Re: String name and Character Name

From: JFC (Jefsey) Morfin (jefsey@jefsey.com)
Date: Fri Apr 29 2005 - 16:31:25 CST

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    At 23:06 29/04/2005, Philippe Verdy wrote:
    >Don't forget the well-known traditional name for "@" in French: "une
    >arrobace" (normally feminine in typographic language like for the term
    >"une espace", but many French users think these terms are masculine, so
    >their genre is now ambiguous... unless one makes the distinction between
    >the typographic usage that designates the glyph or an implementation of
    >this glyph in a page layout, and the other usages where it just designates
    >the abstract character in some text).

    eternal dispute. Nevertheless your description does not match my French
    (what is a good point in favor of what I try to make the WG-ltru
    understand: languages are more complex than just a langtag).

    I personally use "arobase" (Google seems to confirm it is the most used in
    a 100 to 1 proportion) and pronounce it "arobase" or "a commercial" when
    people do not catch my "ad" which is the correct meaning, pronunciation and
    intent (a in a d) like the perluette (et - t linked to an et).

    That "@" was used as the sign of the weigh "arroba" is another story, like
    $ for the peso (the flag on a pole, sign of gold) the pound copied to show
    they also had gold the story says, copied with a second richer strike to
    make it a dollar sign for the Thaler. Two strikes copied in the Yen and now
    in Euro sign.

    No one is calling the Joachimthaler sign "fake, fat, northern or
    pretentious peso" ...

    >It was also commonly named "a commercial" in the past, but the expression
    >is now deprecated.

    Then my kids are deprecated. When you are more than 15 you are totally
    outdated nowadays....

    >Those French users that use "@" in email addresses now pronounce it "at"
    >like in English, some are resisting and use the french usual preposition
    >"à" when spelling these addresses orally...).
    >
    >Despite this, for now, I have not heard or read any expression like "le
    >signe at" in French text or speech. So "un (une) arrobace" is still used
    >everywhere when not spelling an email addresses or related technical
    >syntaxes (but many don't know how to write "arrobace" correctly -- some
    >even write "arobasse" -- and this orthographic difficulty may be one
    >reason why the old oral expression "a commercial" still persists in French
    >on the written form).

    I understand it is the AFNOR standard.

    Funny to discuss details of French in Franglish.
    Bonne soirée.
    jfc



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