Talk:Number sign

An article was just published describing the etymology of this word. I offer it here for study. http://doug.kerr.home.att.net/pumpkin/index.htm#Octatherp Additionally, there is a discussion about this article at http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1019&message=18357992 If someone wishes to check into the validity of the etymology, I suggest these sources for original material.

Can I suggest that this page is tidied - there is a lot of information repeated and disorganised here, presumably due to a long edit history by many people. Jazzle 09:52, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For addressing when a target mail receiver box is intended, is a space used between "#" and the box ordinal number? 555 Wilshire Blvd., #43 or 555 Wilshire Blvd., # 43 Thank you.

In standard American usage, at least, spaces never occur between the number sign and the number itself. ...to bring this on topic, it might be prudent to include examples of usage in the article. --Aponar Kestrel 20:29, 2004 Jul 25 (UTC)

Though it's not commonly used in this way in Britain, I believe the space is omitted. (It is just a style thing though, like two spaces after a full-stop. Jazzle 09:52, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Quote: pound / pound sign Used as the symbol for the pound avoirdupois in the U.S. (where lb. would be used in the UK and Canada). Never called 'pound' in the UK. and The business clerk's hurried way of writing the abbreviation appears to have been responsible for the # sign used for pound.

Doesn't this pound/number sign confusion come from the fact that ISO 646-GB had the pound sign where ASCII had number sign? --romanm 00:00, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC)

No, the article has the right of it. Look on the bottom of a Wendy's bag sometime, or possibly that of another fast-food chain, though I can't verify. You may see something like 3#, presumably meaning that the bag is rated to hold three pounds of food (or whatever). --Aponar Kestrel 20:29, 2004 Jul 25 (UTC)

BT definitely do call # "square". Only this morning (19 December 2003), I was instructed to press "square" in order to gain entry to a teleconference. Lord knows why they do it. Even my mum knows that # is called "hash"! Pmcray

This has since been discontinued as ridiculous. It was done to avoid the implied drug reference. Jazzle 09:52, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"(However, in French the # key on a telephone is called le carré.)"

Really ? Actually, I have never heard this sign being called a "carré" (square in english). Everyone I know calls it a "dièse". → SeeSchloß 18:25, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

"hex: from its use to denote hexadecimal values in some markup and programming languages; e.g. for web colors in HTML"

I don't know if there's a programming language that uses the sign in the way described, but I do know that the meaning of this sign in HTML is just the ordinary number sign; it has nothing to do with hexadecimal. (The # in a color attribute indicates the color being given as a number rather than as a color name. The # in character references indicates usage of a numeric char reference instead of a so-called character entity reference (essentially a symbolic name). Only the additional letter x denotes the number as being hexadecimal in the latter case.)

I remove the reference to HTML for now. Somebody else should see if there's really an instance where # means hexadecimal — I doubt it. -- 141.30.230.88 07:19, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

At least in my part of UK, the # is medical shorthand for 'fracture' (as in 'this gentleman's # union is progressing nicely'). It's quite hard to look this kind of stuff up, and I don't know if it's official or international, but it's worth noting here in the talk page for future reference.-Ashley Pomeroy 12:55, 27 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

about a previous discussions in this page:

The "#" is called "le carre' " in French. (At least here in Quebec, Canada)

Many words in Quebecois are NOT the same as in French for very strange reasons, including some English words being used in France but not in Quebec and some others being used here and not in France.

Anyway this "#" sign seems to be a real mess everywhere. The whole phone/computer/typography industry seems to be plagued with this kind of confusions.

ITU standard

ITU-T E.161 section 3.2.2 ([1]) apparently states

The # is to be known as a "square" or the most commonly used equivalent term in other languages. This symbol shall consist of four lines of equal length forming two pairs of parallel lines. One pair is horizontal while the other is vertical or inclined to the right at an angle of 80 degrees. It will be seen that the two pairs of lines overlap. The ratio a/b, where a is the overlap and b is the length of the lines, shall be between 0.08 and 0.18.

Which explains BT's usage of "square". The comment that was attached to the quote:

The preferred values are In Europe, 90 degrees, a/b=0.08 In North America, 80 degrees, a/b close to the upper limit of 0.18.

Perhaps someone could add these two to the article? porges 23:21, 19 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Actually just found a copy of the PDF, the text does state:

On the 4 × 3 array, the symbo l on the button which is immediately to the right of the button 0 (in the
6 × 2 array, the corresponding button is located below the button 0) and which, according to UIT-T Q.23, is used to transmit the frequency pair 941 Hz and 1477 Hz, should conform in shape to the specificat ions given in Figure 3 or 4. This symbo l shall consist of four lines o f equal length (b) forming two pairs of parallel lines. One pair is horizontal while the other is vert ical or inclined to the right at an angle α of 80o as shown in Figure 4. It will be seen that two pairs o f parallel lines overlap. The ratio a/b where a is the overlap, shall be between 0.08 and 0.18. Diagrams: Figure 3 shows a "straight" hash, and Figure 4 a "slanted" one. From the diagrams, α is interior angle of the hash, with b being the length of each arm and a the overlap. The preferred values are either:

α = 90o with a/b = 0.08;

α = 80o with a/b close to the upper limit of 0.18.

