mimisawhney

Amphora – yes the @ sign has a name

The symbol @ is so commonly used today that most of us don’t even notice it. I’ve heard it being referred to as “at the rate of” and I didn’t think that that was its actual name. Which got me wondering on what its real name was, and how did it end up in our email addresses.

The origin of the symbol again goes back to the ingenious medieval scribes looking to make their job of scribing easier by finding shortcuts. They may have used the symbol for the Latin word “ad” which means toward. It’s first known use though is where it was used to represent the words “each at” and the e and a being joined together to form the symbol.

Its first documented use, from where it also gets its name, was in 1536 when a Florentine wine merchant Francesco Lapi used the symbol @ for units of wine sold in clay jars or Amphoras. With this its use in commerce started and merchants started to use it to tell the price of each unit of the item being purchased – 10 loaves of bread @ $1, meaning total cost of $10. Its use in this manner in commerce continued until 1971, and perhaps it was this exclusive use in commerce that made it a good option for use in emails.

An Italian Merchant uses the @ symbol in 1536 (courtesy MOMA website)

The typewriters of 1800s did not even include the symbol in their keyboards. It was not until 1971, when computer scientist Ray Tomlinson was looking for a way to start sending emails outside of his host environment, and into another host environment that he noticed the barely used @ key on the keyboard of his computer. He realized it was barely used which made it easier for him to choose it. He used it to separate his name from the host network name – and changed the history of the barely used Amphora.

With this decision, the @ symbol was rescued from obscurity, and a life in history books. By using it as the bridge between individual and host network names, he made it the most important part of how humans connect and interact with each other in the digital world.

Rosetta Stone

One of the most amazing things about the world is how small and interconnected it is and always has been. When we think of the ancient world, the civilizations seem distant and completely removed from each other – and yet somehow people traveled across continents, connected with each other, fought wars, and forever influenced or changed each other. And in this process of connecting with each other, they left a richer world for us to inherit.

Nowhere is this global connectivity more evident than in the Rosetta Stone. This slab of black granite with writing on it shows us the connections we have with each other – Alexander from Greece invades ancient Egypt and his General’s descendants become the Ptolemy rulers of Egypt. Much to the dislike of the Egyptian high priests and natives, they only read and write in Greek. The high priests write in Egyptian hieroglyphics, whereas native Egyptians write only Demotic. So all legal papers, or granite slabs as the case may be, have to be written in all three languages – particularly one in which a descendant of Greeks is staking his claim on the throne of Egypt.

City of Rosetta, etching by Thomas Milton 1801 – 1803

The slab gets moved around in Egypt first by the pharaohs and later the Turkish Ottomans, until over 1500 years later it is found in an Egyptian town called Rosetta by a Frenchman from Napoleon’s army – only to be taken from them by the British army under the Treaty of Alexandria. And now, another 200 years later the Egyptian museum would like Britain to return it to them.

It is these connections we have with each other that allowed humanity to gain insight into the greatest civilization the world has ever seen. The world becomes richer when we learn from our ancestors – and the deciphering of hieroglyphics through the Rosetta Stone gave us this knowledge and insight into the lives of ancient Egyptians.

On the surface, it’s an ancient stone monument, a decree by a King written in three languages. But to only see that in the Rosetta Stone is to not see it at all. Its power lies in what it represents, and its ability to remind us of the human need, since ancient times, to connect with each other across boundaries, to roam the wide expanse of this earth, and to understand our world and the people that inhabit it. (This vignette was written by my sister during her study abroad in London, after a trip to the British Museum. All photographs courtesy of British Museum)

He Said What ‽

Sometimes an exclamation mark just does not suffice – neither does just a question mark – the two have to be used together for full impact of the incredulity and shock expressed by the question. For those times we have the interrobang. A perfect example of when an interrobang is required is when one girlfriend says to another – “He said what‽” or when you ask your family, “Who ate the last piece of cake‽”

The interrobang was first used by advertising agency owner Martin K. Specter when he used it in a TYPEtalks magazine article in 1962. The term itself is a combination of the Latin word for a rhetorical questions interrogatio, and the printer and proofreader’s slang for the exclamation mark, bang. The Remington typewriter included the interrobang key in its typewriter in 1968 – but sadly this very useful punctuation mark did not really gain much traction after the 1960s.

With its balance of excitement and outrage, and the prevalence of social media in our lives, I am surprised the interrobang has not caught on more, it seems to be a match made in heaven. Perhaps the time is right for the interrobang to rise again and take its rightful place in our shockaholic world.

The 27th Alphabet

The beauty of language is that it is always changing – it molds itself to fit the needs of the times. Over the ages, as we have gone from using scribes who wrote and copied everything by hand, to the printing press, and now to word-processing tools, it is not just language – the alphabet too has changed.

The much loved and decorated ampersand is one such character that was once an alphabet and is today considered punctuation (in Unicode) and a symbol. In fact it was, for a while, the 27^th alphabet of the English language.

Ampersand traces its origins to the Roman scribes.

