Commercial at. What does the @Dog symbol mean? Correct pronunciation of the @ sign

D. Usenkov

With the emergence and spread of e-mail, the “@” icon, used to separate the “to” and “where” fields in a subscriber’s mailing address, became truly world famous. The magazine has already reported on some facts related to this symbol (see “Science and Life” No. 7, 1999), but the “biography” of the popular sign is constantly updated. Dmitry Yurievich Usenkov, senior researcher at the Institute of Informatization of Education of the Russian Academy of Education, tells the story.

The "@" sign, officially called "commercial at" and denoting the preposition "at" in English, is necessarily present in any e-mail address, separating the name of the owner of the electronic mailbox ("account") from the domain name of the mail server on which it the box is open.

"DOG" RU

In Russia, users most often call the "@" symbol "dog", which is why e-mail addresses formed from personal names and surnames sometimes take on a slightly offensive sound. Even jokes of a similar nature are now in circulation. Here, for example , what email address was invented by the participants of one of the KVNs: " [email protected]".

But still: why “dog”? There are several versions of the origin of this funny name, and which one is correct is difficult to determine. On the one hand, the icon really looks like a curled up dog. On the other hand, the abrupt sound of the English “at” is a bit like a dog barking. But the most plausible legend seems to be the one that exists “in computer circles.”

Once upon a time, when computers were large and displays were text-only, there was a popular game with the simple name "Adventure". Its purpose was to travel through a labyrinth created in the computer's memory in search of treasures and battles with harmful underground creatures. At the same time, the labyrinth on the screen was drawn with the symbols " ! ", "+ " And " - ", and the player, treasures and hostile monsters were designated by various letters and icons. Moreover, according to the plot, the player had a faithful assistant - a dog who could be sent to the catacombs for reconnaissance. And he was, of course, designated by the "@" icon.

Whether this was the root cause of the now generally accepted name, or, on the contrary, the icon was chosen because it was already called that way - the legend is silent about this.

To be fair, it should be noted that in Russia “dog” is also called doggie, frog, bun, ear, ram, and even kryakozyabra.

"DOG" HISTORICAL

In the official history of the Internet (and it has existed for a long time), it is generally accepted that we owe the appearance of “@” in an electronic mail address to the American computer engineer Ray Tomlinson, who in 1971 sent the world’s first electronic message over the network. Since at this moment he was forced to act in two roles at once - both the sender and the addressee, then the appearance email address he had to invent it himself. To avoid confusion in writing names, as a “separator” he chose an icon on the keyboard that was obviously not found in first and last names. But you can use a symbol on the keyboard only if it is already there. Where did the corresponding key come from?

It turns out that this is a “legacy” of typewriter keyboards. Already in 1885, the first “Underwood” in history was equipped with a key with the “@” symbol, which was inherited by the computer 80 years later. But this, so to speak, is the history of modern times. In fact, the "@" symbol dates back at least to the early Middle Ages.

Thanks to the research of the Italian researcher Giorgio Stabile, a document was discovered in the archives of the Institute of Economic History of the city of Prato near Florence, where the sign we are interested in is found in writing for the first time. The document turned out to be a letter from a Florentine merchant dated 1536, which spoke of three merchant ships arriving in Spain. Their cargo included containers of wine, marked with the symbol "@".

After analyzing data on wine prices and the capacity of medieval vessels and comparing them with the system of measures of that time, the scientist came to the conclusion that the “@” sign was used as a measuring unit replacing the word “anfora”, that is, “amphora”. (This is what the universal measure of volume has been called since antiquity). So the roots of the “pedigree” of the modern postal badge are literally lost in hoary antiquity.

"DOG" MULTILINGUAL

Internet users in other countries like to use a variety of names for the "@" icon. Thus, in America and Finland it is often called a “cat”, in China - a “mouse”, in Germany - a “monkey sign”, in Sweden and Denmark it is compared to an elephant’s trunk, in Hungary and Norway - with a worm and even a pig’s tail, and in Spain - with a spiral-shaped candy, popular on the island of Mallorca.

Even in the international language Esperanto, the email symbol has its own name. There it is called a "snail".

