # braedhoeg (pile of wood) $ sol (sun) [when referring to the European character] ' blipp (blip) / enkel-blipp (single blip) @ kanelbulle (chanel bun ?) / oera (ear) / / snabel-alfa (elephant's-nose-alpha ?) ^ tak (roof) { } maas (seagull), left & right ~ snok (snake) Unfortunately I don't have a dictionary at hand - perhaps some Scandinavian globetrotter could tell how to translate "kanelbulle" and "snabel" correctly (not to forget "blipp" either)...
jack@boring.UUCP (06/28/85)
It seems that all non-english speakers invent funny words for those #@^~ characters. The ones I've heard here in Holland (undoubdtedly there are others in use are: > # braedhoeg (pile of wood) tuinhekje (garden gate) or spoorwegkruis (railroad crossing) > @ kanelbulle (chanel bun ?) / oera (ear) / > / snabel-alfa (elephant's-nose-alpha ?) apestaart( ape's tail) or slingeraapje (swinging ape) Notice that especially @ and # seem to get very poetic names in different languages. Maybe I'll start calling # 'houtstapel' (pile of wood). I kind of like the name..... -- Jack Jansen, jack@mcvax.UUCP The shell is my oyster.
jbdp@jenny.UUCP (Julian Pardoe) (06/28/85)
Here's two penn'orth [spelling!!] from the UK:
! pling | bar
" (double) quote / slash
# hash \ backslash
' (single) quote () (round) brackets
` backquote, open quote [] square brackets
~ twiddle <> angle brackets
^ hat {} curly brackets, braces
Pling is supposed to be a BCPLism and so probably originates
from the language's inventor, Martin Richards. Another
Cambridgeism, but one that seems to have died out, is calling
matching bracket pairs `bra' and `ket'. To distinguish them
from () Algol68C calls [] `sub' and `bus'.
`Slash' has a slightly lavatorial sound in British English so
some avoid it. The strangest I've heard were `slant' and
`reverse slant'.
Julian Pardoe
-------------
University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory
Corn Exchange Street
CAMBRIDGE
CB2 3QG
Great Britain
Tel: 352435 ext. 265
Area code: national: 0223, international +44 223
Arpa: <@ucl-cs: jbdp@cl.cam.ac.uk>
Janet: jbdp@UK.AC.Cam.CL sean@ncr-tp.UUCP (Sean Shapira) (07/02/85)
On a related subject (hah!), can anyone help me with spoken names for the "section symbol" often used in math texts, which looks some- thing like a double S? Thanks, --Sean ...!sdcsvax!ncr-tp!sean
wfmans@ihuxb.UUCP (w. mansfield) (07/03/85)
I don't know about the rest of you, but my first exposure to # was in music, leading to an ongoing desire to call it "sharp". So that people here understand me, I call it "pound". By the way, if ' is a quote, why is ` an accent?
kanner@tymix.UUCP (Herb Kanner) (07/04/85)
In article <7333@watdaisy.UUCP> gjerawlins@watdaisy.UUCP (Gregory J.E. Rawlins) writes: >In article <2041@iddic.UUCP> rick@iddic.UUCP (Rick Coates) writes: >>What names are in use for the non-alpha characters in the ASCII code? > My personal names are: > ! - "bang"/"exclam"/"exclamation point" > ~ - "tilde"/"twiddle" > ` - "back quote" > ' - "single quote" > " - "double quote" > \ - "back slash" > | - "pipe" > # - "hash"/"number"/"pound" > @ - "at" > ^ - "up arrow"/"caret"/"pointer" > & - "and"/"ampersand" > * - "star"/"asterisk"/"times" > < - "less than"/"pointy brackets" > { - "curly brackets"/"braces" > [ - "hard brackets" > ( - "brackets" >-- >Gregory J.E. Rawlins, Department of Computer Science, U. Waterloo >{allegra|clyde|linus|inhp4|decvax}!watmath!watdaisy!gjerawlins In a novel centered around tournament chess that I read some years ago, the symbol "!", as used to indicate an especially good move, was described as "shriek mark". -- Herb Kanner Tymnet, Inc. ...!hplabs!oliveb!tymix!kanner
iannucci@sjuvax.UUCP (iannucci) (07/09/85)
>In article <2041@iddic.UUCP> rick@iddic.UUCP (Rick Coates) writes: >>What names are in use for the non-alpha characters in the ASCII code? > ` - "back quote" This is sometimes called a `grave accent` also, I believe. > | - "pipe" The technical name for this is 'vertical bar' > ^ - "up arrow"/"caret"/"pointer" The technical name for this is 'circumflex' > ( - "brackets" I think most people would call these parentheses. -- If I could walk THAT way... Dave Iannucci @ St. Joseph's University, Philadelphia [40 00' N 75 15' W] {{ihnp4 | ucbvax}!allegra | {psuvax1}!burdvax | astrovax}!sjuvax!iannucci
meier@srcsip.UUCP (C Michael Meier) (07/09/85)
>> >> What names are in use for the non-alpha characters in the ASCII code? >> >> For example, ! is often 'shriek' or 'bang' bang >> # is 'sharp' or 'pound' also known as 'number'. >> >> Rick Coates >Names I use or have heard: > Symbol Names > > $ dollar (as opposed to "dollar sign") this symbol is also commonly known as 'string' -- >Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.) >aka Swazoo Koolak Christopher Meier