Quote: Original post by swiftcoder

Quote: Original post by benryves
# seems to be the symbol with the most names, including the rather confusing "pound".

No one ever seems to know what I am talking about when I call it 'hash'. Think that must be a British/American difference though, since to us, £ is a 'pound'...

We call it "hash" in Aus (and I've heard people call C# "see hash"). Apparently it's an octothorp when it's on a phone keypad, if you wanna get technical.

Hehe, I forgot to rant about the # symbol. :)

Americans call it a pound symbol because it goes on the key where the pound symbol should actually be - above the 3 key next to the dollar. On UK keyboard layouts, the hash sign is over by the return key.

C++ for Dummies called '*' 'splat', and that's what I've called it ever since. It's great, because int * foo; is easily pronounceable as "int splat foo". Never heard of 'pling' for '!'.

Quote: Original post by Rubicon
Hehe, I forgot to rant about the # symbol. :)

Americans call it a pound symbol because it goes on the key where the pound symbol should actually be - above the 3 key next to the dollar. On UK keyboard layouts, the hash sign is over by the return key.

Are you sure it's a return key and not an enter key? Most keyboards I see say 'Enter'.

I think of the # key as being a 'pound' or number sign (or in the case of C#, a sharp symbol, although the actual sharp symbol looks more like an italicized #, I think - more like C# not C#).

EDIT: An emphasized # looks... horrible.

This thread is calling out for the following piece of poetry. :)

< > ! * ' ' #
^ " ` $ $ -
! * = @ $ _
% * < > ~ # 4
& [ ] . . /
| { , , SYSTEM HALTED

Or, if you need the phonetics:

Waka waka bang splat tick tick hash,
Caret quote back-tick dollar dollar dash,
Bang splat equal at dollar under-score,
Percent splat waka waka tilde number four,
Ampersand bracket bracket dot dot slash,
Vertical-bar curly-bracket comma comma CRASH.

- Originally authored by Fred Bremmer and Steve Kroese of Calvin College & Seminary of Grand Rapids, Michigan for the May/June 1990 issue of Infocus magazine. :)

why is this in general programming.

This discussion of what we should call different symbols in spoken language, reminded me of the old Victor Borge and his

">Phonetic Punctuation.

Quote: Original post by Servant of the Lord

Quote: Original post by Dathgale
These are also called chevrons.

Interesting, I always thought chevrons had to point upward. When I searched, it seems if a chevron is not pointing up, it's called an "inverted chevron", and if it points sideways, it's called a "horizontal chevron", but I can't find any reputable sources for that.

Actually, this is how a chevron looks like.

Quote: Original post by McMuttons
This thread is calling out for the following piece of poetry. :)

< > ! * ' ' #
^ " ` $ $ -
! * = @ $ _
% * < > ~ # 4
& [ ] . . /
| { , , SYSTEM HALTED

Or, if you need the phonetics:

Waka waka bang splat tick tick hash,
Caret quote back-tick dollar dollar dash,
Bang splat equal at dollar under-score,
Percent splat waka waka tilde number four,
Ampersand bracket bracket dot dot slash,
Vertical-bar curly-bracket comma comma CRASH.

- Originally authored by Fred Bremmer and Steve Kroese of Calvin College & Seminary of Grand Rapids, Michigan for the May/June 1990 issue of Infocus magazine. :)

I do believe what you called a dash is actually a hyphen. (The way I remember is that dashes are frequently represented by two hyphens and in numerous side-scrollers you press Toward+Toward to perform a dash.)

In the Dutch language, the names for these things are completely different, making it sometimes confusing to remember the English names. Here are literal translations from the Dutch names to English:

() = hooks
[] = square hooks
{} = "accolades"
<> = I'm not even sure if this has a name in Dutch, maybe "fish hooks"

So the () are the most basic type of "hooks" in Dutch, and the others such as [] and {} are special variants. So the fact that in English the [] ones have the shortest name, is what has confused me a few times in the past.