IN last years The Internet has become a part of our lives, every day most of us go to our favorite sites, where we share our impressions, watch movies and listen to music. At the same time, the user types a huge number of different symbols, sometimes without thinking about their meaning. One of these signs is - " @ ", otherwise this symbol is also called "dog" or "dog".

When was this sign first used and what does it mean?

The history of the origin of the "dog" symbol @

According to the researcher, this symbol appeared long before the Internet in the distant Middle Ages. The clergy who created manuscripts used it to indicate “direction,” “approach,” “belonging,” since in English this icon denotes the preposition “at,” which can be translated into Russian as, "k", "v", "na".
Much earlier in 15 century, historians found out that the sign "@" had a different meaning. It was used to designate a measure of volume - an amphora, which was equal to 12,5 kg.

This symbol was remembered again already in 1971 year, thanks to a man named Ray Tomlinson. When sending an email, it was proposed to separate the username from the hostname, essentially implying the same preposition "at". It was from that very time that this sign“@” essentially becomes a designation for the entire Internet and is used with great success on the World Wide Web today.

Why is the "@" symbol called "dog"?

It was named that way at the beginning of the formation of the Russian part of the Internet, apparently someone thought that the “@” symbol was somewhat reminiscent of a dog. In other countries, people’s imagination worked differently, they called it: “cinnamon bun”, “cat”, “elephant” ", "snail", "monkey".
Many people do not understand at all what motivated the person when he called the symbol “@” - “dog”. It looks like a snail, it even looks like an elephant, but it doesn’t look like a dog at all. The most this image looks like is a small cat curled up comfortably in a ball.
American programmers in their circles call this symbol “dog shit”, which translated into Russian means “dog poop”. Most likely, this expression was the starting point for the Russian designation of the “@” symbol. The word "poop" was not used and was discarded because it was clearly indecent. Therefore, the word "dog" remained.

Today we have a “dog” icon on our turn, which, if we adhere to a scientific approach, is officially called “commercial at”, it looks something like this: @. Sound familiar? Well, a dog, an “incomprehensible badge”, “with a tail” and even a “monkey”. But mostly it’s “dog”. Why and where did this name come from? Many are perplexed, but still continue to say something like “Petrovinvest dog mail.ru” when dictating (for example, their Email on the phone). It doesn't always turn out well.

Moreover, at the other end of the line he will most likely be understood correctly, if he is not a foreigner or a Russian-speaking comrade who has been living in a foreign land for a long time. For the latter, “dog” (especially if this word is translated into the opponent’s language) causes stupor. The fact is that this designation took root only in RuNet, and in the bourgeoisie they don’t call the @ symbol, but not like us. By the way, the history of the appearance of this icon both on the keyboard and in email addresses is also interesting. Actually, this is what we will talk about in this post.

How to correctly pronounce the @ sign - dog, dog or...

So, in 99.9 percent of cases, our compatriots are forced to “distinguish themselves” in the process of verbal transmission to someone. Despite the dominance of instant messengers, regular email. mail is still the de facto main contact channel (at least the official one). Most often, emails are exchanged when there is a need to contact or receive some materials (photos, documents, etc.).

It’s good if you have the opportunity to write “your soap” to your opponent on a piece of paper or send it in an SMS message. The problem with the “dog” comes up precisely when it is necessary to transmit email by voice. It’s not a problem to convey Latin characters using names (by the first letters), but the @ icon not only confuses many, but also makes them wonder whether it would be correct to call it a “dog” (like a dirty word). And why exactly “sobakevich”?

So, first things first. Yes, calling the @ icon a dog is perfectly acceptable(at least on television and in the press they do not shy away from this jargon, although they can hardly serve as examples of correct behavior and expression of one’s thoughts). However, it would be better to still understand what is being said, and if yours doesn’t understand you, then quickly correct yourself and give another (officially correct, not slang) sound designation for the @ symbol.

Actually, it's pronounced "eth"(from English at). This sign is written as "commercial at". Why commercial? Well, because in itself English word at is a preposition that has several translation variations in the Russian language (meanings - the Russian language is great and powerful). For example, it can be the preposition "on", "by" or "in" (sometimes "about"), but in general it is usually indicates location.

By the way, this is why its symbolic designation (the @ icon) was chosen to display Email addresses. Look how everything falls into place..ru”, i.e.. But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. We had a question - why “@” is called the commercial at. Here again everything is quite logical.

