WEBVTT - Where Did the At Symbol Come From?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey, brain Stuff,

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<v Speaker 1>Lauren Vogelbaum. Here in English, we call it the AT symbol,

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<v Speaker 1>you know, the lowercase A encased in a curl that

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<v Speaker 1>we put in email addresses and social media handles. We

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<v Speaker 1>are linguistically dull on this count. In Germany it's called

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<v Speaker 1>a clamorophe, meaning spider monkey. In Israel it's called a strudle,

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<v Speaker 1>after the rolled pastry. In Hungary it's a kutz a,

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<v Speaker 1>meaning worm. In Norway it's a hallay meaning pigstail, and

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<v Speaker 1>in Turkey it's called the gull meaning rose. Apologies, by

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<v Speaker 1>the way for my pronunciation on all of those. I

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<v Speaker 1>did make an effort. At any rate, we English speakers

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<v Speaker 1>obviously missed an opportunity to play on the fun curly

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<v Speaker 1>cue shape of the AT sign. But if we're interested

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<v Speaker 1>in the long and fascinating history of this now ubiquitous symbol,

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<v Speaker 1>it's better to call it by its Spanish name, arooba.

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<v Speaker 1>If you traveled with Spanish speaking country today and visit

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<v Speaker 1>the local food market, you might come across a different

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<v Speaker 1>usage of the aeroba that predates email addresses by half

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<v Speaker 1>a millennium. In Ecuador or Bolivia, for example, a large

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<v Speaker 1>quantity of potatoes is often sold by the arooba, with

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<v Speaker 1>one aroba equalling a little less than a bushel, which

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<v Speaker 1>is about sixty pounds or twenty seven kilos. It's not

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<v Speaker 1>a set measure across goods. An aroba of oil is

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<v Speaker 1>about three gallons or eleven liters, and an arooba of

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<v Speaker 1>wine is about four gallons or fifteen liters. But okay,

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<v Speaker 1>what's the connection between adoba the weight and measure, and

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<v Speaker 1>aeroba the symbol on your keyboard. The Greeks and Romans

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<v Speaker 1>used to trade commodities like wine, oil, and olives stored

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<v Speaker 1>in long necked ceramic jars called m foi. For these

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<v Speaker 1>ancient Mediterranean merchants, an emphora was not only a convenient

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<v Speaker 1>storage vessel, but a standard measurement. One amphora equalled a

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<v Speaker 1>volume of one cubic foot, which is roughly seven gallons

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<v Speaker 1>or twenty six and a half liters. Later, Spanish and

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<v Speaker 1>Portuguese traders used a similar method to set a standard

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<v Speaker 1>weight and volume for casks of different commodities. They didn't

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<v Speaker 1>use the word amphora, but rather aroba, a which they

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<v Speaker 1>borrowed from the Arabic speaking Muslims who ruled the Iberian

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<v Speaker 1>Peninsula from seven to eleven CE to fourteen ninety two CE.

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<v Speaker 1>The Arabic al rub means one fourth, and an aoba

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<v Speaker 1>in medieval span and Portugal was a quarter of a quintal,

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<v Speaker 1>a quintal being another historical unit of measurement that means

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<v Speaker 1>one hundred units of weight for whatever system different people

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<v Speaker 1>were using before metric kilos and imperial pounds became standard,

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<v Speaker 1>So we had the words that indicated measurements. Where does

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<v Speaker 1>the AT sign come in? No one actually knew until

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<v Speaker 1>the year two thousand. That's when one Giorgio's Tabile, a

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<v Speaker 1>professor of the history of science at Lasapienza University in Rome,

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<v Speaker 1>stumbled on a letter dating from fifteen thirty six that

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<v Speaker 1>appears to use the AT sign as shorthand for Mphori.

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<v Speaker 1>The author of the letter, an Italian trader was reporting

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<v Speaker 1>on the price of an emphora of wine in Seville,

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<v Speaker 1>but instead of writing out the word amphora, the merchant

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<v Speaker 1>used the AT symbol. Stabile told the Guardian at the time,

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<v Speaker 1>until now, no one knew that the AT sign derived

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<v Speaker 1>from this symbol, which was developed by Italian traders in

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<v Speaker 1>a mercantile script they created between the Middle Ages and

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<v Speaker 1>the Renaissance. The loop around the A is typical of

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<v Speaker 1>that merchant script. When Stabilee looked at Spanish Latin dictionaries

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<v Speaker 1>from the fifteen hundreds, he found that Adoba was synonymous

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<v Speaker 1>with Amphora, so it's very likely that Spanish traders would

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<v Speaker 1>have adopted the same AT symbol to stand for Adoba,

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<v Speaker 1>making the Spanish name for the AT sign one of

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<v Speaker 1>the oldest and truest that we have. In more modern usage,

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<v Speaker 1>the AT symbol became shorthand for at the rate of

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<v Speaker 1>a factory ordering supplies my invoice for one hundred tons

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<v Speaker 1>of steel wire at fifty dollars a ton, for example,

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<v Speaker 1>or a neighborhood grosser would advertise a daily special for

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<v Speaker 1>brought worst at thirty cents a pound. Even though the

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<v Speaker 1>symbol was widely used in business and commerce by the

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<v Speaker 1>eighteen hundreds, it wasn't included in the earliest mechanical typewriters.

