Pound sign (was Re: the Telephone Test)

[Peter Desnoyers]

In article <147 at ixi.UUCP> clive at ukc.ac.uk (Clive) writes:
>The character that looks like: [...]
>is a "number" sign or a "hash" sign. It is NOT repeat NOT a pound sign.

The UK has now been metric long enough that some of its citizens have
forgotten that there are two types of "pounds" - sterling and
avoirdupois. In other words, the following are both legal and mean
different things -

    3{hash-mark} of flour - about a kilo and a half
    3{script-L} of flour - depends on the price you paid

Even the CCITT, that most European of bodies (they once defined a
"country" to be no more than 1500km from end to end - about the N-S
length of Italy), recognizes that the symbol it would prefer to have
translated as 'square' has various names - I think they mention 'pound
sign' as one of them. 

>Clive D.W. Feather           clive at ixi.uucp
>IXI Limited                  ...!mcvax!ukc!acorn!ixi!clive (untested)
>                             +44 223 462 131


				Peter Desnoyers
				desnoyer at apple.com