Once again about the many-sided "dog". The @ sign and its origin Commercial at

The familiar dog icon has been around for much longer than email. But only with the advent of the Internet did the rounded "squiggle" become widely known: every day 2 billion times @ takes its place between the sender's name and the domain name of the server. Who guessed to put the dog icon in the mail address and how? And why a dog?

A long time ago, when (oh, horror!) There was no e-mail, no computers, or even electricity, all books were filled by hand. No, then the dog's badge was not written in the address, but it performed a completely noble function: it saved the time of clerks who painstakingly worked in semi-darkness, bent over and holding the paper on their knees. Why in such an uncomfortable position remains a mystery. But if you imagine a few hours in this position, and work with pen and ink, it becomes clear how much easier the work was made by all kinds of ligatures.

The dog icon is read in English as "At", which is translated into Russian as "on, in, on". This sign denoted belonging to something, used in exchange accounts, and today they often indicate a specific place or event. In the Middle Ages, instead of "At" they used the preposition "Ad" - to, at, na, y, to. And the letter "d" was decorated with a long tail, thrown to the left. The @ ligature was formed by merging the letters "a" and "d", and, by and large, the history of the creation of the dog icon is the history of medieval European writing.

In Brazil, Spain and Portugal, a similar symbol denoted a measure of weight and volume equal to one arroba. And although historians doubt that it was the same @, but the capital "A" with a curl that adorns jugs of wine or oil really resembles an electronic "dog".

Before putting the dog icon, translate the keyboard into English. language. Then, while holding shift, press number 2. If you are working in Word, open insert - symbol - tab "symbols", select "plain text - basic Latin". In Unicode, @ is represented by the number 0040, and in Morse code by the character set: dot - dash - dash - dot - dash - dot.

Every European merchant who lived during the Renaissance knew perfectly well how to write a dog badge in the most profitable way: the twisted elegant @ was located in front of the price of the product, and was supposed to attract the attention of passers-by. Later, this ligature was used in accounting, for example: 12p @ 6 $ - 12 pieces at 6 dollars.

The following fact is not directly related to the dog icon, but is so curious that it would be wrong not to mention it. In the 15th century, when they did not even dream of post offices in their hometown, letters were delivered by foot or horse messengers. They notified the population of their arrival by blowing a horn similar to the one used by merchants, traveling artists, etc. From the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th centuries. the horns were forbidden to be used by everyone except the postmen. Today, the image of crossed post horns can be seen on envelopes, stamps, postcards, etc. The uncomplicated tool has become a symbol of mail, recognizable all over the world. So, the dog icon in the address is very similar to the outline of a horn, which is undoubtedly a curious coincidence. And how interesting it turned out: the symbol

"Virtual" mail accidentally repeated the outline of the real mail symbol!

Computer age

The second life to the forgotten and unnecessary @ symbol was given by Ray Tomlinson. He also created the first program that allowed the exchange of text messages, working on different computers connected through the ARPANET (the predecessor of the Internet). The first caps-typed message containing random letters like “QWERTYUIOP” was sent in 1971. In the photo, the same laboratory and the same computers: from the one in the background, the first message was sent to the computer in the foreground.

A little later, when it became necessary to send messages to remote computers, Tomlinson noticed the dog icon on the keyboard and decided that it was the best fit for separating username and domain. As the creator of the e-mail explains, the choice was not accidental: the @ sign was almost never used, it is not like the others, it is conveniently located and fits quite organically into the e-mail address. Tomlinson writes that in those years there was a question of excluding this character from the characters required for the standard keyboard set, and the decision to use @ was a kind of revival of the forgotten ligature.

D. Usenkov

With the emergence and spread of e-mail, the "@" symbol, used to separate the "to" and "to" fields in a subscriber's mailing address, has become truly world-famous. The magazine has already reported on some facts related to this symbol (see "Science and Life" No. 7, 1999), but the "biography" of the popular sign is constantly updated. Dmitry Yuryevich Usenkov, senior researcher at the Institute of Informatization of Education, Russian Academy of Education.

The "@" sign, officially called "commercial at" and denoting in English the preposition "at", must be present in any e-mail address, separating the name of the owner of the e-mail box ("account") from the domain name of the mail server on which this the box is open.

