Ampersand, slash, circumflex, octothorp, asterisk - are these names familiar to everyone? But most people see them every day, but do not always know that their names sound exactly like that. But it's just & , / , ^ , # and * respectively. How about finding out where the "dog" icon came from, where it's used, and why it's called that?

History

@ is also found in medieval texts, but the name of the person who first began to use it is unknown. At that time, the monks wrote it to replace such prepositions and constructions as "in", "on", "in relation to", etc., that is, the Latin ad. In addition, in France and Spain, this sign was used to designate one of the measures of weight - arroba, equal to 11.5-12.5 kg. In some trade documents, the symbol "dog" was found when talking about wine. Therefore, experts believe that vessels for drinks - amphorae - were also designated in this way.

Later, merchants began to use it when issuing commercial invoices. With the invention of typewriters, the "dog" icon settled on their keyboards. And after the advent of computers, he migrated there too. In connection with its function in English, it was called commerical at. Since this sign was unknown before the advent of computer keyboards in the USSR, it has not yet acquired its more or less official name in Russian. Despite the fact that in old handwritten books you can find characters that vaguely resemble @, after all, they are not such a sign. So it is clear why he did not receive a well-established and unified verbal designation. In colloquial speech, several names are used at once. So why is the icon called "dog"? There are several possible reasons.

Why "dog"?

There is no official translation of the name of this icon in Russian, so its name sounds like "commercial at". In colloquial speech, several names have taken root, the most popular of which is considered to be "dog". In Russian, as in others, there are also other, less well-known names for this symbol, but they will be discussed a little later. So why is the icon called "dog"? The truth, of course, is no longer known, but several possible reasons are given:

• The @ symbol itself resembles a sleeping dog curled up in a ball.
• The English name of this symbol is somewhat reminiscent of a dog barking, although this could hardly affect the fact that this symbol was called that way.
• Finally, the most likely option: at a time when computers were much less accessible than today, many experts were fond of the Adventure game, which used various symbols to indicate the surrounding characters and objects. The main character had a faithful companion - his dog. It is not difficult to guess what symbol was used to designate it.

In addition to this name, there are many other names used for @. I wonder what else this icon is called.

Other names in Russian

In addition to various non-printable expressions, in some places alternative names for "dogs" are used - "monkey", "krakozyabra", "squiggle", "ear", "snail", "cat", "rose", "frog" and others. As a rule, such names reflect people's ideas about what this symbol looks like. And Russian-speaking Internet users are not so original in this - in many European languages, the common names @ are also associated with the "animal" theme.

In other countries

Many foreigners believe that @ looks like a strudel, which, however, is not so surprising, there is an external resemblance. In France and Spain, the old designation "arroba" has been preserved. In some countries, the name is associated with the letter most similar to the "dog" icon - "a". In Serbia, for example, the name "crazy A" is used, and in Vietnam - "crooked A".

And yet, when communicating with representatives of different countries, as a rule, @ is called at. With the spread of the Internet, it became necessary, if only to quickly dictate your email address to someone. By the way, "dog" was recognized so significant symbol that in 2004 even received its own code in

By the way, the most popular name@ in Russian has become the subject of numerous jokes. Since this character is most often found in addresses Email, and the first part of them is the names or nicknames of users, sometimes the whole thing sounds quite comical.

How to print?

The dog icon on the keyboard is located in such a way that it is almost impossible to find it by accident. In addition, it is not in the Russian layout, since it is not needed there. After all, it is simply not used by Russians in their native speech and in writing. In the English layout of the standard keyboard, @ is on the 2 key. How to print the "dog" icon? Very simple - hold down the Shift key and press the 2 upper numeric keypad. It doesn't work in other layouts. If @ is very necessary, you can copy it from any email address. There is another way to put the "dog" icon - open in text editor, such as Microsoft Word, insert special characters menu. Finding what you are looking for is not difficult, in the same window you can set with which it will be possible to print @ in the future.

Usage

It is believed that the “dog” owes part of its modern functional load to the person who first sent an email in 1971 on the Arpanet network, which is considered the progenitor of the modern Internet, Ray Tomlinson. Some even attribute to him the invention of this symbol, but this is not so. Now @ is used as a separator between the names of the mailbox itself and the domain name on which it is located. This icon was chosen for a very simple reason - it could not be contained in anyone's name, so there could be no confusion with identifiers. It is this area of ​​application that is most noticeable to ordinary Internet users, but @ is used not only here. It is also present in programming languages. There, the icon serves a variety of purposes: in PHP it disables the output of possible errors, in Perl it acts as an array identifier, and so on. Some organizations use @ as their informal character. Also, in some Romance languages, this icon is used in electronic correspondence between acquaintances, if it is necessary to make a particular noun gender neutral for any reason, that is, @ replaces but or about.

