Veda #17 : Punctuation

Day 17
Question by : none - "history of punctuation"

Little bit interesting tonight, we're gonna learn about the history and name of punctuation and symbols. Not the whole symbol though, but several symbols that have their story. Last post was about keyboard layout, now why don't we describe the symbols.
okay here goes

1. Question mark (?)
this symbol came from latin word "Questio", indicating a question, so at first time, people have to write questio after the question. To save some spaces and times in writing, they abbreviated it from Questio to "qo" with the letter "q" above the "o". And because the increasing on writing speed, it transform like the question mark we know now.

2. Exclamation mark (!)
Just like the question mark, this was made by stacking two letters. This symbol came from latin word "io", means "happy call" or "shout of happines". At first, they put an "i" above the "o" and gradually become like what we use now.

3. Equal mark (=)
Founded by an English mathematician, Rober Recorde, on 1557, with this thought "I'll use this usual mark, a pair of twin lines, because there aren't two things can be more equal than this two lines". So he often use it to equaling a comparison on his formula. The first equal mark made by Recorde was 5 times longer than the one we know.

4. Ampersand (&)
This mark came from Latin word "Et" means "and". This was founded by Marcus Tullius Tiro, first century writer from Rome. The name "Ampersand" was given 17 centuries later. At earlier 1800s, the scholar learn this symbol as the 27th letter after "Z", but they haven't found the name yet. So they often said it ABC, until Z, and then they said "and per se, and", gradually became "ampersand".

5. Cross mark / Octothorp (#)
This symbol has quite an unique name, "Thorpe" from old Normandic language means "farm land". This was first used in map-making to symbolize the village that surrounded by eight farm. According to Latin language, 8 is called "Octa" and farm is called "Thorpe", that's why they called this symbol an "Octothorp".

6. Dollar mark ($)
US government published their own currency at 1794, and at that time they still used an old world currency "Peso" or "Spanish dollar". The first America's 1 dollar coin was exactly the same with Spanish's Peso, both weight and value, so they use the same abbreviation : "Ps" - Not Photoshop. Gradually, they write the letter "p" above the "s", and then, the round circle on "P" is ignored, and leave behind the letter "S" with a vertical line.

7. At mark (@)
Ray Tomilson, an engineer whom first invented this symbol confess that he didn't think long enough why he did use this symbol to send the very first email between two computers. He randomly pick the "@" symbol because it was similar with the letter "A" in the first letter of "address".