6 ms·

It made me wince slightly when the article listed one of the names of # as hashtag, rather than hash. A hashtag begins with a hash, but the two aren't the same.

by itp 11y ago

It made me wince slightly when the article listed one of the names of # as hashtag, rather than hash. A hashtag begins with a hash, but the two aren't the same. (Although this looks to be a distinction that will be lost with time.) I try to avoid calling # pound for fear of confusion with £. Although I have a soft spot for octothorpe just for the sheer ridiculousness of it, I tend to call it hash (not least because of the elegance of calling #! shebang notation).

techbubble 11y ago
I was puzzled by the use of hashtag as well. Seems like there is a need for a glyph or glyph combination to indicate hashtag. #<> comes to mind.
bshimmin 11y ago
Depressingly, common usage now seems to be that # is pronounced "hashtag"; even Wikipedia says this: Number sign - also known as Gate, Hashtag, Hash (Key) or Octothorpe, amoungst others Note the order... I can only think that most people pre-Twitter had no idea that # was called a hash and thus hashtag's victory, of sorts, wasn't really that much of an achievement - essentially a change in popular conception from "I don't know what that thingy is called" to "The hashtag thingy". (I also love "octothorpe", but I would only use that name to be deliberately confusing.)
Amorymeltzer 11y ago
My biggest pet peeve with this as well. I can't blame them though; in the public consciousness, # is the start of a hashtag essentially 100% of the time # is used.
kbenson 11y ago
You know, it never occurred to me the "she" part of shebang could be a corruption of hash, I just initially thought it was something to do with "shell" that someone had come up with (we have no lack of nonsensical names), and it stuck in my mind that way.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  I don't think it's a corruption of "hash". I think it's a corruption of "shriek". (The New Hacker's Dictionary lists shriek as an alias for exclamation point at http://www.outpost9.com/reference/jargon/jargon_34.html http://www.outpost9.com/reference/jargon/jargon_34.html). "Bang" is actually the part that refers to the hash symbol.
  - aardvark179 11y ago
    I would take that etymology with a huge pinch of salt, as it involves both an unusual use of bang to mean # and then a reversal of the order the symbols appear in. The other suggestion I've seen is that it is a contraction of sharp-bang or shell-bang seems like far less of a stretch.
  - kjdal2001 11y ago
    I always thought that "shriek" and "bang" both referred to the exclamation point. http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/E/excl.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/E/excl.html
    - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
      Ah, you are correct. The best fit I can find is "sharp" for "#". Wikipedia (at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shebang_%28Unix%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shebang_%28Unix%29) says that it's from "sharp bang" or "hash bang".
  - mwfunk 11y ago
    I wouldn't put much stock in the Jargon File- once ESR appropriated it, it slowly mutated into a platform for ESR's personal views if not a straight up wish-fulfillment fantasy for him. The most egregious examples were how the political leanings of what the book describes as "hackers" would get updated to reflect ESR's own views, and not in a subtle way either. At some point in the '90s he just gave up and started trying to invent an elite peer group for himself, in which he was (his terminology) an "elder of the tribe". If there's anything that bugs me more than tribalism, it's people actively trying to amplify it or (even worse) create it. Not that that has any bearing on the veracity of his shebang etymology. I've just seen enough over the years that I literally don't trust a single thing with ESR's fingerprints on it.
mcphage 11y ago
> It made me wince slightly when the article listed one of the names of # as hashtag, rather than hash. A hashtag begins with a hash, but the two aren't the same. (Although this looks to be a distinction that will be lost with time.) It already has been. Whenever people mention a hashtag on a tv show or commercial, they always read #FooBarBaz as "hashtag foo bar baz". So it already is a common pronunciation for '#'.

by itp 11y ago

techbubble 11y ago

I was puzzled by the use of hashtag as well. Seems like there is a need for a glyph or glyph combination to indicate hashtag. #<> comes to mind.

bshimmin 11y ago

Depressingly, common usage now seems to be that # is pronounced "hashtag"; even Wikipedia says this: Number sign - also known as Gate, Hashtag, Hash (Key) or Octothorpe, amoungst others Note the order... I can only think that most people pre-Twitter had no idea that # was called a hash and thus hashtag's victory, of sorts, wasn't really that much of an achievement - essentially a change in popular conception from "I don't know what that thingy is called" to "The hashtag thingy". (I also love "octothorpe", but I would only use that name to be deliberately confusing.)

Amorymeltzer 11y ago

My biggest pet peeve with this as well. I can't blame them though; in the public consciousness, # is the start of a hashtag essentially 100% of the time # is used.

kbenson 11y ago

You know, it never occurred to me the "she" part of shebang could be a corruption of hash, I just initially thought it was something to do with "shell" that someone had come up with (we have no lack of nonsensical names), and it stuck in my mind that way.

AnimalMuppet 11y ago
I don't think it's a corruption of "hash". I think it's a corruption of "shriek". (The New Hacker's Dictionary lists shriek as an alias for exclamation point at http://www.outpost9.com/reference/jargon/jargon_34.html http://www.outpost9.com/reference/jargon/jargon_34.html). "Bang" is actually the part that refers to the hash symbol.
- aardvark179 11y ago
  I would take that etymology with a huge pinch of salt, as it involves both an unusual use of bang to mean # and then a reversal of the order the symbols appear in. The other suggestion I've seen is that it is a contraction of sharp-bang or shell-bang seems like far less of a stretch.
- kjdal2001 11y ago
  I always thought that "shriek" and "bang" both referred to the exclamation point. http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/E/excl.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/E/excl.html
  - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
    Ah, you are correct. The best fit I can find is "sharp" for "#". Wikipedia (at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shebang_%28Unix%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shebang_%28Unix%29) says that it's from "sharp bang" or "hash bang".
- mwfunk 11y ago
  I wouldn't put much stock in the Jargon File- once ESR appropriated it, it slowly mutated into a platform for ESR's personal views if not a straight up wish-fulfillment fantasy for him. The most egregious examples were how the political leanings of what the book describes as "hackers" would get updated to reflect ESR's own views, and not in a subtle way either. At some point in the '90s he just gave up and started trying to invent an elite peer group for himself, in which he was (his terminology) an "elder of the tribe". If there's anything that bugs me more than tribalism, it's people actively trying to amplify it or (even worse) create it. Not that that has any bearing on the veracity of his shebang etymology. I've just seen enough over the years that I literally don't trust a single thing with ESR's fingerprints on it.

mcphage 11y ago

> It made me wince slightly when the article listed one of the names of # as hashtag, rather than hash. A hashtag begins with a hash, but the two aren't the same. (Although this looks to be a distinction that will be lost with time.) It already has been. Whenever people mention a hashtag on a tv show or commercial, they always read #FooBarBaz as "hashtag foo bar baz". So it already is a common pronunciation for '#'.