"DOG" RU

In Russia, users most often call the "@" symbol a "dog", which is why e-mail addresses formed from personal names and surnames sometimes sound a little offensive. Even anecdotes of this nature are now in circulation. , what e-mail address the participants of one of the KVNs came up with: " [email protected]".

But still: why exactly "dog"? There are several versions of the origin of this funny name, and it is difficult to determine which one is correct. On the one hand, the badge really looks like a curled up dog. On the other hand, the abrupt sounding of the English "at" is a bit like a dog barking. But the most plausible is the legend that exists "in the computer circles".

Once upon a time, when computers were large and displays were purely text-based, there was a popular game called Adventure. Its meaning was a journey through a labyrinth created in the computer's memory in search of treasures and a battle with malicious underground creatures. At the same time, the labyrinth on the screen was drawn with the symbols " ! ", "+ " and " - ", and the player, treasures and hostile monsters were designated by various letters and icons. Moreover, according to the plot, the player had a faithful assistant - a dog who could be sent to the catacombs for reconnaissance. And he was, of course, designated by the" @ "sign.

Whether this was the root cause of the now generally accepted name, or, on the contrary, the icon was chosen because it was already called that, the legend is silent about this.

To be fair, it should be noted that in Russia a "dog" is also called a dog, a frog, a bun, an ear, a ram, and even a mallard.

In the official history of the Internet (which has existed for a long time), it is generally accepted that the appearance of the "@" in an e-mail address is due to the American computer engineer Ray Tomlinson, who in 1971 sent the world's first e-mail over the network. Since at this moment he was forced to act in two roles at once - both the sender and the addressee, then he had to invent the form of the email address himself. To avoid confusion in the spelling of names, he chose an icon on the keyboard as a "separator" that is obviously not found in names and surnames. But you can only use a character on the keyboard if it is already there. Where did the corresponding key come from?

It turns out that this is a "legacy" of typewriter keyboards. Already in 1885, the first "Underwood" in history was equipped with a key with the "@" symbol, which 80 years later the computer inherited. But this, so to speak, is the history of modern times. In fact, the @ symbol comes from at least the early Middle Ages.

Thanks to the investigations of the Italian researcher Giorgio Stabile, a document was discovered in the archives of the Institute of Economic History of the city of Prato near Florence, where the sign of interest to us is found in writing for the first time. The document turned out to be dated 1536 by a letter from a Florentine merchant, which spoke of three merchant ships arriving in Spain. Their cargo included containers of wine, marked with the "@" symbol.

After analyzing the data on wine prices and the capacity of medieval vessels and comparing them with the system of measures of that time, the scientist came to the conclusion that the "@" sign was used as a measuring unit, replacing the word "anfora", that is, "amphora". (This is how the universal measure of volume has been called since antiquity). So the roots of the "pedigree" of the modern postal badge are literally lost in hoary antiquity.

Internet users in other countries like a variety of names for the "@" sign. So, in America and Finland it is often called a "cat", in China - a "mouse", in Germany - a "monkey sign", in Sweden and Denmark it is compared with the trunk of an elephant, in Hungary and Norway - with a worm and even a pig's tail, and in Spain - with a spiral candy, popular on the island of Mallorca.

Even in the international language Esperanto, the e-mail symbol gets its name. There he is called a "snail".

Symbol @ mainly used in Internet e when writing an email address. It serves as a kind of separator between the domain name on which the email account is registered and the username.

Now many Internet figures call this symbol "one of the main pop symbols of our time." Evidence of universal recognition for this symbol is the fact that in February two thousand and four, the symbol was introduced into Morse code, in which it combines the codes of the Latin letters A and C. Now this symbol can be proudly called the "International Telecommunication Union".

But this symbol, just recently recognized, is not as young as you might think of it. The Italian researcher Giorgio Stabile in the city of Prato, in the archives of the Institute of Economic History, discovered a document on which this sign is first encountered in writing. The document, dated 1536, turned out to be a letter from a merchant, and a symbol @ it indicated containers with wine delivered on merchant ships to Spain. After analyzing the data, scientists came to the conclusion that most likely the symbol @ denoted a measured unit equal to the ancient universal measure of volume - amphora.

The American scientist Berthold Ullman suggested that the symbol @ invented by medieval monks. And the symbol was used to shorten the word of the Latin language - " ad", Which is one of the universal words, and means" in "," on "," in relation to "and the like.

In French, Portuguese, and Spanish, the name of the symbol @ comes from the ancient word "arroba" - the Spanish measure of weight, equal to about fifteen kilograms, which in the letter is abbreviated by the symbol @ .

