> ! exclamation point   Wow, Bang.
> @                     At, Spiral
> # octothorp           hash, pound, gridlet
> $ dollar sign, anything else?
> % percent sign        double-oh-seven
> ^ caret, roof         hat
> & ampersand           AND
> * asterisk            splat, star, rienhold
> ( left parenthesis    open
> ) right parenthesis   close
> - en dash
> _ underscore          floor, bimmin
> + plus sign
> = equals sign
> |                     bar
> \ back slash          back
> { left brace          open curly
> } right brace         close curly
> [ left bracket        open square
> ] right bracket       close square
> ; semicolon           hybrid
> : colon                       two-spot
> ' scare quote, apostrophe     single
> " quotation mark              double
> , comma                       twitch
> < left angel bracket          less than, open angle
> > right angel bracket         more than, close angle
> . period                      dot, point
> / slash. Other name
> ? question mark               huh?
> ~ tilde                       squiggle, twiddle



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

A couple more slangy bits added, some of them from INTERCAL:

Larry Phillips wrote:
>
> I like the slang better
>
> > ! exclamation point   Wow, Bang.
> > @                     At, Spiral
> > # octothorp           hash, pound, gridlet
                            mesh, number sign
> > $ dollar sign, anything else?
> > % percent sign        double-oh-seven
> > ^ caret, roof         hat
> > & ampersand           AND
                            Even the phenomenally silly authors of
                            INTERCAL couldn't find a sillier name for
                            this character than `ampersand'.
> > * asterisk            splat, star, rienhold
> > ( left parenthesis    open
> > ) right parenthesis   close
> > - en dash
                            hyphen, minus, dash, worm (!)
> > _ underscore          floor, bimmin
                            flatworm (naturally)
> > + plus sign
> > = equals sign
> > |                     bar
> > \ back slash          back
> > { left brace          open curly
> > } right brace         close curly
> > [ left bracket        open square
> > ] right bracket       close square
> > ; semicolon           hybrid
> > : colon                       two-spot
> > ' scare quote, apostrophe     single
> > " quotation mark              double
> > , comma                       twitch
> > < left angel bracket          less than, open angle
                                    angle
> > > right angel bracket         more than, close angle
                                    right angle
> > . period                      dot, point
                                    spot (whence `two-spot' for colon)
> > / slash. Other name
> > ? question mark               huh?
                                    ques
> > ~ tilde                       squiggle, twiddle

And yes, folks, in INTERCAL the character combination <- really was
called `angleworm'.

I'm reminded of Victor Borge reading punctuation aloud.... alas, a
performance that cannot possibly be rendered in the Roman alphabet.

--J. Random <-

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%


  () left and right parentheses
  [] left and right brackets
  {} left and right braces
  <> less than and greater than



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Ilmari Karonen wrote:
>
> I mean, it does look like a little cat with a long tail. In Finnish the
> real name is rather meaningless (there isn't even an exact translation
> for "at" in Finnish) and thus virtually unknown. Almost everyone I know
> refers to it as "Cat's tail", "Pussycat" or just "Meow". =)

Interesting, in Romanian it's known as "Monkey's tail".

Valentin Valciu

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

"&" is also called "Donald duck" by some.  How's that for minimalist
ASCII art?

Bruce Tiemann

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Christoph Schindler wrote:
>
> Ilmari Karonen wrote:
> >
> > Steve Barnard (steve@megafauna.com) wrote:
> > : Veronica Karlsson wrote:
> > : > > As I have seen it used "@" simply means "at".
> > : >
> > : > The story I heard is that it _is_ the word "at". After being written
> > : > many many times (don't remember why, I think it had something to do with
> > : > prices) the "t" curled up around the "a" until it became a symbol of its
> > : > own.
> My arts teacher told me the same story. It has something to do with
> calligraphy
> (whatever that is ;-)

A bit like the Ampersand '&' ('Donald Duck' or 'And') which is a
combination of the 'E' and the 't'.
( 'Et' being 'and' in latin )

Ojoshiro

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

 A poll conducted among INFOCUS readers had established "waka" as the
 proper pronunciation for the angle-bracket characters < and >, though
 some readers held out resolutely for "norkies." The text of the poem
 follows:

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

 The poem can only be appreciated by reading it aloud, to wit:

           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.
<<<<<<

Markus Laker

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%