There are lots of creative names for the @, also known in English as the at-sign. In Denmark and Sweden, it’s sometimes called the snabel-a, or “elephant trunk.” In Italian, it’s a chiocciola, or “snail. In Greek, it’s a παπάκι, or “little duckling.” In German, it’s sometimes called a Klammeraffe or “spider monkey,” for the way it resembles such a monkey’s clinging tail. In Hebrew, it’s known colloquially as a “strudel,” or שְׁטְרוּדֶל, a name that likens the @ to a swirled cake. In the Middle Ages, this symbol was used in commerce in Spain and Portugal, where it was called the arroba. For a lively history of the use of the @ from its origins to its introduction in email addresses, check out Keith Houston’s delightful book, Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks. (Bookshop|Amazon) This is part of a complete episode.
After our conversation about towns with extremely short names, many listeners wrote to tell us about Why, Arizona. Others pointed out that there are towns called Ely in Iowa, Minnesota, and Nevada. Other super-short appellations include Rye, New...
Debbie from Crawfordsville, Florida, says that when she and her husband reach an impasse while working on something, they’ll say Let’s grok about it, which they use to mean “Let’s think about it.” Grok was coined by...
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