Symbol @ now has an official name - " commercial at". This name originates from accounts. Since the symbol was often used in business, it was decided to place it on typewriter keyboards. Symbol @ was present at the keyboard of the first Underwood typewriter, which was issued in 1885. Later this symbol was inherited by computer keyboards.

According to the official history of the Internet, it is generally accepted that the symbol @ appeared in the e-mail address thanks to Ray Tomlinson, an American computer scientist and engineer. It was he who, back in 1971, sent the first e-mail. He chose the symbol @ as a separator between two names, since this character did not appear in the names themselves.

In Russia, it is customary to call the symbol @ "Dog"... This funny name can be explained in several ways. For starters, the symbol itself is visually similar to a curled up dog. And the sound of the English word "at", which is included in the official name, slightly resembles a dog barking. Also, if you turn on your imagination, then in the symbol @ you can see all the letters from the word "dog", only with the exception of the letter "k".

There is also a more interesting version of the origin of this name. Long ago, when computer displays were purely text-based, there was a popular electronic game called “ Adventure", Or" Adventure ". The game was a journey through labyrinths, in which treasures were hidden, but also underground monsters roamed about. The maze consisted of the symbols "+", "-" and "!", And the player, treasures, and monsters were designated by various letters and signs. According to the plot, in the game the player had a faithful companion and friend - a dog who was sent out on reconnaissance. And this dog was designated by the symbol @ ... But it is not known whether the symbol was already called a dog at that time, or, on the contrary, this was the root cause of this name.

It is also worth noting that in Russia the symbol @ in addition to "dog", they call "ram", "ear", "bun", "frog" and even "mackerel".

As already mentioned, in France, Spain and Portugal, the symbol is called "arroba". In America and Finland @ called "cat", "mouse" in China and Taiwan, "monkey" in Poland, Croatia, Holland, Romania, Serbia, Germany and Slovenia, "snail" in Italy, "worm" or "tick" in Hungary, "rosette" in Turkey, "whirlpool" in Israel, "rollmops" in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, "little pasta" in Greece, "crooked A" in Vietnam, "monkey A" in Bulgaria, "monkey tail" in the Netherlands, "cat's tail" in Finland, "elephant trunk" in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and in Latvia and Lithuania - "et" and "this".

Hello site readers! Many people know the catch phrase “ What kind of dog is this?”From the movie“ Ivan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession ”.

Today we will talk about another "dog" - a computer symbol " @ ”, Which all Internet users are familiar with by addresses.

And really, terribly interesting - where did such an unusual icon come from, why is it needed, why is it so interesting and even funny named?

Often, the origins of common things are shrouded in fog due to long periods of time and a lack of surviving evidence and documents.

In relation to the computer dog, everything is pretty well known and reliably proven.

• The symbol in the form of a capital letter "a" outlined by an unfinished circle has long been used and is still used in the field of international commerce.
• The @ sign is an abbreviation for the English phrase “ at the rate of"In payment documents with the meaning" at the price per piece”.
• In the general accounting sense, the English “ at"Can be translated as" in the account so and so”.

For some reason, the creators of the Internet decided to use accounting terminology when registering users in various services. This, in general, is quite logical, registration is an entry in the Book of Accounts.

So it is also logical that in the fall of 1971, one of the inventors of email, Ray Samuel Tomlinson, came up with the use of the “@” sign to indicate the mail domain in an email address.

Useful for travelers and tourists. In European countries, traffic signs with the “@” symbol indicate public Internet access points.

Why @ is called a dog

There are several legends about why @ was named a dog. The following three versions seem to be the most reliable.

1. The picture above shows the logo of one of the progenitors of the modern world wide web - Fidonet. As you can see, the nose of the sketchy pet is indicated by the at symbol in the circle.
2. Another version looks even more believable. At a time when the graphical interface had not yet been invented, a computer game called Adventure was popular. One of the characters was a scout dog, marked with an @ sign in the playing field.
3. The third version looks far-fetched, but is still widespread. On one of the first Soviet personal computers, the DCK, this symbol served as a startup screen. Allegedly, users saw in this squiggle a dog curled up in a ball. However, for such an interpretation it is necessary to have a fairly developed imagination.

