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I always thought the English version was ampersat.
by buckbova 12y ago
I always thought the English version was ampersat.
- phowat 12y agoAFAIK at is short for ampersat.
- allochthon 12y agoSounds like it might be related to English "ampersand" (&), which goes back to Latin.
- kbenson 12y agoI just looked into this, and the ampers portion of of both ampersand and ampersat is short-hand/corruption of "and per se" [1], meaning ampersand is another way of writing the word "and", and ampersat is another way of writing the word "at". 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampersand#Etymology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampersand#Etymology
- voyou 12y agoI think "ampersat" was first coined in the 90s (when email suddenly made the @ sign more common), presumably by analogy with "ampersand". The earliest reference I can find is a suggestion from a viewer writing in to CBS Sunday Morning in 1994 (paywalled link, I'm afraid): https://www.lexisnexis.com/uk/nexis/docview/getDocForCuiReq?lni=3SHY-V680-009C-B3D9&csi=8399&oc=00240&perma=true https://www.lexisnexis.com/uk/nexis/docview/getDocForCuiReq?... This newspaper article from 1996 also shows someone proposing "ampersat" apparently as a novel suggestion: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/bits--bytes-1317440.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/bits--bytes-1317440....