Why is a dog called a dog in email. Dog symbol @ - history of appearance and practice of application

Hello site readers! Many people know catchphrase “What kind of dog is this?” from the movie “Ivan Vasilyevich is changing his profession”.

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

And indeed, it’s 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 origin of common things is obscured due to long periods time and lack of surviving evidence and documents.

With regard to the computer dog, everything is quite well known and reliably proven.

• The capital letter “a” outlined by an incomplete circle has been used for a long time and is still used in the field of international commerce.
• The @ sign is an abbreviation English phrase “at the rate of” in payment documents with the value “ price per piece”.
• In a general accounting sense, the English “ at” can be translated as “ in an account like this”.

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 the entry in the Book of Accounts.

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

Useful for travelers and backpackers. IN European countries road sign with the “@” symbol, points of public access to the Internet are indicated.

Why is the @ symbol called a dog?

There are several legends why @ was called a dog. The following three versions look the most reliable.

1. The figure above shows the logo of one of the progenitors of the modern world wide web - Fidonet. As you can see, the nose of a sketchy pet is just indicated by the at symbol in a circle.
2. Another version looks even more plausible. At a time when the graphical interface had not yet been invented, a computer game called Adventure was popular. One of actors was a scout dog, marked with an @ sign on the playing field.
3. The third version looks far-fetched, but still has a distribution. On one of the first Soviet personal computers DVK, this symbol served as a splash screen when turned on. Allegedly, users saw a dog curled up in this squiggle. 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 Russian, there is a practice to call the symbol “@” “dog” or “dog”. The email address will be voiced by the following phrase.

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

It is noteworthy that the American engineers, who proved to be real masters in terms of inventing various creative nicknames to denote technical terms, this time behaved surprisingly passive and indifferent.

In Anglo-Saxon computer terminology, “dog” is called “commercial ET”, without any reference to funny pets.

Pronounced @ in English, too, without any frills.

• [email protected]
• “Username E-mail dot ru”

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

• “Account such and such, From the mail domain such and such.”

In some countries around the world, @ also has cool nicknames, like we have.

• "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 former pronunciation of “at” or “commercial at” remained. This includes France, Spain and the UK.

How to type the @ symbol on the keyboard

There is no one-size-fits-all answer here. The problem is that there are many types of keyboards and varieties of character layouts.

The picture above shows a classic keyboard with “large keys” and a traditional layout. qwerty in Latin or YZUKEN in Cyrillic.

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

What should I do 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 the Alt keys, an asterisk “*”, or a special switch Smbl.
• On mobile devices, smartphones and tablets, there is just a huge number of 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.
• On most touch keyboards for mobile devices, the “@” sign is inserted in the same way as on external keyboards for desktop computers and laptops.

What should I do if the @ symbol can't be found on my existing keyboard?

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

Illogically, the “dog” can be inserted through the “Insert” menu - “Symbols” in a text editor.

Email Icon Mile

The symbol "dog" is included in the officially registered trademark and brand logo.

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

1. First, the @ sign is quite organically associated with the 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 doggie icon.

• Email service.
• Messenger Mail.ru Agent.
• Amigo browser with Mail.ru search (capital “a” without a circle).

It is simply amazing how many interesting and even unusual things are hidden behind the usual “computer dog”.

It's hard to imagine the Internet without the "dog" @, a symbol ubiquitous in every e-mail.

@ - a typographical symbol, originally used in payment documents in place of the English "at" (it was used in the meaning "at a price"). The official symbol name according to ISO/ITU/Unicode standards is "commercial at". In colloquial Russian, this symbol is usually called "dog". Even in official speech, incl. in the media, the name "dog" is used instead of "et".

So how do you put it on?

• First, switch your computer to the English keyboard layout. To do this, press the key combination "Alt" + "Shift". On the panel on the right bottom corner you can find out the current input language and change it manually using the mouse. Move the cursor over the language icon, left-click and select "EN - English" from the pop-up menu.
• If you did not find English in the menu, most likely it needs to be installed. Click "Start" > "Control Panel" > "Regional and Language Options". In the window that opens, select the "Language and Keyboard" tab > "Change Keyboard" > "Add". Check the box (plus "+") next to "English (United States)". Don't forget to confirm your choice with the "OK" button.
• Now open the document or message where you want to put the "dog" icon. After translating the keyboard into English, press and hold "Shift" while pressing the key with the number "2". IN right place"@" icon will be displayed.
• This symbol can be manually selected from the symbol table. In Windows 7, 8, and 8.1, it's located here: Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map. You can also type "character table" in the Windows 10 search bar. In the list of characters, find "dog" and click on it. The character should appear in the "To copy" box. Confirm your choice by clicking on the "Copy" button. Now you can paste it into desired document or a letter.