How to pronounce dog icon in English and other languages

In the Russian language, the practice has developed to call the symbol “@” “dog” or “dog”. The email address will be read with the following phrase.

• “Username Dog Mail (Ge-mail, Yandex) Tochka Ru (or Kom)”.
• In economics and commerce, accounting, the @ ligature is pronounced and described traditionally as “commercial at” or “commercial at”.

It is noteworthy that American engineers, who proved themselves to be true masters in inventing various creative nicknames to designate technical terms, this time behaved surprisingly passively and indifferently.

In Anglo-Saxon computer terminology, "doggy" is called "commercial ET", without any reference to funny pets.

Pronounced @ in English is also without any frills.

• [email protected]
• "Username At mail dot ru"

It remains to conclude that this time the national American pragmatism worked. Our overseas partners decided that commercial at quite adequately reflects the meaning of the symbol.

• "Account so-and-so, From mail domain so-and-so."

In some countries of the world @ also has cool nicknames, like ours.

• "Dog" - in the countries of the former USSR.
• "Monkey" - in Bulgarian, German, Polish.
• "Snail" - in Ukrainian, Italian.

In countries where the @ ligature was known long before the advent of computers, the old pronunciation of “at” or “commercial at” remained. These include France, Spain and the UK.

How to type the @ symbol on the keyboard

There is no single answer for all occasions. The problem is that there are many types of keyboards and different types of character layouts.

The picture above shows a classic keyboard with "big keys" and a traditional layout. QWERTY in Latin or QWERTY in Cyrillic.

To enter @ on such a keyboard, you must switch to the Latin font mode and simultaneously press the key Shift and the number “ 2 ”.

What if there is no dog symbol on the keyboard?

In this case, there may be options.

• Switch to symbolic keyboard. Switching can be done with Alt keys, asterisk “*”, or with a special switch Smbl.
• On mobile devices, smartphones and tablets, there is simply a huge number of very different keyboards. Some are specially designed for instant messengers and on such keyboards the dog symbol is implemented, for convenience and speed of typing addresses, as a separate key on the main layout.
• Most touch keyboards for mobile devices insert the “@” sign in the same way as external keyboards for desktops and laptops.

What if I can't find the @ symbol on my keyboard?

It happens. Then you should refer to the "Table of Symbols", access to which is in the list of "Standard Programs" OS Windows.

Logically, the "dog" can be inserted through the "Insert" - "Symbols" menu in a text editor.

Email Mile Icon

The dog symbol is part of the officially registered trademark and brand logo.

I must say, a very successful and profitable acquisition from a marketing point of view.

1. First, the @ sign is quite naturally associated with an email service.
2. Secondly, the symbol is known to everyone, is popular, so its use as a designation for various products and services of the Mail.ru holding always attracts attention and increases the number of customers. This means that business profits are also growing.

All Mail.ru products are marked with a computer dog icon.

• Email service.
• Messenger Mail.ru Agent.
• Browser Amigo with Mail.ru search (capital "a" without a circle).

It's amazing how many interesting and even unusual things are hidden behind all the familiar “computer dog”.

Good afternoon dear friends, today we will talk about dog symbol, why is it called that, where is it located on the keyboard, a little history about the creation @ symbol... A lot of interesting and new things await you in this article. So, let's begin.

In my opinion, it is very difficult to meet a person who has never encountered with the @ symbol, because this is one of those symbols that we most often use on the Internet.

It is not for nothing that users call it the main symbol of the network, maybe this is an exaggeration, but in any case there is an indisputable fact that proves its worldwide significance. The International Telecommunication Union once put the @ code in Morse code, making it easier to transfer e-mail addresses. This was in early 2004. The code combined the Latin letters A and C and showed their joint spelling.

In the Russian alphabet, A and C were combined to designate a sign, since we pronounce the Latin letter C as "tse". The letter A is denoted -, and the letter C / C - -

So we get in the end · - - · - ·

How long has the dog symbol appeared?

If you are interested to know how this unusual icon appeared, then we will have to move back several centuries, namely to the 15th century, although no one knows the exact date of its appearance, and scientists have not yet solved this riddle.

