This symbol appeared in our life relatively recently. With the advent of e-mail, we began to use the symbol @ “dog”. Of course, its official name is completely different – commercial at. But do you know why it is exactly like this, and what kind of connection does a typographic symbol have with an animal? Probably few people have the answer. Let’s find out more about this interesting sign, especially since it has its own, and interesting story.
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The history of the @ symbol
The exact origin of this symbol remains a mystery. The most traditional hypothesis says that the sign appeared in the Middle Ages as an abbreviation of the preposition ad (to, on, y, at). At the same time, the letters a and d merged. But relatively recently, another version has appeared. In the letters of Florentine merchants, the phrase about “the price of one @” was found. Scientists decided that we could talk about a standard amphora, as a unit of volume. And later the sign was found in Iberian writing. This people settled on the territory of modern Spain about 5 thousand years ago. The symbol @ among the Iberians meant a special measure of weight and volume, arroba. In Spain in the Middle Ages, it was about 11.5 kg. The word itself is derived from the Arabic ar-rub or “quarter” (a quarter of a hundred pounds). And one of the first mentions of the @ symbol was found in an Aragonese manuscript dated back to 1448.
Signs similar to the “dog” were also found in Russian books of the 16th-17th centuries and even on the title page of the Sudebnik of Ivan the Terrible. But in this case, it is worth talking about the letter “az” decorated with a curl, corresponding to the unit in the Cyrillic number system.
But the popularization of this symbol was helped by English accounting. There, the @ symbol began to be used as a simple replacement for the preposition at. And phrases began to appear, like, 5 apples at 1 dollar. And when typewriters appeared, the much-needed symbol was also found on the keyboard, eventually migrating from there to the computer keyboard.
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How did the dog @ appear in the e-mail?
The official date for the appearance of e-mail is 1971. But programmer Ray Tomlinson needed a character to stand between the username and the hostname. This sign should be comfortable and functional. Well, this role was perfect for @, which was already on the keyboard, and besides, it was not used anywhere except for accounting. And in reading the address turned out to be very logical user@company.com or user at company, user from company. But today the symbol is used in other places and services: programming languages, chemistry, slang, Internet services.
What is the @ dog called in other languages?
It remains to understand why this symbol is called “dog”? Surprisingly, only Russian-speaking Internet users call him that. In English, the sign “dog” is still called at, in Italy it is “snail” (chiocciola), in Hungary it is a worm (kukac), and in Bulgaria it is generally monkey A (maimuna a), although officially it is still at , in Finland – a kind of meow miuku-mauku or miumau, since the symbol looks like a cat curled up in a ball, but officially, again – ät-merkki or the at sign. There are designations for this sign in other countries. But the fact that the @ symbol has its own name in every culture speaks volumes about its popularity and attempts by Internet users to make it into a non-banal meme.
We have nicknamed this symbol a dog for a reason. There is a connection with the character of the computer game Adventure (“Adventures”). At one time, it was very popular at the dawn of the popularization of computer technology and the Internet in our country. There, the main character was accompanied by a dog, but since the graphics were still primitive, the animal was denoted by the @ symbol.
There is also a special code for this character in Morse code • — — • — •. And it was also not chosen by chance, being a combination of the Latin letters A and C. After all, it is in their “gluing” that you can find the basis for the @ sign.
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How to type the symbol “dog” @ on the keyboard
In order to type the symbol “dog” (@) on the keyboard of a laptop or computer, use the key combination SHIFT+2 in English keyboard layout.
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