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Re: At

#51
post #23
post #16

In Japanese, the sign itself is called "attomaaku" ("at mark") but it's pronounced as "atto" when dictated. So someone's email would be johnsmith-at-gmail-dot-com, and if you ask a Japanese person to pronounce the symbol, they would say "atto". However, if you show them the symbol and ask them _what it is_, they probably would say "attomaaku". Semiotics is fascinating.

atto is about the closest their writing rules allow. It is all pairs like ka, ki, ko, ku, except for n. So all loan words have to be extended if they end illegally.

when you think about it - not writing (orthographic) rules, speech (phonetic) rules surely?

Re: At

#52
post #7

No one actually uses „Klammeraffe“ in German. It’s just „at“ (English pronunciation – most of the time). I wonder how widespread the use of those alternative names for “at” is in other languages he lists. In German „Klammeraffe“ is this weird, unwieldy nickname that used to be somewhat fashionable a long time ago (mid-nineties maybe, whenever many people where first confronted with email addresses). I remember it bei…

Klammeraffe was common in German (in Germany, Austria) til the late nineties. Nowadays everyone uses "at".

Re: At

#53
post #8
post #7

No one actually uses „Klammeraffe“ in German. It’s just „at“ (English pronunciation – most of the time). I wonder how widespread the use of those alternative names for “at” is in other languages he lists. In German „Klammeraffe“ is this weird, unwieldy nickname that used to be somewhat fashionable a long time ago (mid-nineties maybe, whenever many people where first confronted with email addresses). I remember it bei…

"arroba" is definitely the common word in Spanish & Portuguese.

not Spanish but lived in Spain and this is spot on for castellano (Spain Spanish)

Re: At

#54
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 80's it was not uncommon to hear "snabel-A" in Norway too, quite possibly because Danish and Swedish computer magazines were more commonly seen in Norway before more Norwegian magazines gained traction. "Alfrakrøll" was quite common for some time. Personally I don't think I've ever used krøllalfa - it just sounds dumb to me. "Alfrakrøll" is still what I'd prefer. Then again, I've lived outside of Norway for 14…

Dialects might have played in. Krøllalfa is what Språkrådet recommends. I think both are awkward. There's a hair salon by my office called Alfakrøll, which is particularily cringeworthy. I've always had my computers and devices set to English. Direct translation of technical terms is usually jarring and/or confusing, and impossible to troubleshoot by googling. Especially new concepts that haven't gained traction yet.

Don't forget the Swedish classic "kanelbulle". It was very popular by the last year of they 90s and means "cinnamon bun". https://tickledpinkstyle.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/kanelbu...

Re: At

#55
post #26
post #2

I believe in Russian it's called "Sobachka", or "Doggy." (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

Собачка – a diminutive form for "dog" – can be used as a conversational word for "commercial at" (@). Собака (dog) is vulgar in many contexts in Russian.

Собака (sobaka) means just a dog and is not vulgar. Of course if you call people in names of animals, then it can be insulting, yes. But true that they call symbol @ as a dog :)

Re: At

#56
post #18

In Norwegian the official name is "krøllalfa", meaning "curly alpha". Hip in the 90s, but I don't think I've heard anyone call it that in years. I was actually surprised when I learned that "at" was the proper English name and usage. I had always assumed it was a symbol that had been co-opted into network addresses because it was accessible from the keyboard and kinda looked like an a. One advantage of the internatio…

In the 80's it was not uncommon to hear "snabel-A" in Norway too, quite possibly because Danish and Swedish computer magazines were more commonly seen in Norway before more Norwegian magazines gained traction. "Alfrakrøll" was quite common for some time. Personally I don't think I've ever used krøllalfa - it just sounds dumb to me. "Alfrakrøll" is still what I'd prefer. Then again, I've lived outside of Norway for 14…

The Swedish is incorrectly reprinted by the TFA. It says "with an (elephant) trunk", while the referenced Tweet (by a Swedish person) says "elephant trunk A".

The actual Swedish wording is "snabel-a", which is a compound word consisting of the two words "snabel" ([elephant] trunk) and "a" (the letter "a").

So the proper English translation of the Swedish name for the character @ would be something like "an A with a trunk", I guess, since English isn't quite so malleable when it comes to building compound words.

Source: I'm from Sweden.

Re: At

#57
post #23
post #16

In Japanese, the sign itself is called "attomaaku" ("at mark") but it's pronounced as "atto" when dictated. So someone's email would be johnsmith-at-gmail-dot-com, and if you ask a Japanese person to pronounce the symbol, they would say "atto". However, if you show them the symbol and ask them _what it is_, they probably would say "attomaaku". Semiotics is fascinating.

atto is about the closest their writing rules allow. It is all pairs like ka, ki, ko, ku, except for n. So all loan words have to be extended if they end illegally.

Actually it's interesting that you mention this. Technically, you can also make it atoma-ku, (like ato like in later, and ma-ku as in mark). I wonder if the dip-tone was intentional to make it sound more like foreign word.

Re: At

#58
In Catalan we call it arrova. It's interesting that, used as a unit of mass, the @ had different values in different places [1][2]:

- Castille: 11.5002325 kg

- Aragon: 12.5 kg

- Catalonia: 26 pounds

- Valencia: 30 pounds

- Portugal: 32 pounds

Apparently it's still used as a unit of measure in Spain and South America, for example for oranges [2] and cocaine [3].

[1] http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrova [2] http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arroba_%28unidad_de_masa%29 [3] http://web.archive.org/web/20110101190636/http://www.delisse...

Re: At

#59
In Bulgaria this is called "Monkey" (маймунка) or "Monkey A" (маймунско А) i've also heard few people cal it "rose" (розичка)

Re: At

#60
post #56
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 80's it was not uncommon to hear "snabel-A" in Norway too, quite possibly because Danish and Swedish computer magazines were more commonly seen in Norway before more Norwegian magazines gained traction. "Alfrakrøll" was quite common for some time. Personally I don't think I've ever used krøllalfa - it just sounds dumb to me. "Alfrakrøll" is still what I'd prefer. Then again, I've lived outside of Norway for 14…

The Swedish is incorrectly reprinted by the TFA. It says "with an (elephant) trunk", while the referenced Tweet (by a Swedish person) says "elephant trunk A". The actual Swedish wording is "snabel-a", which is a compound word consisting of the two words "snabel" ([elephant] trunk) and "a" (the letter "a"). So the proper English translation of the Swedish name for the character @ would be something like "an A with a t…

Yeah it's the same for the Danish version. It's literaly "trunk-a" or just "trunka".

I'm actually from the Faroe Islands, which is an autonomous contry in the Kindom of Denmark. We speak Faroese, another nordic language, and here it's "kurla". Which is literaly the Faroese word for curl. Just happens to have the a at the end.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kurla

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