octothorpe

listen to the pronunciation of octothorpe
English - English
]], used mainly in telephony and computing

Strings are enclosed in double quotation marks, numbers are not enclosed in anything, and dates and Boolean values are enclosed between octothorpe (#) characters.

A name for the hash or square symbol [[Appendix: Unsupported titles/Number sign|
the symbol on telephone pads or as a number symbol
{i} pound sign, number sign, the symbol #
A name for the hash or square symbol (#), used mainly in telephony and computing
octothorpe

    Pronunciation

    Etymology

    () Origin disputed. Reportedly a jocular coinage by Bell Labs supervisor Don Macpherson in the early 1960s, from octo- (“eight”), with reference to its eight points, + -thorpe (after 1912 Olympic medalist Jim Thorpe, in whom Macpherson was interested). However, Doug Kerr attributes octatherp to a practical joke by engineers John C. Schaak, Herbert T. Uthlaut, and Lauren Asplund upon himself and Howard Eby. The Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories (1991) supports octotherp as the original spelling, and telephone engineers as the source.
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