It may seem that this symbol is not so much needed, but it is not. Replacing the "dog" is almost impossible, and it's not worth it - everyone is already used to it.

On the web, it is used as a separator between username and hostname in email address syntax.

Some figures in the Internet space call this symbol "one of the main pop symbols of our time, a sign of our common communication space." Somewhat grandiloquently, in my opinion, but the following fact testifies to the worldwide recognition of this symbol, and as it is even sometimes noted, “canonization”. In February 2004, the International Telecommunication Union introduced a code for the @ symbol (. - - . - .) in Morse code to facilitate the transmission of email addresses. The code combines the Latin letters A and C and reflects their joint graphic writing.

The search for the origins of the @ symbol takes us back at least to the 15th century, and perhaps even further, although linguists and paleographers still disagree on this issue.
Professor Giorgio Stabile put forward such a hypothesis. A 16th-century document written by a Florentine merchant mentioned "the price of one A of wine" (possibly an amphorae). At the same time, the letter A, according to the then tradition, was decorated with a curl and looked like @. The American scholar Berthold Ullman suggested that the @ sign was invented by medieval monks to shorten the Latin word "ad", which was often used as a universal word meaning "on", "in", "in relation", etc. in spanish, portuguese, French the name of the symbol comes from the word "arroba" - an old Spanish measure of weight, ca. 15 kg., which was abbreviated on the letter with the @ sign.

The modern official name for the symbol "commercial at" comes from bills, for example, 7 widgets @ $2 each = $14, which translates to 7 widgets. 2$ = 14$. Since this symbol was used in business, it was placed on the keyboards of typewriters and from there migrated to the computer.

We owe the distribution of this symbol on the network to the forefather of e-mail, Tomlinson. He was the one who chose the @ symbol. When asked much later why he chose this particular icon, he replied simply: "I was looking on the keyboard for a character that could not appear in any name and cause confusion."
Such a symbol was needed by Tomlinson at the time when he was working on the creation of a messaging system in the Arpanet network (the progenitor of the Internet). In fact, he had to come up with a new addressing scheme that would identify not only the recipients, but also the computers on which their mailboxes were located. To do this, Tomlinson needed a separator, and his, in general, random choice fell on the @ sign. The first network address was [email protected]

In Russia, users most often refer to the “@” symbol as a “dog”, which is why e-mail addresses formed from personal names and surnames sometimes take on unexpected coloring. It is curious that this symbol is used in their work as folk talents(for example, a joke: “The dog is gone, @ don’t offer”), and official jokers - KVN players (for example, “ [email protected]"). But still: why "dog"?

There are several versions of the origin of this funny name.
First, the badge really looks like a curled up dog.
Secondly, the abrupt sound of the English “at” is a bit like a dog barking.
Thirdly, with a fair amount of imagination, you can consider almost all the letters included in the word “dog” in the outlines of the symbol, well, perhaps, with the exception of “k”.
But the most romantic is the following legend: “Once upon a time, when computers were large and displays were exclusively text, there was a popular game with the simple name “Adventure” (“Adventure”). Its meaning was to travel through a computer-generated labyrinth in search of treasures and battles with harmful underground creatures. At the same time, the labyrinth on the screen was drawn with the symbols "!", "+" and "-", and the player, treasures and hostile monsters were indicated by various letters and icons. Moreover, according to the plot, the player had a faithful assistant - a dog who could be sent to the catacombs for reconnaissance. And it was denoted, of course, by the @ sign.
Whether this was the root cause of the now generally accepted name, or, conversely, the icon was chosen because it was already called that, the legend is silent about this.

In fairness, it should be noted that in Russia a “dog” is also called a dog, a frog, a bun, an ear, a ram, and even a kryakozyabra. In other countries, this symbol is associated with different objects.
Below is far from full list how the "@" symbol is called in other countries.

