Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bbn!rochester!udel!mmdf
From: SEB1525@draper.com (Steve Bacher (Batchman))
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: RE: Interesting stuff on character names
Message-ID: <3746@louie.udel.EDU>
Date: 17 Aug 88 20:31:36 GMT
Sender: mmdf@udel.EDU
Lines: 25

Subj:	RE: interesting - amiga list on special chars

 
Interesting discussion on character names.  I have a few comments:

"#" is "sharpsign" (esp. to Common Lisp hackers), or "gridlet" (a name
bestowed by a contest conducted by All Things Considered a while back),
but please, not "pound" or "pound sign". A pound sign is a cursive L with
a line through it, which I obviously can't enter here but shows up on certain
IBM 3270-type terminals for hex 43.

"`" backquote, backtick, or what have you, but NOT accent grave.  An accent
of any kind is a character that appears OVER an alphabetic, i.e. in the same

byte position, and does NOT occupy a separate location as "`" does.
The ASCII circumflex corresponds with the EBCDIC "logical not" sign, a
name that probably derives from PL/1, and it looks like a backwards capital L
tossed upwards so that its back sticks to the ceiling.  Both have erroneously

been referred to as "caret", although "hat" is a good name.
"_" is being called "underbar" with increasing frequency these days, even 
amongst those who used to prefer "underscore".  Don't know why, except for
the niftiness of its rhyming with "wunderbar."