Poll of the Day > Poll: "What do you call the ''#'' symbol?" issue.

(+) Yeah! (+)

As a British person, it's rather insulting that most people think a # is the pound sign which looks like this £ (nothing like it), please explain.

Octothorpe
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Jalorda posted...

As a British person

There are cultures outside your own, you know. Different parts of the world use different words to describe the same thing, but did you also know that some cultures use the same word to describe DIFFERENT things?

Shocking, I know. Go educate yourself. Read a book maybe. Or perhaps, dare I say it, go to school?

I've seen that it is called octothorpe but never actually heard anyone say it. I call it pound or even number sign.
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Pound, number sign or hashtag.
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For example, when I go into the voice mail on my phone, it tells me, "Please enter your password, then press pound." In some cases, at least in the US, it's called the pound sign. It is never used to describe your currency, though.
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Jalorda posted...

As a British person, it's rather insulting that most people think a # is the pound sign which looks like this £ (nothing like it), please explain.

It's the symbol used to mark pounds as weight, not pound sterling as currency. Different things get different symbols.

If you see something that says 75# on it, it might weight 75 pounds. We don't use the pound symbol as frequently as just using lbs, but it happens a lot in shipping still.

Narukami12 posted...

Jalorda posted...

As a British person

Go educate yourself. Read a book maybe. Or perhaps, dare I say it, go to school?

I'm not the person who made the poll, they're the ones that needs to educate themselves.

bbqsb posted...

For example, when I go into the voice mail on my phone, it tells me, "Please enter your password, then press pound." In some cases, at least in the US, it's called the pound sign. It is never used to describe your currency, though.

This is a good answer, it's English vs american language, a homonym between the two.

Thanks

Jalorda posted...

Narukami12 posted...

Jalorda posted...

As a British person

Go educate yourself. Read a book maybe. Or perhaps, dare I say it, go to school?

I'm not the person who made the poll, they're the ones that needs to educate themselves.

And you ignored the post before this that explained the origin of the symbol and it's name. Well, two can play at this game.

It GREATLY OFFENDS ME that you call an apartment a "Flat." I mean what is wrong with you? That's the word you describe a certain kind of surface area! Not a living space! OOOOOH you make me so TRIGGERED!

The automated phone services call it a pound sign, so that.
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Number sign or sharp symbol.
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