- Bulgaria - "klomba" or "maimunsko a" (monkey A)

- Netherlands - "apenstartje" (monkey tail)

- Israel - "strudel" (whirlpool)

- Spain, France, Portugal - "arroba", "arrobase" (measure of weight)

- Germany - monkey tail, monkey ear, monkey, paperclip

- Italy - chiocciola" (snail)

- Denmark, Norway, Sweden - "snabel-a" (snout a) or elephant trunk (a with a trunk)

- Czech Republic, Slovakia - rollmops (marinated herring)

- America - cat

- China, Taiwan - little mouse

- Turkey - rose

- Serbia - "crazy a" or maimun (monkey)

- Vietnam - "crooked a"

- Ukraine - "ravlik" (snail), "doggie" or "doggy", "mavpochka" (monkey)

- Poland, Croatia, Romania, Slovenia, Holland - "malpa" (monkey)

- Finland - cat's tail

- Greece - little pasta

- Hungary - worm, tick

- Latvia - "at"

- Russia - in addition to the dog - a dog, a frog, a bun, an ear and a kryakozyabra.

As you can see, for many nations, the @ sign evokes an association with a snuggly animal, for some with an appetizing strudel or herring roll, the poetic Turks compared it with a flower, but the disciplined Japanese use the English “attomark” without any poetic comparisons.

Instruction

Change your computer to English keyboard layout. To do this, press the key combination Left Alt + Shift. You can also manually change the language. The panel in the lower right corner shows the current input language. Hover over it, left-click and select EN - English from the pop-up menu.

If you did not find English in the menu, then you need to install it. Click Start > Control Panel > Regional and Language Options. In the window that opens, select the Language and keyboard tab > Edit > Add. Click on the "+" next to "English (United States)". Check the box next to "US" (the topmost line). Confirm your choice with the "OK" button.

Open the document in which you want to type the "dog" icon. With the keyboard set to English, press and hold Left Shift while pressing the number 2 key. An "@" icon will appear at the desired location.

You can also type this icon from the symbol table. To open it, run: Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map. In the drop-down box on the panel, select the font in which you want to see the written icon. Click on "@", it should appear in the "To copy" box. Confirm your choice by clicking "Copy".

note

English is required for all keyboards, it's just not always set as one of the input languages. No other layout (German, French, Polish, etc.) has a dog symbol.

Sources:

• Education. How to put the sign "dog" and other symbols
• how to recruit workers

Tip 2: How the @ symbol came about and why we call it a dog

There are several versions of the origin of this word. The first and most banal - the icon, in fact, looks like a curled up ball. The second is that the sound of the English at is a bit like the intermittent barking of a dog. According to another version, in the @ sign you can see all the letters that include "dog". There is also a romantic version, according to which the name "doggy" migrated from the old computer game Adventure. The meaning of the quest was to travel through a fictional computer labyrinth, which was drawn with the symbols "+", "-" and "!", and the monsters opposing the player were indicated by letters. Moreover, according to the plot of the game, the player had a faithful assistant - a dog, which, of course, was indicated by the @ sign. However, it is not possible to find out whether this was the root cause of the common name or whether the game appeared after the word "dog" had already become established.

E-mail is used by almost everyone who, one way or another, is connected with computers. But few people wondered how the “@” symbol, used in an email address and popularly referred to as a “dog”, appeared.

The history of the "dog" goes back to 1971, when programmer Ray Tomlinson was working on a program for exchanging electronic messages and using the "@" symbol, which is not found in English names and last names.

Meanwhile, @ is a ligature (connection of letters) denoting "at". The exact origin of the symbol is not known, but according to one hypothesis, this is an abbreviation for the Latin ad. The name "commercial at" takes its origin from the accounts. Since the symbol was used in business, it was placed on the keyboards of typewriters, from where it migrated to the computer.

In Spanish, Portuguese and French, the name of the symbol comes from the word "arroba" - an old Spanish measure of weight, which was indicated by the @ sign when writing.

In the USSR, this sign was unknown before the advent of the computer, and got its name with the spread of a computer game, where, according to the scenario, the symbol “@” ran across the screen and denoted a dog. In addition, translated from the Tatar "et" means - "dog".

IN different countries the character is read differently. Here are some examples:

In the USA - at ("the at sign".)

In Bulgaria, klomba or maimunsko a ("monkey A").

In the Netherlands - apenstaartje ("monkey's tail").

In Italy they say "chiocciola" - a snail.

In Denmark and Norway they use "snabel-a" - "snout a".

In Taiwan, a mouse.

In Finland, the cat's tail.

In Greece - "little pasta".

In Hungary - a worm, a tick.

In Serbia - "crazy A".

In Sweden, an elephant.

In Vietnam - "twisted A".

In Ukraine - dog, doggie, tsutsenyatko (Ukrainian - puppy)

The "@" symbol has many uses these days. In addition to e-mail and other Internet services, the symbol is used in many programming languages.

In 2004, for the convenience of transferring e-mail addresses, the International Telecommunication Union introduced the code for the symbol @ (• - - • - •) into Morse code.

Comments

2009-09-16 16:24:25 - Leschinskaya Lyudasha Aleksandrovna

To be honest, I didn't know anything like that. very funny and interesting. in short, just super and thanks in advance for the top five

2009-11-19 22:49:21 - Sergey Alikberov

Everything is much less romantic. Moreover, it is technocratic. The name of this badge was given by electronic engineers at the dawn of Runet. "Dog" is called a part of the cam mechanism, which, due to its shape, very similar to this icon, allows the axes of the mechanism to rotate only in one direction, i.e. blocks them, like a dog not allowing you to pass.

2010-01-30 10:40:12 - Vasily

Dub @ you, "technocrat" Alikberov. When @ was called a dog, there was no Runet yet. There was only e-mail... You probably crawled under the table on foot... The most obvious thing is that at really sounds like a dog barking. Programmers of the early 90s always had this opinion.

2010-01-30 17:03:37 - Andrey Bunin

Alikberov Sergey, but to prove it?

2010-02-03 21:52:57 - Sergey Alikberov

Vasyatka, you read what is written: "... part of the mechanism ... similar to this badge ...". Have you seen cam mechanisms? And they, by the way, controlled the first Soviet ballistic missiles, representing a very reliable and noise-resistant unit. Oh, and you can still hear the barking of dogs ...

2010-04-18 17:50:09 - Maslennikova Inna

tell me how to make it so that the computer shows this dog, otherwise it doesn’t write a fig ... thanks in advance.

2010-05-25 17:39:53 - Arina

Please tell me HOW TO ENTER THIS DOG TO THE COMPUTER?

2011-03-25 19:17:27 - Arina

Everything has been disassembled. you have to press shift+2

2011-11-21 15:13:10 - Sasha 2013-07-23 19:14:27.547251 - Nastya 5+

thanks for peterky

2014-11-14 20:14:28.002529 - Motkov Dmitry Romanych

I This... I'm at the expense of the mechanism..., the cam... in the Soviets... the language does not turn, rockets!!! And about the winder in the clock, knowledge is weak? A dog in mechanics IS A COMMA, however !!!

2015-07-28 18:42:40.495166 - DARIA VOLKOVA

HOW TO MAKE THIS DOG?

2015-10-22 06:19:53.824886 - zihor Vyacheslav Vasilyevich

so cool

2015-11-25 19:57:44.046673 - Totikova Alina Evgenievna

And what was the name of this game with a dog (@) in the USSR?

2017-10-02 20:01:07.131344 - Pogadaev Victor

IN Indonesian this icon is called E snail (E keong)

On the Internet, the well-known character "dog" is used as a separator between a given user's name and a domain (host) name in email address syntax.

Fame

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

One of the evidence of the worldwide recognition of this designation is the fact that in 2004 (in February) the International Telecommunication Union introduced a special code for @ designation into the general one. It combines the codes of two C and A, which displays their joint graphic writing.

The history of the symbol "dog"

The Italian researcher Giorgio Stabile managed to find in the archive owned by the Institute of Economic History in the city of Prato (near Florence), a document in which this sign was first found in writing. Such important evidence turned out to be a letter from a merchant from Florence, which was subsidized as early as 1536.

In him in question about three merchant ships that arrived in Spain. As part of the ship's cargo, there were containers in which wine was transported, marked with an @ sign. After analyzing the data on the price of wines, as well as on the capacity of various medieval vessels, and comparing the data with the universal system of measures used at that time, the scientist concluded that the @ sign was used as a special measuring unit, which replaced the word anfora (in translation "amphora"). So since ancient times the universal measure of volume was called.

Bertolt Ullman's theory

Berthold Ullman is an American scientist who suggested that the @ symbol was developed by medieval monks in order to shorten the common 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 comes from the term "arroba", which in turn denotes an old Spanish measure of weight (about 15 kg), abbreviated in writing by the @ symbol.

Modernity

Many people are interested in the name of the symbol "dog". Note that the official modern name for this symbol sounds like "commercial at" and originates from the accounts in which it was used in the following context: [email protected]$2each = $14. This can be translated as 7 pieces of 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 on the first typewriter in Underwood, which was released back in 1885. And only after a long 80 years, the symbol "dog" was inherited by the first computer keyboards.