This symbol is known to any Internet user, since it is directly associated with e-mail. In Russia, he was nicknamed "The Dog" (and also - krakozyabra, a-with-tail, cheesecake, masyamba), in other countries this symbol is associated with different animals or objects. Here is a far from complete list:

Bulgaria - klomba or maimunsko a ("monkey A"),
Netherlands - apenstaartje ("monkey's tail"),
Israel - "Strudel"
Spain - like the measure of weight "arroba",
France - the same measure of weight "arrobase",
Germany, Poland - monkey tail, monkey ear, paper clip, monkey,
Italy - "chiocciola" - snail,
Denmark, Norway, Sweden - "snabel-a" - "snout a" or elephant trunk,
Czech Republic, Slovakia - rollmops (marinated herring),
America, Finland - cat,
China, Taiwan - mouse,
Türkiye - rose,
Serbia - "crazy A"
Vietnam - "twisted A",
Ukraine - “ravlik” (snail), “doggie” or, again, “dog”.
In the international language of Esperanto around the world, regardless of the countries behind the @ symbol, the name "heliko", which in Esperanto means "snail", has been established.

The fact of its worldwide recognition was the introduction in February 2004 by the International Telecommunication Union in Morse code of the code for the symbol @ ( - - - ), for the convenience of transferring e-mail addresses. The code combines the Latin letters A and C and reflects their joint graphic writing.

Where the symbol came from is not known for certain. It has existed since at least the 15th century, and possibly even earlier. According to Professor Giorgio Stabile's hypothesis, a 16th-century document written by a Florentine merchant mentioned "the price of one A of wine" (possibly amphoras). At the same time, the letter A, according to the then tradition, was decorated with a curl and looked like @. From this we can assume that the symbol came from the word "amphora".

According to the American scientist Berthold Ullman, the @ sign was invented by medieval monks to shorten the Latin word "ad", which was often used as universal word, meaning "on", "in", "in relation to", etc.

in spanish, portuguese, French the name of the symbol comes from the word "arroba" - an old Spanish measure of weight, approx. 15 kg., which was abbreviated on the letter with the @ sign.

Contemporary official name The "commercial at" symbol has its origins in trading calculations, for example, 7 widgets @ $2 each = $14, which translates to 7 widgets. 2$ = 14$. Since this symbol was used in trade, it was placed on the keyboards of the first typewriters and from there migrated to the computer keyboard.

The dog came to the Internet thanks to the creator of e-mail, Tomlinson. He chose it as a character on the keyboard that could not be found in any name and cause confusion, as a separator for the username and email server. The first network address was [email protected] in the Arpanet network.

Why is this symbol called “dog” in Russia? There are several versions of the origin of this funny name.

According to one, the icon really looks like a curled up dog. On the other hand, the abrupt sound of the English “at” is a bit like a dog barking. Still others manage to consider almost all the letters included in the word “dog” in the inscriptions of the symbol, well, perhaps, with the exception of “k”.

The most common version sees the origin of this name in one of the very first computer games"Adventure" ("Adventure"). Back then, the displays were purely text-based, and the story of the game had to travel through a text labyrinth. One of the characters in this game was a dog, which was denoted by the @ symbol. Whether the name came from this game, or whether the symbol was chosen because of its name, is now very difficult to find out. Maybe you know for sure?

On the Internet, the well-known character "dog" is used as a separator between a given user's name and a domain (host) name in email address syntax.

Fame

Some Internet figures consider this symbol to be a sign of a common human communication space and one of the most popular signs in the world.

One of the evidence of the worldwide recognition of this designation is the fact that in 2004 (in February) the International Telecommunication Union introduced a special code for @ designation into the general one. It combines the codes of two C and A, which displays their joint graphic writing.

The history of the symbol "dog"

Italian researcher Giorgio Stabile managed to find in the archive owned by the Institute economic history in the city of Prato (which is near Florence), a document in which it is first found given sign in writing. Such important evidence turned out to be a letter from a merchant from Florence, which was subsidized as early as 1536.

In him in question about three merchant ships that arrived in Spain. As part of the ship's cargo, there were containers in which wine was transported, marked with an @ sign. After analyzing the data on the price of wines, as well as on the capacity of various medieval vessels, and comparing the data with the universal system of measures used at that time, the scientist concluded that the @ sign was used as a special measuring unit, which replaced the word anfora (in translation "amphora"). So since ancient times the universal measure of volume was called.

Bertolt Ullman's theory

Berthold Ullman is an American scientist who suggested that the @ symbol was developed by medieval monks in order to shorten the common word ad of Latin origin, which was often used as a universal term meaning "in relation to", "in", "on".

It should be noted that in French, Portuguese and Spanish the name of the designation comes from the term "arroba", which in turn denotes an old Spanish measure of weight (about 15 kg), abbreviated in writing by the @ symbol.

Modernity

Many people are interested in the name of the symbol "dog". Note that the official modern name for this symbol sounds like "commercial at" and originates from the accounts in which it was used in the following context: [email protected]$2each = $14. This can be translated as 7 pieces of 2 dollars = 14 dollars

Since the symbol "dog" was used in business, it was placed on the keyboards of all typewriters. He was present even on the first typewriter in Underwood, which was released back in 1885. And only after a long 80 years, the symbol "dog" was inherited by the first computer keyboards.

