Special symbols

Special symbols, special signs

Sonderzeichen

Signes speciaux

Sign, symbol and signal
Special characters
Currency symbols
Reference symbols
Sources
Links

Sign, symbol and signal

Definitions according to the Concise Oxford.

Sign

Thing used as representation of something (positive or plus sign)

Symbol

Regarded by general consent as naturally typifying or representing or recalling something (esp. an idea or quality)by possession of analogous qualities or by association in fact or thought (thunderbolt is the symbol of Zeus, the cross is the symbol of Chistianity)

Signal

Intelligible (esp. prearranged) sign conveying information or direction esp. to persons at a distance. Message made up of such signs (The signal was to be the dropping of a handkerchief; train stopped at the red signal).

 

Special characters
&	Ampersand	das kaufmännische und	esperluète, perluète, esperluezte
@	At sign	der affenschwanz, der klammeraffe	le à commercial arrobe, arrobas
#	Number sign	die harfe, das doppelkreuz, der gatter, der gartenhaag (CH)	le symbole numéro, crosillon [ISO], dièse (à cause de sa ressemblance avec ce signe musical)
§	Section sign	das abschnitt zeichen; das pargraphen zeichen	paragraphe (alinéa)
¶	Paragraph sign	das absatz zeichen	pied de mouche (fin de paragraphe)
"		das gerade anführungszeichen, das gänsefüsschen	guillemet anglais
©	Copyright sign	das copyright zeichen	le symbole de copyright
®	Registered sign	das registrierungs-zeichen	symbole marque déposée
™	Trade mark sign	das handelsmarken-zeichen
Currency symbols
£	Pound sign	das pfund zeichen, Englishes Pfund	le livre sterling, symbole livre
Reference symbols

Special characters

& Ampersand

(n) [pub] The shape of this sign is derived from the ligature "et", the latin word for "and" (e.g. et cetera). According to Boeffrey Glaister in his Glossary of the Book the English term ampersand is a corruption of "and per se and" which means "the character & by itself is the word and". Glyphs (character shapes) depend on the design of the font:

Adobe Garamond	Minion	Janson Text	Meridien	ITC New Baskerville

 

One of the first examples of an ampersand appears on apiece of papyrus from about 45 A.D., but also a graffiti from Pompei is dated 79 A.D. (1).

Further developments on the image are: Early roman script around 350 (2); Scottish writing 9th century (3); carolingian minuscle around 810 (4); humanist minuscle at 1453 (5); William Caslon, London 1728 (6); Ludovico degli Arrighi, 1532 (7).

@ Commercial at sign

(n) [pub] The shape of this sign has similar roots as th shape of the ampersand. It developed from the hand writing of the word «at» with the t degenerating to an appendix to the a. It may also have evolved from the French à, where the accent has been extended to the 'tail'.

(n) [sys] In programming this symbol is used to denote a pointer or reference (e.g. @accounts points to the list of accounts). The symbol found its way into the ASCII and from there into various ISO standards. This symbol became known to the public by the e-mail addressing scheme in the Internet, for example: kasimir@sowewhere.com.

Folklore

This symbol has various names: atto mak (Japan), arroba (Spain), petit escargot = little snail (France), miukumauku = sleeping cat (Finland), zavinac = salted herring (Tzech), kanelbulle = cinamon pastery (Sweden).

# Number sign

(n) [pub] Also called hash sign (UK). Until about 1970 this sign was also called pound sign (for weights) in the US and in German speaking areas (1 pfund = 1/2 kg). Some phone companies (US) insist in this archaic meaning when referring to this sign on the phone pad. Other names from the US include: crosshatch, sharp. UK phone companies use the name gate. The funniest name was given by an AT&T person, but this word octothorpe may be of older origin.

(n) [sys] In programming used to denote names of numbers (constants) and counters (e.g. #pi, #items) It is also very often used as a delimter for parsing. In the Ada programming language this symbol is called sharp (the term used in musical notation).

¶ Paragraph sign

(n) [pub] Depending on the culture, this sign looks differently: in anglophone countries this is ¶, whereas in German speaking areas this is §.The ¶ sometimes is called pilcrow sign.

§ Section sign

(n) [pub] The meaning of the symbol depends on the culture. See the explanations for the paragraph sign.

(n) [pub]

© Copyright sign

(n) [pub]

® Registered sign

(n) [pub]

™ Trade mark sign

(n) [pub]

Currency symbols

$ Dollar sign

(n) [sys] In programming this symbol often denotes names and functions for character strings (e.g. $items, $list_of_items, $length()).

£ Pound sign

(n) [pub] The pound sign normally represents the monetary unit of Great Britain, the Pound Sterling.

Reference symbols

• Various symbols are used for referening footnotes etc:
• Asterisk
• Dagger, double dagger
• Section symbol
• Superscripted numbers (roman and arabic numerals)

Sources

Jaques André: Ligatures, typographie et informatique. 5-dec-1994. INRIA Rapport de recherce n° 2429.

Further links

• French list of character names in UCS (Universal mulitple-octet-coded character set ISO/IEC 10646 as of 1993) .
  alis.isoc.org/codage/iso10646/
• English list of character names in Unicode (the 16-bit version of UC): see mapping tables.
  http://www.unicode.org/unicode/onlinedat/online.html
• Paragraph sign and links to further punctuation and special characters, such as the ⁂ (asterism).
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilcrow