Character "dog": history of appearance, meaning and correct name
On the Internet, the famous "dog" symbol is used as a delimiter between the name of that user and the domain name (host) in the syntax of email addresses.
Fame
Some Internet figures regard this symbol as a sign of the common human communication space and one of the most popular signs around the world.
One of the evidences of worldwide recognitionThis notation can be called the fact that in 2004 (in February) the International Telecommunication Union introduced a special code to denote the @ in the common Morse code. It combines the codes of two Latin letters: C and A, which displays their joint graphical spelling.
The history of the symbol "dog"
Italian researcher Giorgio Stabilewas found in the archive, owned by the Institute of Economic History in the city of Prato (near Florence), a document in which this sign is first encountered in writing. Such an important testimony turned out to be a letter from a merchant from Florence, which was donated by 1536.
It deals with three merchant ships,arrived in Spain. In the cargo of vessels, vessels carrying wine bearing the @ sign were mentioned. After analyzing the data on the price of wine, as well as the capacity of various medieval vessels, and comparing the data with the general system of measures used in those days, the scientist concluded that the @ sign was used as a special measuring unit that replaced the word anfora (in translation "amphora"). So from the ancient times was called the universal measure of volume.
The theory of Berthold Ullmann
Berthold Ullman is an American scientist whosuggested that the @ symbol was designed by medieval monks to reduce the widespread 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 is derived from the term "arroba", which in turn denotes the Old Spanish measure of weight (about 15 kg), abbreviated it was indicated on the letter with the @ symbol.
Modernity
Many people are interested in the name of the symbol"dog". Note that the official modern name of this symbol sounds like "commercial at" and originates from accounts in which it was used in the following context: 7widgets @ $ 2each = $ 14. This can be translated as 7 pieces of $ 2 = $ 14
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 the history of mankind "Underwood", which was released in the distant 1885. And only after long 80 years the symbol "dog" inherited the first computer keyboard.
the Internet
Let's look at the official history of the World Wide Web. She claims that the Internet symbol "dog" appeared in electronic mail addresses thanks to an American engineer and computer technician named Ray Tomlinson, who in 1971 managed to send the first-ever electronic message through the network. At the same time, the address had to be composed of two parts - the name of the computer through which the registration was made, and the user's name. As a separator between the specified parts, Tomilson chose the "dog" symbol on the keyboard, since he was not part of either computer names or user names.
Versions of the origin of the famous name "dog"
In the world there are several possible versions of the origin of such a funny name. First of all, the icon is really very similar to a dog curled up.
In addition, the jerky sound of the word at (symbolthe dog in English reads like this) reminds a bit of a dog barking. It should also be noted that with a good imagination you can see in the symbol almost all the letters that are part of the word "dog", except perhaps, except for "k".
However, the most romantic can be called the followingthe legend. Once upon a time, at that good time when all computers were very large, and the screens were text only, in the virtual kingdom there was one popular game that was named as reflecting its content, Adventure.
Its meaning was to travel through the mazecomputer generated in search of various treasures. There were, of course, battles with underground malicious creatures. The maze on the display was drawn with 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 the faithfulassistant - the dog, which can always be sent to explore the catacombs. Denoted by just the @ icon. Was this the root cause of the now common name, or, on the contrary, the icon was chosen by the game developers, because it was already called that? The legend does not give answers to these questions.
What is the name of the virtual doggy on the territory of other countries?
It should be noted that in our country the symbol"dog" is also called a ram, ear, bun, frog, dog, even a cracker. In Bulgaria, this is “Maymuno a” or “flank” (monkey A). In the Netherlands - a monkey tail (apenstaartje). In Israel, the sign is associated with a whirlpool (“strudel”).
Spaniards, French and Portuguese are calledthe designation is similar to the weight measure (respectively: arroba, arrobase and arrobase). If you ask what the dog symbol means for the inhabitants of Poland and Germany, they will tell you that it is a monkey, a clip, a monkey's ear or a monkey's tail. It is considered a snail in Italy, calling it chiocciola.
The least poetic names are the symbol inSweden, Norway and Denmark, calling it “snout a” (snabel-a) or elephant tail (tailed a). The most appealing name can be considered a variant of the Czechs and Slovaks, who consider the sign as herring under a fur coat (rolmops). Associations with the kitchen are also held by the Greeks, calling the designation "little pasta."
For many, it is still a monkey, namely forSlovenia, Romania, Holland, Croatia, Serbia (mother; alternative: “crazy A”), Ukraine (alternative: snail, doggie, dog). The term Lithuania (eta - “this”, borrowed with the addition of a Lithuanian morpheme at the end) and Latvia (et - “et”) were borrowed from English. The version of the Hungarians, where this cute sign has become a tick, can be disheartening.
In the cat and mouse "play" Finland (cat's tail), America (cat), Taiwan and China (mouse). Romance turned out to be residents of Turkey (rose). And in Vietnam, this icon is called "crooked A".
Alternative hypotheses
It is believed that the name of the designation "dog" inRussian speech appeared thanks to the famous computers DVK. In them, the "dog" appeared during computer boot. And indeed the designation resembled a small dog. All users of the DVK, without saying a word, came up with a name for the symbol.
It is curious that the original spellingthe Latin letter “A” assumed the decoration with its curls, thus it was very similar to the current writing of the “doggy” sign. Translation of the word "dog" in the Tatar language sounds like "at."
Where else can you meet the "dog"?
There are a number of services that use this symbol (except e-mail):
Widespread use of the mark and in the mainprogramming languages. In Java, it is used to declare annotations. In C #, it is necessary for escaping characters in a line. The address capture operation is appropriately designated in Pascal. For Perl, this is the array identifier, and in Python, respectively, the decorator's declaration. The field identifier for the class instance is a Ruby sign.
As for PHP, here "dog" usein order to suppress the error output, or to warn about the task that has already occurred at the time of the execution. The prefix for indirect addressing of the symbol has become on the MCS-51 assembler. In XPath, this is the abbreviation of the attribute axis, which selects the set of attributes for the current element.
Finally, Transact-SQL assumes that the namethe local variable must begin with @, and the name of the global variable - with two @. In DOS batch files, thanks to the symbol, echo-rep for the command being executed is suppressed. The designation of an action, like the echo off mode, is usually applied before entering the mode to prevent a certain command from being displayed on the screen (for clarity: @echo off).
So we looked at how many aspectsvirtual and real life depend on the usual character. However, let's not forget that it became the most recognizable thanks to e-mails that are sent by the thousands on a daily basis. We can assume that today you will receive a letter with a “dog”, and it will bring only good news.