To abbreviate in English accounts (accounting documentation), several hundred years ago it became customary to write a single @ symbol instead of the word at. For example, like this: 7 articles @ 5 thousand rubles = 35 thousand rubles. If you decipher it, it will turn out: writing seven articles “at” 5 thousand rubles apiece will cost 35 thousand rubles. Thus, the question of why @ is called a commercial at can be considered over. Go ahead.

Because accounts (accounting) is a serious matter, then with the advent of the first serial typewriters, in addition to the usual letters and numbers, they began to add the “dog” sign (in their name). Well, because... Since personal computers largely inherited their layout from typewriters, the @ symbol has successfully migrated to the keyboards of PC users. So we followed it pretty clearly.

But why was “dog” (et) chosen as ? Well, it’s worth mentioning here that @ is used as a separator not only in email addresses, but also in . It is used to separate the login and password from the actual address of the page being accessed (see the link for details). But this format of URLs is rare, and for the vast majority of Internet users the stumbling block is located in the email address.

As I already (hurriedly) mentioned a little higher, adding the “at” sign as a separator was quite logical (based on the meaning of the word at and the use of its analogue in the form of the @ symbol in bourgeois accounting). Those. any email address can be easily pronounce as: petrov on gmai.com (and this will be extremely correct and true).

Everything is clear and no questions arise with dogs. If you dive into history once again, the first to introduce this type of recording into use was a certain Tomlinson (a programmer, of course) back in the shaggy year of 1971. With the help of this record, the host (computer, server) on which this user had to be searched was also separated.

With a Russian-language keyboard layout, in order to insert the @ icon into the text, you will first need to switch to English language using hot keys (depending on the OS settings, this can be done with the key combination Shift+Alt or Shift+Control), or by clicking on the language selection icon in the tray (lower right area of the screen). @ lives above the number 2, i.e. To insert it, you will need to hold Shift and press two (for those new to using PCs, I’ll chew).

So why is the @ symbol called a dog in RuNet?

Naturally, at that time in the vastness of the RuNet (which did not yet exist) no one knew about this. The initial computerization of the majority of the Russian-speaking mass of users began only in the 80s, and it was then that the jargon “dog” (dog) appeared to denote the sign separating the writing of an email address. Email mail in general was one of the first aspects that a novice PC and Internet user became acquainted with ().

There is no exact information about who or what prompted the viral spread of this meme (Internet jargon). There are several assumptions and they are all rightly based on the fact that in the 80s there was no graphics we were used to - neither in games nor in operating systems. Everything was test, or rather symbolic.

For example, in games, characters were displayed and locations were created using various icons. I still remember the flying shooter game that I spent money on in an online club during my childhood - everything there was drawn with arrows, sticks and stars. But what a thrill I felt from the game then! It is no longer possible to understand, repeat or explain this now (one can only remember it with longing).

So, there is several versions explaining the assignment of the name “dog” to the @ icon or “doggy” (probably ladies use this option more often). According to one of them, it was the action-adventure game that was popular at that time that served as the starting point for the viral spread of the meme (personally, I did not play it, or I completely forgot). In it, a dog traveled with the hero, which was either entirely or partially (its nose) displayed using the @ symbol. In this case, the association is quite understandable and explainable.

According to another version, the special spelling of the @ sign on some popular computers in RuNet at that time is to blame. This sign was drawn with a shortened tail and very much resembled a dog.

In addition, it was always displayed when loading, and once a name mentioned by someone could find support and begin to spread virally so much as to break through the gap of generations, completely losing its original meaning.

What's the result?

In general, there is only one conclusion - the @ symbol is called a dog for a reason that has long been unclear to us. This is just a rudiment - everyone talks and I talk. Is it worth continuing? Why not. This makes Russian-speaking netizens even more mysterious in the eyes of foreigners.

Although they themselves do not lag behind and often instead of the English “et” they pronounce something like “snail” (indeed, the @ sign looks like a snail - certainly more than like a dog), “monkey”, “and with a tail” (trunk , curl), “duck”, “bun”, etc. (I would also add the statement “some crap” by Voronin Sr. from the series, because it also fits). People's imagination is limitless.