Internet

Let's turn to official history World Wide Web. She claims that the Internet symbol "dog" in e-mail addresses originated with an American engineer and computer scientist named Ray Tomlinson, who in 1971 was able to send the first ever electronic message over the network. In this case, the address had to be composed of two parts - the name of the computer through which the registration was made, and the username. Tomilson chose the symbol "dog" on the keyboard as the separator between the indicated parts, since it was not part of either computer names or user names.

Versions of the origin of the famous name "dog"

There are several possible versions of the origin of such a funny name in the world at once. First of all, the icon really does look a lot like a dog curled up.

In addition, the abrupt sound of the word at (the symbol for a dog in English is read that way) resembles a bit of a dog barking. It should also be noted that with a good imagination, you can consider in the symbol almost all the letters that make up the word "dog", except perhaps, excluding "k".

However, the most romantic can be called the following legend. Once upon a time, in that good time, when all computers were very large, and the screens were exclusively text, there was one popular game in the virtual kingdom, which was called "Adventure" (Adventure) reflecting its content.

Its meaning was to travel through a labyrinth created by a computer in search of various treasures. There were, of course, also battles with underground harmful creatures. The labyrinth on the display was drawn using the symbols "-", "+", "!", and the player, hostile monsters and treasures were indicated by various icons and letters.

Moreover, according to the plot, the player was friends with a faithful assistant - a dog, which could always be sent for reconnaissance in the catacombs. It was designated just by the @ sign. Was this the root cause of the now generally accepted name, or, conversely, was the icon chosen by the developers of the game, because it was already called that? The legend does not provide answers to these questions.

What is the name of the virtual "dog" in other countries?

It is worth noting that in our country the symbol "dog" is also called a ram, an ear, a bun, a frog, a dog, even a kryakozyabra. In Bulgaria, it is “maimunsko a” or “klomba” (monkey A). In the Netherlands, monkey tail (apenstaartje). In Israel, the sign is associated with a whirlpool ("strudel").

The Spaniards, French and Portuguese call the designation similar to the measure of weight (respectively: arroba, arrobase and arrobase). If you ask about what the dog symbol means among the inhabitants of Poland and Germany, they will answer you that it is a monkey, a paper clip, a monkey ear or a monkey tail. It is considered a snail in Italy, calling it chiocciola.

Least poetic names they called the symbol in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, calling it “snout a” (snabel-a) or elephant tail (tailed a). The most appetizing name can be considered a variant of the Czechs and Slovaks, who consider the sign a herring under a fur coat (rollmops). Greeks also carry out associations with cuisine, calling the designation “little pasta”.

For many, this is still a monkey, namely for Slovenia, Romania, Holland, Croatia, Serbia (majmun; alternative: “crazy A”), Ukraine (alternatives: snail, dog, dog). WITH in English borrowed the term Lithuania (eta - "this", borrowing with the addition of a Lithuanian morpheme at the end) and Latvia (et - "et"). The variant of the Hungarians, where this cute sign has become a tick, can lead to discouragement.

Cat and mouse is played by Finland (cat's tail), America (cat), Taiwan and China (mouse). The inhabitants of Turkey turned out to be romantics (rose). And in Vietnam, this badge is called "crooked A".

Alternative hypotheses

It is believed that the name of the designation "dog" in Russian speech appeared thanks to the famous DVK computers. In them, the "dog" appeared during the boot of the computer. Indeed, the designation resembled a small dog. All DVK users, without saying a word, came up with a name for the symbol.

It is curious that the original spelling of the Latin letter "A" suggested decorating it with curls, thus it was very similar to the current spelling of the "dog" sign. Translation of the word "dog" in Tatar language sounds like "et".

Where else can you find a "dog"?

There are a number of services that use this symbol (other than email):

HTTP, FTP, Jabber, Active Directory. In IRC, the character is placed before the name of the channel operator, for example, @oper.

The sign has also been widely used in the main programming languages. In Java, it is used to declare an annotation. In C#, needed to escape characters in a string. The operation of taking an address is appropriately denoted in Pascal. For Perl, this is an array identifier, and in Python, respectively, a decorator declaration. The field identifier for a class instance is a Ruby sign.

As for PHP, here the "dog" is used to suppress the output of an error, or to warn about a task that has already occurred at the time of execution. The symbol became the prefix of indirect addressing in MCS-51 assembler. In XPath, this is shorthand for the attribute axis, which selects a set of attributes for the current element.

Finally, Transact-SQL expects a local variable name to start with @ and a global variable name to start with two @. In DOS, thanks to the character, the echo for the executed command is suppressed. The action designation as echo off mode is usually applied before the mode is entered to prevent a specific command from being displayed on the screen (for clarity: @echo off).

So we looked at how many aspects of virtual and real life depend on a regular character. However, let's not forget that it has become the most recognizable precisely because of the emails that are sent by the thousands every day. It can be assumed that today you will receive a letter with a "dog", and it will bring only good news.