How Do You Pronounce "#define"?

Carl Paukstis carlp at frigg.iscs.com
Wed Dec 13 04:10:19 AEST 1989


In article <mumble> somebody (actually many somebodies) write:
>assorted junk about pronunciation of special characters.

I will again accept e-mailed contributions to my continuing list of
the ways various people pronounce various characters.  The list, as of
30 Oct 87 was originally posted as: Message-ID: <311 at iscintl.UUCP>:

Here they are, the pronunciations of your favorite "special" characters.
I had 37 responses; the pronunciations are listed in order of frequency
mentioned among those responses, most common first.

Thanks to all the respondents, especially for a foreign perspective.

! = bang | shriek | ballbat | pling
* = star | splat | asterisk
$ = dollar | dollar sign | ding | string
# = sharp | pound | hash | number | gardengate | gate | oof | crunch
\ = backslash | bash | reverse virgule
. = dot | point | period
- = dash | minus | hyphen
^ = caret | hat | up-arrow | boink
? = question mark | huh | question | query | kwes | quiz
= = equals | gets
| = or | bar | pipe | tube | mark | whack
@ = at | snable-a (note 3)
% = percent | shift-5 | grape
+ = plus
_ = underscore | underline | underbar
& = and | ampersand | amper | donald duck (note 1)
( = left paren | paren | open paren | left banana | banana
) = right paren | close paren | right banana | banana | thesis
{ = left curly brace | left brace | open brace | open curly bracket | brace
    | left Tuborg (note 2) | open curly brace | curly brace
} = right curly brace | close brace | close curly bracket 
    | right Tuborg (note 2) | close curly brace | uncurly brace
[ = left bracket | open bracket | bracket | open square bracket 
    | edged parenthesis begin (note 3)
] = right bracket | close bracket | close square bracket | unbracket
    | edged parenthesis end (note 3)
~ = twiddle | squiggle | tilde | tildee
< = less than | left angle bracket | sucks (note 4) | in arrow
> = greater that | right angle bracket | blows (note 4) | out arrow
` = back tick | back ping | back quote | accent grave
' = tick | ping | quote | single quote
" = quote | double quote | double ping
/ = slash | virgule
: = colon
; = semicolon
, = comma


Notes:
1)  From Danish "Anders And", sounds like ampersand, means Donald Duck.
2)  From the advertising for a well-known beverage (Danish).
3)  Imported from Denmark, your mileage may vary.
4)  As in "cat sucks stdin, blows stdout".

--
Carl Paukstis       "I'm the NRA"      |  DOMAIN:  carlp at frigg.ISC-BR.COM   
   ISC-Bunker Ramo Corp.  ms LL2-2B    |  UUCP:    ...!uunet!isc-br!frigg!carlp
   E. 22425 Appleway / Box TAF-C8      |  Ma Bell: +1 509 927-5439
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