P.S. By the way, I want to correct myself. “Dog” (aka “et”) found registration not only in email addresses. We can say that it has successfully gained a foothold there too. After all, the @ icon is always placed before the user’s name, for example, when replying to his message.

Good luck to you! See you soon on the pages of the blog site

Origin story.

There is a hypothesis that the @ symbol was invented by Italian merchants 500 years ago.

Giorgio Stabile, professor historical sciences at the University of La Sapienza, claims to have encountered the first known example of the use of the symbol as an indication of a measure of weight or volume.
He says the symbol represented an amphora, a container based on terracotta jars that was used to transport grain and liquids to ancient world Mediterranean.
The first known example of its use, according to him, took place in a letter from a Florentine merchant on May 4, 1536.

Sent from Seville to Rome by a merchant named Francesco Lapi, the document describes the arrival of three treasure ships from Latin America in Spain.
"There, an amphora of wine costs 70 or 80 ducats", the merchant informs his scribe; the designation of the amphora is represented by the sign "a", wrapped in its own tail.

Spanish word for the @ sign, arroba, also indicates a weight or measure which in the late 16th century was equivalent to 11.3kg or 22.7 litres.

Partial translation of an article from guardian.co.uk

Use on the Internet.

The @ sign is used in various online services to separate the domain name from the username.
For example, email address [email protected] means that the user's mailbox with account(username) "ivan" belongs to a mail server in the mail.ru domain

The person who chose the @ sign as the username and domain name separator in email address syntax is Ray Tomlinson.

In the early 70s. Ray Tomlinson worked for Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN), whose customer was the US Department of Defense. He developed a program for sending and receiving electronic messages on the ARPANET (a computer network created in 1969 for the US Department of Defense), which became the prototype of the Internet.
The program had to be taught to distinguish between “us” users who worked on one common computer, and “strangers”, those who needed to redirect an electronic message through the ARPANET network.
It was at this stage in the development of email that Ray Tomlinson introduced the symbol to separate a user's name from his location. After several hours of looking in detail at each character on the keyboard, he suddenly realized that there really wasn't that much choice. A couple of seconds were enough to stop at "@". The use of this particular symbol in postal addresses, according to the programmer, was obvious: in telex communications (as in trade), the symbol “@” denoted the English preposition “at” (“on”), so by the 70s it had some “popularity” among computer specialists. Using "@" when writing a mailing address meant that the user's mailbox was "on a host" other than the local one. Having detected such a character in the address, the mail program had to understand that the letter should be forwarded across the network, since it was a remote mailbox on a “foreign” node on the ARPANET network.

Other examples of use.

The @ sign is used as an alternative political spelling in some Romance languages, as a neutrality when addressing a mixed-gender audience or in cases where the gender is unknown.
For example, the Spanish word "amigos", which can mean "friends" of either male or female, or all male "friends", would be replaced by "amig@s". The meaning of the symbol is to have the similarity of mixing the masculine letter "o" and the feminine "a" (amigos - friends; amigas - girlfriends). The usefulness of this use is debated.
In Spain, a noun in the masculine grammatical form can refer to both men and women, while a noun in the feminine form can only refer to members of the female gender. Some proponents of gender-neutral language modification believe that the use of masculine nouns as a general gender indicates linguistic disrespect towards women. Many Spaniards believe that this use of @ demeans their language, and some argue that it is an example of cultural imperialism. This construction is usually used only in informal writing. There is no established pronunciation for this spelling. Alternative spellings could be amigos/as or amigⒶs, where Ⓐ is the symbol for anarchism.

In most rogue-like games (such as Angband and NetHack), @ represents the player symbol. Some games in this genre also use @ to refer to any person. This may be due to the fact that @ resembles the character's head and shoulders (viewed from above).

Sometimes the @ sign is used to indicate a pseudonym after the person's real name (for example, in articles relating to missing persons; obituaries or short messages), for example: "John Smith @ Jean Smith".

In Internet communication, @ is used by some anarchists as a traditional symbol of anarchy.

In the Malagasy language (belonging to the Indonesian branch of the Austronesian family of languages), the @ symbol is an informal abbreviation for amin"ny.