The ampersand traces its origin – as does so much else – to Ancient Romans, specifically Ancient Roman scribes. The scribes would write in cursive in order to speed up their work and when they wrote et – Latin for “and” – they started joining the two letter together and formed the ligature &. So the e and the t – hastily written started to look like the symbol or glyph &.

The ligature was then adopted by the printing press – in fact the Gutenberg press had 292 such glyphs. For years, the glyph & was the 27^th letter of the alphabet – so when students recited the alphabet they would end with X, Y, Z and per se and – which literally translates to (the character) & by itself (is the word) and. The “and per se and” got corrupted and started to be pronounced as ampersand – and the name stuck even when it was removed from the alphabet (sometime in the mid to late 19^th century).

Ampersands are most commonly used today in names of companies – AT&T, Barnes & Noble, Ben & Jerry’s, H&M are some that come to mind instantly.

Next up….. Interrobangs!!

Sunday Seven – Notre-Dame, Paris

On this Easter Sunday I started thinking of the magnificent Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris, which had a devastating fire almost a year ago. On Good Friday this year the cathedral had a small closed service. Regardless of one’s faith, the beginning of the rebirth of this medieval church from the ashes of that devastating fire, is reason enough to celebrate.

Maurice Utrillo (`1883 – 1955), Nore Dame, 1909. Musee de l’Orangerie

Marc Chagall, (1887 – 1985) Notre-Dame en gris, 1955

JMW Turner (1775 – 1851). Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris, 1826. Tate, London

Jacques-Louis David (1748 – 1825). The Coronation of Emperor Napoleon I and the Crowning of the Empress Josephine in Notre-Dame Cathedral on December 2, 1804, 1806-07. Musee du Louvre, Paris

Henri Matisse (1869 -1954) Notre-Dame,1900 Tate, London

Childe Hassam (1859 – 1935), Notre Dame Cathedral Paris, 1885. Detroit Institute of the Arts.

Edward Hopper (1882 – 1967) Notre Dame de Paris, 1907. Whitney Museum of American Art

Happy 250th – Mr. Wordsworth

…*Ten thousand I saw at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance*…

William Wordsworth was born on April 7, 1770 and remains one of the world’s most beloved. He was from the Lakes District region of England, and it was here, along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, that he wrote the Lyrical Ballads in 1798. This collection of poems stared a literary, cultural, and artistic movement known as Romanticism. There is no doubt that nature, particularly the landscape of England, was his muse – we can see that from his words, “Come forth into the light of things, Let nature be your teacher.”

*The landscape that inspired Wordsworth*

The world has paused and one of the beneficiaries of that is nature – and as we look around at the resilience of nature and its ability to recover, we are inspired. We gain an awareness of how steadfast nature is, and its profound and extraordinary impact on us. Wordsworth knew well and loved the landscape he grew up in, and wrote over and over again about its ability to move him. One such poem is “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1978” or “Tintern Abbey” for short.

Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.—Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
‘Mid groves and copses. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
With some uncertain notice, as might seem
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fire
The Hermit sits alone.

English landscape artist JMW Turner (left) also found inspiration in the abbey, as did Welsh artist Edward Dayes.

Sunday Seven – Elizabeth Regina

Today I heard a speech by Queen Elizabeth on TV – she was speaking to her nation to remain united and resolute in the face of the current epidemic. What was startling for me about the speech was that she referred to a speech she and her sister gave in 1940 – that was 80 years ago!! I can’t imagine that there is any other world leader, part or present, that can say that. That got me thinking about all the brilliant, funny, and poignant things she may have said over the course of these years, and I decided that I would find some of the ones I liked and make that my Sunday Seven for this week.

We know, every one of us that in the end all will be well; for God will care for us and give us victory and peace. And when peace comes, remember it will be for us, the children of today, to make the world a better and happier place (Radio address to the children of the Commonwealth on Oct 13, 1940).

It has been women who have breathed gentleness and care into the hard progress of humankind.

The upward course of a nation’s history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its average men and women.

I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.

Work is the rent you pay for the room you occupy on earth.

It’s all to do with the training: you can do a lot if you’re properly trained.

True patriotism, doesn’t exclude an understanding of the patriotism of others.

In remembering the appalling suffering of war on both sides, we recognize how precious is the peace we have built in Europe since 1945.

He has, quite simply, been my strength and my stay all these years, and I and his whole family, and this, and many other countries, owe him a debt greater than he would ever claim or we shall ever know. (About her husband Prince Philip).

Counting the people – since 1790

After Independence, it was important for Congress to know the total population of the fledgling nation, and know where its people lived. It was one of the first things that the new Congress instructed the government to do, and they wanted it done every 10 years (which continues to this day).This information was needed to form a representative government and to make the states pay their fair share of the Independence war bill.

And so on August 2, 1790 – the first census day – the brave counters – also known as enumerators – rode out on horseback to find the people of this country and count them for the first census.

The census listed the head of household and counted 1) The number of free white males age 16 and over (to get a handle on the number of men available for military service) 2) The number of free white females and all other free persons & 3) Number of slaves

There was supposed to be a form for recording the answers, but most often the Marshals had to provide whatever paper they could find to record the information. The census of 1790 took 18 months to complete, and counted 3.9 million people.