[Tutor] How can I escape a pound symbol in my script?

[Michael Connors]

"And this is really off-topic now! :-)"
Really interesting though, hopefully it will come up in a pub quiz.

On 06/07/07, Alan Gauld <alan.gauld at btinternet.com> wrote:
>
> "Kent Johnson" <kent37 at tds.net> wrote
>
> > > is of course an historical feature of old keyboards
> > > when, to get a hash symbol (#), you had to type a
> > > pound sign(£), ie shift 3.
> >
> > That is a very interesting explanation but I prefer this one:
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_sign#Naming_convention_within_the_USA
> >
> > # is an abbreviation for 'pound' the weight, not 'pound' the unit
> > of currency.
>
> Interesting indeed. I got my explanation in high school around 1972.
> It went like this....
> The pound and the dollar were the main currencies in use when
> Remington
> introduced the QWERTY keyboard on their early typewriters. The pound
> sign
> was Shift-3 and the dollar shift-4. When the US introduced the #
> symbol
> (in the early 1920's?) to keyboards they used the pound sign position
> (because the pound had decreased in usage by then) and the symbol
> was called the pound sign because that was what was traditionally on
> the key used.
>
> The symbol is called hash is the UK because its derived from
> the more term cross-hatch, where the symbol is like the cross
> hatching used for shading when sketching, which in turn is often
> called hatching.
>
> And that was part of our Modern History class and was examinable! :-)
>
> An alternative explanation for hash that I've seen is that it relates
> to cooking where a hash is a meal composed of ingredients cut
> into cubes and the symbol is remminiscent of the cut lines made
> when cubing (or hashing) the meat etc.
>
> > Of course the correct name for this symbol is 'octothorpe' :-)
> > http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Octothorpe
>
> That I would query, the article says the Bell labs folks claim to have
> coined
> the term in 1964 but the symbol has been in use for at least a hundred
> years. Although whether it had an official name up till then I don't
> know... In fact the name most likely I'd have thought would be "sharp"
> as in music notation, which is where, I think, it originated.
>
> And this is really off-topic now! :-)
>
> Alan G.
>
>
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-- 
Michael Connors
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