Partial transfer from

Everyone who uses by email, knows for sure that the name of any mailbox contains an incomprehensible at first glance, either a letter, or an icon, or a symbol that looks like @. Some Internet lovers call this icon the main pop symbol of popularity. And if you may have heard about this, then not everyone knows that in 2004 the International Telecommunication Union introduced “dog” into Morse code.

The history of the @ sign

As strange as it may sound, an Italian researcher named Giorgio Stabile, while studying the archives of the Institute of Economic History in the city of Prato near Florence, discovered a very strange phenomenon. It turns out that the familiar “dog” is first found in written documents dating back to 1563. The document stated that 3 merchant ships arrived in Spain, and the cargo on board were containers of wine, which were designated by the @ symbol.

After thinking a little and analyzing the market of that time, the scientist came to the conclusion that the @ sign in those days denoted a unit of wine measurement such as an amphora or “anfora”. It was a universal measuring unit for measuring volume.

However, there is a second version of the appearance of this strange sign. Now a US scientist named Berthold Ullman has suggested that the @ sign was invented by medieval monks, who used it to shorten the word “ad”, which was also universal and had several meanings: “on”, “in”, “in relation to” and some others.

However, the true origin of this truly mysterious symbol is still unknown.

Commercial at

IN modern world officially the @ symbol is called “commercial at” and it originates from business. For example, it could be found in an inscription such as “7 widgets @ $2 each = $14,” which translated would sound like “7 widgets for $2 = $14.”

And since it was difficult to make any calculations without this symbol, the first typewriter in history, the Underwood, which was released in 1885, already had this symbol.

Later it was inherited by the computer keyboard. But what is noteworthy is that on the territory of the USSR the @ symbol was unknown to anyone until the first computers appeared here.

But how did this strange symbol appear in the names of our mailboxes? For this we have to thank computer scientist Ray Tomlinson, who sent the world's first email in 1971. In this case, the address consisted of 2 halves.

The first is the username, the second is the name of the computer on which the user is registered. And to separate one from the other, Ray Tomlinson chose an icon on the keyboard that was not in either of the two halves. And by chance it was the @ symbol.

How the commercial at (@) got the name “dog”

In fact, they have not yet come to a consensus here either, and today there are several versions of why the @ symbol began to be called “dog”.

1. Vervia first: The icon looks like a dog curled up in a ball.

2. Version two: If you say the English word at several times in a row, it will sound like a dog barking.

3. Version three: If you have an imagination, then in this symbol you can find all the letters that are in the word “dog”. Well, if only with the exception of the letter “k”.

But for big romantics, there is another version, which most users adhere to. In the old days, there was a fairly popular game “Adventure”, which translates as “Adventure”.

The player had to wander through the labyrinth, look for treasures and fight a variety of enemies. The labyrinth on the screen was drawn with symbols, enemies were indicated by letters and icons, but faithful dog The treasure hunter was indicated by the @ icon.

However, history is silent about whether the badge for the dog was chosen because it was already called that way.

Where else is the @ icon used?

1. In chemistry when writing formulas - Ni@C82.

2. In Europe there is even an “@” sign, which means that there is free access to the Internet in this place.

3. Sometimes used to replace the anarchy symbol, since it is simply impossible to write this symbol on a computer.

4. In some European languages it is used in informal correspondence.

5. The international student organization AIESEC uses this sign in informal correspondence as a symbol of the organization.

This is our “dog”. At first glance, a simple icon, but in fact there is a whole story behind it!

Monuments to the “electronic dog”

Today in Russia there are 2 monuments to the electronic dog. The first of them is installed in Chita, the second in Orenburg. They wanted to erect a monument to the “dog” in the Moscow region, but this remains in the plans for now.

Monument in Chita- This is a cement slab, the size of which is 1.5 by 1.5 meters. The slab was installed directly on the sidewalk and took the place of 9 ceramic tiles that were in this place. The monument was built literally in half a day. It took 40 kg of cement. Residents of the city are proud that the first monument to the @ symbol in Russia appeared in their city.

And this year another one was opened and this event happened in Orenburg on the territory of Perovsky Park. This is a large recreation park that young people love to visit, and there is also free Internet, so the choice of location was not accidental.

“Electronic Dog” is not just a button on your keyboard. This is a symbol that has its own history, and as it turns out, this history is long and interesting.