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<v Speaker 1>The first commercially successful typewriter, which happened to be the

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<v Speaker 1>first with a querity keyboard, was patented in eighteen sixty

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<v Speaker 1>eight by three American inventors. This shoals and glidin typewriter

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<v Speaker 1>had just thirty keys and no shift function, so it

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<v Speaker 1>only had space for four punctuation marks, a comma, period, dash,

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<v Speaker 1>and semicolon. It also only had capital letters and didn't

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<v Speaker 1>even have keys for the digits zero and one, requiring

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<v Speaker 1>typists to substitute the letters I and O in their place.

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<v Speaker 1>Just like the dollar sign. The business friendly AT symbol

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<v Speaker 1>made its way onto typewriter keyboards by the end of

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<v Speaker 1>the eighteen hundreds, but it would take another fifty years

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<v Speaker 1>for the AT symbol to be invited to the nascent

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<v Speaker 1>computing party. The AT sign was included in the group

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<v Speaker 1>of letters, numerals, and special characters that early IBM computers

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<v Speaker 1>could represent, including punched card systems in the nineteen fifties

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<v Speaker 1>and in nineteen sixty one, IBM's room sized Stretch supercomputer,

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<v Speaker 1>the fastest computer of its day. However, there's a chance

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<v Speaker 1>the AT sign would still be an obscure keyboard character

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<v Speaker 1>if not for the actions of an engineer by the

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<v Speaker 1>name of Ray Tomlinson. Back in nineteen seventy one. Tomlinson

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<v Speaker 1>was working for a private defense contractor helping the US

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<v Speaker 1>government's advanced research projects agency build what would become the

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<v Speaker 1>world's first remote computer networks, known as arpinnet. Tomlinson's job

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<v Speaker 1>was to write programs that would run on this new network,

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<v Speaker 1>connecting a whopping nineteen different machines in nineteen seventy one.

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<v Speaker 1>Electronic mail already existed in a primitive form at the time.

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<v Speaker 1>Messages could be saved by a user and opened up

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<v Speaker 1>later by a different user on the same machine. But Tomlinson,

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<v Speaker 1>as a side project, wanted to see if messages could

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<v Speaker 1>be sent from one machine to another over arpinnet. There

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<v Speaker 1>was a problem, though, how would Tomlinson direct messages to

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<v Speaker 1>different users on a single remote computer. He needed a

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<v Speaker 1>symbol that would serve as the marker of a name

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<v Speaker 1>and address. Looking down at his teletype terminal, Tomlinson saw

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<v Speaker 1>the humble AT symbol sitting atop the letter P. Tomlinson

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<v Speaker 1>chose the AT symbol for a number of practical reasons.

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<v Speaker 1>A First, it was already common shorthand for at the

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<v Speaker 1>rate of so it made sense as user at host computer. Second,

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<v Speaker 1>it was obscure enough that it wasn't already being used

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<v Speaker 1>in any of the existing names of host computers, nor

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<v Speaker 1>was it being used as a command in his company's

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<v Speaker 1>programming system. Tomlinson wrote up the experimental email program and

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<v Speaker 1>sent a test message to himself at a nearby terminal

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<v Speaker 1>from his brand new email address, Tomlinson at BBN DASH tenxa,

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<v Speaker 1>a BBN DASH tenxa being the type of computer system

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<v Speaker 1>he was working on. So what did the world's first

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<v Speaker 1>email say? Tomlinson has zero recollection, but guesses it was

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<v Speaker 1>something momentous like testing one, two, three four or quarity

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<v Speaker 1>you we up. It's no what hath God wrought? Which

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<v Speaker 1>was the first American long distance telegraph message, but it's

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<v Speaker 1>perhaps appropriate for something that we use so casually today.

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<v Speaker 1>Today's episode is based on the article call It Attoba,

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<v Speaker 1>cook Cuts or Strudle The history of the app sign

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<v Speaker 1>on HowStuffWorks dot Com, written by Dave Ruse. For lots more,

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<v Speaker 1>check out the book Shady Characters, The Secret Life, Punctuation

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<v Speaker 1>Symbols and other typographical marks written by Keith Houston. Brain

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<v Speaker 1>Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot

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<v Speaker 1>Com and is produced by Tyler Klain. Four more podcasts

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<v Speaker 1>from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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<v Speaker 1>or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,