Monday, October 05, 2009
@: 'Commercial at' doesn't sound sexy
Tom Angleberger
The New River Valley-based reporter answers your questions Mondays in his column, What's on Your Mind?
Recent columns
Q: What is the name of the "@" symbol? Alex Trebek just mentioned it on "Jeopardy," but I didn't catch all of it. I've been wondering about this for years.
Richard Walters, Roanoke
A: I didn't see that episode of "Jeopardy," but I'm guessing the answer -- or the question -- was the "asperand."
This is a name for "@" that you see floating around the Internet. It sounds pretty good because it's similar to the "ampersand" or "&."
But, frankly, I can't really find much evidence that "asperand" is a real word.
It's not in my dictionary. Nor in the monster-sized "Oxford English Dictionary."
What the O.E.D. does have, however, is the "commercial at."
Admittedly, "commercial at" doesn't sound as good as "asperand." In fact, it sounds like you got something stuck in your throat and couldn't finish your sentence.
But Unicode calls it the "commercial at," and you don't mess with Unicode.
Unicode is a group made of giant companies such as IBM, Microsoft, Google and Apple. They haven't taken over the world -- as far as I know -- but they have made decisions about the various symbols you see on your computer keyboard and screen.
So, the "commercial at" is about as official as anything can get these days.
However, there is one person whose word on the matter is worth considering: Ray Tomlinson. He was the sender of the first e-mail across a network in 1971 and was the person who decided to use the "@," as opposed to, say, the "#."
He refers to it as the "at sign."
Q: When you drive along many routes in Virginia, you observe side roads that are usually three-digit numbers. There must be some rule in deciding what that number should be. What is it?
William I. Taylor, Radford
A: Yes, there is a rule and it's actually pretty straightforward. Virginia Department of Transportation spokesman Jason Bond explains:
"Primary roads are generally given numbers under 600," he explained. "Secondary roads ... are given numbers greater than 600. This is why there's probably a Route 600 in just about every county in Virginia."
By the way, if you ever wonder why you rarely see a road called a "route" in the newspaper, there's a simple answer to that, too. We distinguish between local roads and highways with the words "Virginia" and "U.S.," instead. Like so: "Virginia 600" or "U.S. 11."
Grammar Grumblings
Angela Watkins of Natural Bridge Station wrote in to grumble about "aren't I."
Example: "I'm beautiful, aren't I?"
This person may be beautiful, but they're way off on their grammar. Our grammar guru uses some of his harshest language to describe this mistake.
" 'Aren't I' is nonstandard, meaning that it's really bad," explained Virgil Cook. "People use the phrase to avoid the correct 'am I not.' "
Why do we like to avoid correct phrases? We've run into this phenomenon before. It seems people would rather be wrong than seem stuck up. And I have to say, "am I not" sounds pretty stuck up.
Cook notes that a high school English teacher of his once suggested a solution: "ain't." As in, "I'm beautiful, ain't I."
But "ain't" is a weighty subject that needs a column of its own some day.
Got a question? Got an answer? Call Tom Angleberger at 777-6476 or send an e-mail to woym@roanoke.com. Don't forget to provide your full name, its proper spelling and your hometown.
Look for Tom Angleberger's column on Mondays.
