Just a bit of trivia I found on the @ sign. It's interesting to see the wide variety of translations the symbol's name has in other languages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/@#.22Commercial_at.22_in_other_languages.
I got a laugh out of the Phillipine name for it - may never be able to look at @ with a straight face again :wink:
That's a great article Sova! Very interesting. I thought only us Czechs had such a weird name for the @ sign. Now I see that the weird names prevail. I'm glad we only have one name for the sign in Czech. I feel bad for some of the other nationalities. Just look at Turkish or Ukrainian! What a mess! So Glenn, we know your favorite. :wink: I think mine is the miaow sign. I can already see myself toasting with "nádraží" and dictating my email address with "mňau tečka kom".
I read it twice (although obviously not very carefully) and couldn't find the Phillipines' version. Is it in the alphabetical list or somewhere else? And not for the first time, I thought about just who compiles these entries? No-one knows all languages so it must have taken whoever did it days and days to research them all. I wouldn't have the patience, even if I was interested in the subject to begin with.
I remember at school (such a long time ago) we used @ in simple arithmetic questions e.g. What is the cost of 12 items @ 6pence? In other words the price each was 6 pence. It was a way of making multiplication relevant to shopping. So the use of @ as 'at' was logical to me.
Thanks for the clarification - I read the link, closed it and wrote my response. I guess, because I knew Tagalog is spoken in the Philippines, I transposed the information mentally - sorry
Point 1. We still don't know what they call @ in the Phillipines, only that they say it in Tagalog! Point 2. How on earth do you know they speak Tagalog in the Phillipines?
Tagalog is the most commonly spoken language in the Philipines, and along with English, is the 'official' language. But up to 12 other languages are also spoken, Cebuano being another of the most commonly spoken ones. I have Filipino friends, so have a little knowledge of that.
I have known several people from the Philippines - we have people from somany different places here in Florida - and I speak just a bit of Tagalog (pronounced ta-GA-lo) - the word used in Tagalog for @ means "nipple"