The symbo l may be referred to as the square or the mo st commo nly used equivalent term in other languages⁴.
4: In some countries an alter native ter m (e. g. "hash", "pound" or "number sign") ma y be necessary for this purpose, particularly wher e the for m in Figure 4 is commonly used, in which case it is useful to select and
to recommend a preferred term for consistent use nationally.

# and pound sterling signs

Is it a coincidence that # is found on US keyboards where the sign for pound sterling is found on British (and some other) keyboards? 23:35, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

I had always thought that this was why the hash sign was also called a pound sign. GhostInTheMachine 11:24, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Issue number and plurality

What is the correct usage of '#' when describing plural issue numbers? For example, in comic books a single issue would look like this:

Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #300

But when several issues are referred to, which one of the below should it look like?

Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #300–305

Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #s 300–305

Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #'s 300–305

And if two numbers are referred to and separated by text, do they both need a '#', or will one suffice? For example:

Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #300 can be compared to #305

Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #300 can be compared to 305

Any help is appreciated. Maybe I should be looking for the Wikipedia style guide. Still, the accepted usage (and a note on which style guide uses which usage) should be on this page too, I think. Kaijan 00:33, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Correct" from a grammatical point of view and "acceptable style" are two separate things. "#'s" is incorrect due to the spurious apostrophe. The others are all "correct". The last example looks relatively unfamiliar to me, so I'd say it's less likely to be considered a preferred style. I've seen the rest in roughly equal measures. I have my preferences but it's just a matter of personal taste.—mjb 06:11, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

why not #300–#305? Dicklyon 06:22, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

yeah I was wondering why that wasn't in the list, too :) mjb 07:50, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Octothorpe/Octothorn

There seems to be some difference in etymology.

While in common use the octothorpe etymology is vague and unsubstantiated, and has a presumed jocular reference, though the presumption does not seem particularly sound. The octothorn etymology, however, seems sound, and has been documented reputably.

I suppose that it's possible that the original name was octothorn, as documented by William Sherk. That name could have been misheard and/or used in a joking manner as octothorpe,and thus became octothorpe in common usage. (asterisk has almost become asterix from common usage now - yick!)

Given this, the octothorn name seems to have has superior etymological credentials, and is one of the two properly referenced names for this symbol.

It is illogical then that octothorn is the only one flagged with "possibly false etymology" when the etymology of octothorpe (and pretty much any other name for that matter) is so much weaker. I would suggest that if that were the case, then some evidence ought to be provided to put the Sherk reference into disrepute.

Etymology can be challenging to our preconcieved notions of what is right. If a word like asterix is in common usage, we should not presume that the etymology is sound, even though it is undocumented. Equally, if the etymological origins of a word are documented, we should not presume to convince ourselves that the common usage variation is more etymologically worthy - unless it actually is. An interesting reverse case-in-point is the welsh rabbit etymology - intended to be a joke/slur, it was sotened in time to welsh rarebit

At this point octothorpe seems less etymologically worthy than octothorn

I tried to edit the flag, but it is better removed, which I will do now.

The term octothorpe came from Donald MacPherson at Bell Labs, in New Jersey.

That's according to a posting in telecom-archives [2]. But another Bell guy tells a different story, as pointed out in the article [3]. Since the Merriam–Webster book says it was originally octatherp, Dour Kerr's story may be more credible. We need to find some old telephone docs and see what they say. My wife says she picked it up working for BNR (Bell Northern Research) in the 1970s, which at least fits with some of the telecom articles [4]. Dicklyon 22:59, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lauren Asplund's new claim to authorship

We have one more claim now for who coined octotherp; but I reverted it since there's no external refernce. It should probablky also be reverted from the wiktionary. Asplund should write it up, maybe publish it, or put it online, where it can be referenced as one more possibly-credible claim for who in the Bell System came up with it. Of course, anyone with old docs from the 1960s showing the term could help out here a lot. Dicklyon 22:21, 18 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lauren Asplund, I reverted your edit yet again. If you want to get your story out, please publish it online or elsewhere and let us know, and if it looks credible someone else (not you) should link it and talk about it in wikipedia. Otherwise, it's autobiographical or original research or POV, and not the way wikipedia works. Dicklyon 16:54, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

...And again. You just don't know when to quit, do you? EdC 15:38, 28 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I put a note on Lasplund's user page to suggest looking here before doing it yet again. Dicklyon 18:09, 28 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Since it is most common Internationally to be known as the Hash symbol

Shouldn't that be the name of the article.... after all Wiki is Intl not us centric

Usually articles get left as American or British grammar and terminology, depending on how they started, to avoid change wars. If there's a definitive reference to show that hash is more common than number sign, please cite it; or do you just mean more countries? Dicklyon 22:59, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I quote: "['number sign'] is the word used for the sign in most of the rest of the world." and "'hash' [is] the most common name outside the U.S., including in the Ireland, UK, Australia, and New Zealand."

If most of the English speaking world calls it a hash, shouldn't the article be renamed? I'm going to change the first quote anyway as it is plain wrong.

The unicode name is "number sign". This and precedent are two good reasons to leave the article title as it is. Dicklyon 23:12, 18 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]