octothorpe

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WOTD - 15 October 2007

1 English

[edit] English

An octothorpe

[edit] Etymology

Origin disputed. Reportedly a jocular coinage by Bell Labs supervisor Don Macpherson in the early 1960s, from octo- (“‘eight’”) (with reference to the eight points) + -thorpe (after 1912 Olympic medalist Jim Thorpe, in whom Macpherson had some interest). However, Doug Kerr[1] attributes octatherp to engineers John C. Schaak and Herbert T. Uthlaut, and Lauren Asplund to himself and Howard Eby. The Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories (1991) supports octotherp as the original spelling, and telephone engineers as the source.

[edit] Pronunciation

(RP) IPA: /'ɒktəʊθɔ:p/
(US) IPA: /'ɑːktoʊθɔ:rp/
Audio (US)^{help, file}

[edit] Noun

Singular
octothorpe

Plural
octothorpes

octothorpe (plural octothorpes)

(mainly US) A name for the hash or square symbol (#), used mainly in telephony and computing
- 1982, Willard R. Espy, A Children's Almanac of Words at Play, Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., page 230
  
  Octothorp is the # on a push-button telephone. Rumor at the telephone company is that a man named Charles B. Octothorp, wanting to make his name famous...
- 2004, Andrew Pitonyak, Openoffice.Org Macros Explained, Hentzenwerke, page 139
  
  Strings are enclosed in double quotation marks, numbers are not enclosed in anything, and dates and Boolean values are enclosed between octothorpe (#) characters.