Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for May 24, 2014

i`m with bert, you silly people

In the USA, it’s called a pound sign. Here’s a real pound sign: £. This is a hash sign: #.

He was later chased off by a gang of octothorpists.

And that guy just keeps on walking as Mr. Bert gets a face full of sidewalk… and bloody scratches…

And only Americans call it a Pound Sign

….a pound sign: lb.

It’s also called a number sign in the US.

It’s an anoctothorp (sp?)

It’s also a sharp.

Pound is easier to say than hashtag.

The above behavior is acceptable only if it’s not a release program.

I always thought it meant someone wanted to play tic-tac-toe.

Music, weight, tic-tac-toe: how else is it used around the world and what are it’s other names??

octatherp

Our teachers told us it was called it “cross-hatch”.

Has anyone mentioned “Archie’s hair” yet? Would have thought, you know, this being a comics forum and all….

tic-tac-toe anyone?

Bert is my hero.

Octothorpe. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/octothorpe

Hilarious! ( How old are you kid? 16? Hell I’ve got restraining orders older than that)!!

The symbol was invented in Bell Labs in the US – but as per usual with the Brits who chose a different name for it after it had been invented, it is Americans who are "wrong"about the name.

I don’t talk about hashtags or hash whatevers when the police are around

at last a voice of reason ( number sign is proper also)

Gotta make up some new symbols

What? How can we work an answer with popup interruptions? Lets hope no one buys the whatever.

That’ll pound some cents into him, Bert. ; ) #hashtag #octothorp #Archie #Brits #sharp #tic tac toe #funny #LOL

We used to call the # symbol “chicken-scratch” when I started programming back in the 1970s.

?

Hashtag? Pound sign? How about Number sign? The proper name is ‘octothorp.’ Look it up in your Funk & Wagnalls.

Is anyone actually confusing pound signs (or hash marks) with hash tags, which are tags beginning with hash marks? Not saying it’s impossible, but is it actually happening?

What the @&#%?

I thought it was a number sign, myself.

And what on earth’s wrong with a new name for something?

It is a very old symbol, with many names. And, as EighthAt14 pointed out, in programming it is a “hash” and is only a “hash tag” when followed by words.

Hash marks are what are on the uniform sleeves to denote years of service. Also x’s are used in tick-tac-toe.

#Bertsabuzzkill*Follow these comments there!

Ooh! I can relate! I’m teaching an eighty-five year old woman to use her first computer , and the problem is, she doesn’t have the basic vocabulary….words like “open” and “forward” have no meaning to her…

…and “download” is a total mystery"…

Actually, in the 1970s a guy at Bell Labs named Thorpe was involved in the TouchTone development and the pound sign had never been officially named, so he got a copyright on the name “Octothorpe” which made it into official Bell Labs literature for a while. So, both “Pound Sign” and “Hash Tag” are technically incorrect, as they are not the official name.

And here I’ve been calling it tic-tac-toe.

Snag the kid. And then hit him with your pound sign.

Isn’t the pound sign " lb." ??

always think of it as a symbol for “number.” don’t tweet, so escaped “hashtag.”

Thanks Chris Maple, that was interesting.

It’s called both, depending on the context.

.Sheeple, pull your eyes away from your little toys, stop texting, and talk! It’s like we’ve gone full circle back to telegraphs!

It’s known as the number sign, pound, hash, comment sign (programming), or octothorpe (AT&T claims that one around 1964). Hashtag appeared in the 80’s when it was used in IRC.

Interesting little symbol, isn’t it.

whippersnappers – young whippersnappers

A local radio station , when giving instructions on how to dial in to one of their daily public access shows….offers "POUND * on your * cell phone NOT #HASHSTAG#…….Every generation changes things from the previous generation….not always for the better.

How right he is. We didn’t even get a warning! I caught on, but my husband doesn’t do well with changes.

I’m Canadian and call it a pound sign.

It’s on keyboards as an abbreviation for a measure of weight, the British pound, financial, is of course also a POUND sign. It’s just easier to say “pound”, than “hash-tag”, and doesn’t make you think of ground meat, potatoes, and onions in a pot.

I am a proud American, and it will always be a pound sign! There, I got it off my chest! I feel so much better, now.Let’s see, where did I set that Colorado Bulldog? Yumm…

I call it a “number” sign.

It;s called an octothorpe: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/octothorpe[:-)]

The sign means nothing to anyone I know.

Go get a life you old geezer. Man you are ugly

After going thru all these comments about the #, I see there is one thing yet to be said – it is ASCII character code 35.

The official, technical, name for the character as listed in ASCII charts, is “OCTOTHORP”, meaning Eight Thorps, which are the pieces of roof support that stick out to form the eave. This name would be the same in England as in the US.

This discussion is hilariously entertaining. The # is called a pound sign in the USA simply because it has long been the symbol for pounds (as in weight). It’s as funny as people now calling a “period” a “dot.”

Perfect.

It’s a sharp sign, said the piano teacher, to the math student who thought it meant “number”.

#OUCH!

love the trap.

Why not go all the way and rebel against push-button phones?

It really is called an octothorpe.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/octothorpe

It really is called an octothorpe.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/octothorpe

It really is called an octothorpe.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/octothorpe

And the twitter usage was originally a “hatch-tag”, you know, as in “cross-hatch”.The little illiterate boobs who use twitter had no clue what “hatch” meant, so they thought people were saying “hash”, as if that makes ANY sense at all.

Of course, it’s not a pound sign either (£ is a pound)… it’s normally a ‘number sign’, but for music fans it’s a ‘sharp’