Internet

Let's turn to the official history of the World Wide Web. She claims that the Internet symbol "dog" in e-mail addresses originated with an American engineer and computer scientist named Ray Tomlinson, who in 1971 was able to send the first ever electronic message over the network. In this case, the address had to be composed of two parts - the name of the computer through which the registration was made, and the username. Tomilson chose the symbol "dog" on the keyboard as the separator between the indicated parts, since it was not part of either computer names or user names.

Versions of the origin of the famous name "dog"

There are several possible versions of the origin of such a funny name in the world at once. First of all, the icon really does look a lot like a dog curled up.

In addition, the abrupt sound of the word at (the symbol for a dog in English is read that way) resembles a bit of a dog barking. It should also be noted that when good imagination you can see in the symbol almost all the letters that are part of the word "dog", except perhaps, excluding "k".

However, the most romantic can be called the following legend. Once upon a time, in that good time, when all computers were very large, and the screens were exclusively text, there was one popular game in the virtual kingdom, which was named, reflecting its content - "Adventure" (Adventure).

Its meaning was to travel 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 using the symbols "-", "+", "!", and the player, hostile monsters and treasures were indicated by various icons and letters.

Moreover, according to the plot, the player was friends with faithful assistant- a dog that could always be sent for reconnaissance in the catacombs. It was designated just by the @ sign. Was this the root cause of the now generally accepted name, or, conversely, was the icon chosen by the developers of the game, because it was already called that? The legend does not provide answers to these questions.

What is the name of the virtual "dog" in other countries?

It is worth noting that in our country the symbol "dog" is also called a ram, an ear, a bun, a frog, a dog, even a kryakozyabra. In Bulgaria, it is “maimunsko a” or “klomba” (monkey A). In the Netherlands, monkey tail (apenstaartje). In Israel, the sign is associated with a whirlpool ("strudel").

The Spaniards, French and Portuguese call the designation similar to the measure of weight (respectively: arroba, arrobase and arrobase). If you ask about what the dog symbol means among the inhabitants of Poland and Germany, they will answer you that it is a monkey, a paper clip, a monkey ear or a monkey tail. It is considered a snail in Italy, calling it chiocciola.

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

For many, this is still a monkey, namely for Slovenia, Romania, Holland, Croatia, Serbia (majmun; alternative: “crazy A”), Ukraine (alternatives: snail, dog, dog). FROM in English borrowed the term Lithuania (eta - "this", borrowing with the addition of a Lithuanian morpheme at the end) and Latvia (et - "et"). The variant of the Hungarians, where this cute sign has become a tick, can lead to discouragement.

Cat and mouse is played by Finland (cat's tail), America (cat), Taiwan and China (mouse). The inhabitants of Turkey turned out to be romantics (rose). And in Vietnam, this badge is called "crooked A".

Alternative hypotheses

It is believed that the name of the designation "dog" in Russian speech appeared thanks to the famous DVK computers. In them, the "dog" appeared during the boot of the computer. Indeed, the designation resembled a small dog. All DVK users, without saying a word, came up with a name for the symbol.

It is curious that the original spelling of the Latin letter "A" suggested decorating it with curls, thus it was very similar to the current spelling of the "dog" sign. The translation of the word "dog" into the Tatar language sounds like "at".

Where else can you find a "dog"?

There are a number of services that use this symbol (other than email):

HTTP, FTP, Jabber, Active Directory. In IRC, the character is placed before the name of the channel operator, for example, @oper.

The sign has also been widely used in the main programming languages. In Java, it is used to declare an annotation. In C#, needed to escape characters in a string. The operation of taking an address is appropriately denoted in Pascal. For Perl, this is an array identifier, and in Python, respectively, a decorator declaration. The field identifier for a class instance is a Ruby sign.

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

Finally, Transact-SQL expects a local variable name to start with @ and a global variable name to start with two @. In DOS, thanks to the character, the echo for the executed command is suppressed. Designating an action as mode echo off is usually applied before entering the mode to prevent a specific command from being displayed on the screen (for clarity: @echo off).

So we looked at how many aspects of virtual and real life depend on a regular character. However, let's not forget that it has become the most recognizable precisely because of the emails that are sent by the thousands every day. It can be assumed that today you will receive a letter with a "dog", and it will bring only good news.