The renowned professor Giorgio Stabile put forward his own opinion on this issue. He believed that the badge appeared around the 16th century, because even then in one of the documents, which was written by a Florentine merchant, “the price of one wine A” was listed, and the letter A, in connection with the traditions of past centuries, was decorated with a curl, which definitely gave it a resemblance with @. He found the document in the archives of the Institute of Economic History of the city of Prato. It was a letter from a merchant dated 1536 Another scholar, Berthold Ullmann, had a different idea about the appearance of this badge. He said that it was invented by monks who lived in the Middle Ages in order to shorten the word "ad", which had several meanings, such as "v", "na", "do", "u". The letter d was made from the tails to the left, as if combining the two letters in this way.

In languages ​​such as French, Spanish symbol takes its origins from the name of the old Spanish weight measure - "arroba" (about 15 kg.)

It may seem surprising to you, but the official name of the symbol in our time is commercial at. It originates from accounts. For example, 5 widgets @ $ 3 each = $ 15 translate as 5 products at $ 3 each = $ 15. Previously, this technique was used during the Renaissance to grab the attention of buyers. The badge was placed in front of the price of the product. This symbol was placed on the keyboards of typewriters, and then took its place on computers.

I cannot rule out an interesting coincidence. In the 16th century, messengers who carried mail began to use the post horn. A little earlier, they were used by butchers to notify their arrival in some area in order to purchase livestock. And already in 1712, a ban was made on the use of post horns for persons who were not related to the carriage of mail. The ban was in effect in a number of countries. In Germany, even before the start of the Second World War, horse-drawn passenger mail was equipped including mail horns. Currently, the post horn can be seen on various emblems, logos that are directly related to the delivery of mail. Now look at him, a certain resemblance to @ peeps through.

And this icon gained such wide popularity thanks to Tomlinson, the "father" of e-mail. It was his choice that fell on @, and when asked why he chose the "curl", his answer was simple: "I was looking for a character on the keyboard that could not occur in any name and cause confusion." He needed the "dog" at the moment when he created the Arpanet messaging system, or as it is called, the great-grandmother of the Internet. To make a new addressing system, thanks to which it is possible to identify recipients and computers on which there were mailboxes, there was a need for a separator, so in general, by chance, the choice fell on @, [email protected] became the first address on the network where you can see the "dog".

Think about it, we do not use this sign anywhere other than an email address. It is used in writing programs, in PHP, in Transact-SQL. And if not for Ray Thomplinson, then ordinary users would not have begun to actively use it.

Why is the dog icon?

Now let's talk about such an interesting name for this symbol. "Dog" he is most often called in Russia, and this allowed the publication of new original jokes, fables, which were used even in KVN. But why exactly the dog is a symbol and not some other animal? Here are some of the more popular versions:

1) If you look closely and turn on your imagination, then indeed in this icon you can see a curled up sleeping dog, which is why you get the dog symbol.

2) The sound "at" in English vaguely resembles barking.

3) And the most unusual thing, looking at the symbol, you can see the outlines of almost all the letters that are included in the word dog, except for "k" and therefore named the icon dog.

4) There is an opinion that the nickname "dog" was given to the symbol thanks to the DCK computers, in which this symbol appeared during loading, only with a shortened "tail". Unconditionally, everyone associated the sign with a dog.

And here is another version, probably the most inspiring and romantic of all. It talks about how in ancient times, when the game "Adventure" was played on giant computers. In it, you could travel through a fictional maze, look for treasures and fight monsters. The maze was drawn with symbols and everything else in the form of other icons and letters. And the most interesting thing is that the player had a faithful dog, which, as you probably guessed, was marked with the @ symbol. Whether this was the very first reason for the name of such an icon or whether this dog was designated because this icon was already called that, unfortunately all this remains a mystery.

But in addition to "dog" in Russia @ is also called a frog, an ear, a mallard, in general, who has enough imagination for that.

People from other countries are also not inferior in creativity, and as soon as they do not call this poor icon:

Hungary is a worm

Greece is a duck

Turkey - rosette

Israel- "strudel"

China, Taiwan - mouse

And the list is endless. The most important thing is that this cute icon evokes in everyone the associations of something cozy, it can be a curled animal or a sweet roll.

How to type dog character on the keyboard

@ Icon on "keyboard" is typed as a rule in some cases: if you need to keep an e-mail address, when typing text, when programming, and so on.

The question arises where the doggy icon is located on the keyboard and how to put it?

The easiest way to type on the keyboard dog icon Is the English layout. Simply put, when the keyboard is writing in English.

1. We translate the keyboard into English. language, this can be done by pressing "Alt" + "Shift" or "Ctrl" + "Shift"