A friend of mine sent this to me and I thought all you language buffs would find it interesting. "Thought you might be amused. This came up on AUTOCAT, the discussion list for cataloging, as part of a discussion on how to transcribe the symbol when it appears as part of a title: "TRAVEL GUIDE. The @ sign so prevalent in electronic addresses is known as chiocciolina (little snail) in Italy, petit escargot(little snail) in France, klammeraffe (spider monkey) in Germany, api (shortened from apestaart, meaning monkey's tail), in the Netherlands, kanel-bolle (a spiral-shaped cinnamon cake) in Norway, snabel A (an A with a trunk) in Denmark, shtrudel in Israel, cat tail or miau in Finland, an arroba in Spain (a unit of about 25 lbs., for which it is the sign)."

Yeah, down in Southern California, we tend to refer to it as the "at" sympbol too. Pretty boring considering what other countries come up with. I especially like petit escargot. Guess we're the only ones who like this kind of trivia. ;)

This is the definition according to YourDictionary.com's Word a Day...they actually defined it! Today's Word: @ (Noun) Pronunciation: ['-sIn] Definition 1: The "at" sign, used to mark the value or cost per item or to separate the user name from the domain name in an e-mail address. Usage 1: For most of its history in the United States, the "at" sign has been used to refer to prices: "Today's Special5 lb. potatoes @ $1 a lb." It's a humble job, but one that needs doing. With the advent of the technological economy, the @ sign lends its appropriate coded meaning to e-mail addresses the world over. Suggested Usage: Linguists have compiled a list of names for the ubiquitous @ sign. European languages associate @ with animals. In Dutch, it's called apestaart "monkey's tail." In Finnish it's either kissanht"a cat's tail" or miau merkki, transliterated "meow merk-key," a second-stage development of the @ sign's resemblance to a cat. Germans call @ a Klammeraffe "spider monkey" (literally, "clinging monkey"), and in Serbian, the word is majmun "monkey." To the Russians, the @ looks like the curled tail of a dog, hence their name sobachka "little dog." Some Swedes call it "Snabel-A" or "elephant-trunk A" while others prefer the culinary term, kanelbulle "cinnamon bun." In Hebrew opinion is again split between an animal and food: the sign in Hebrew is either ashablool "snail" or strudel. In French, the story is much less picturesque. The @ is called a "business a," which relates to its etymology (for which see below). Etymology: In 1972, the programmer Ray Tomlinson was working on a network addressing system that would clearly separate the username from the machine and domain identities. Tomlinson chose the @ because its widely known meaning fit its use and because never appears in a proper name. But the @ had been around a long time before the computer revolution. The @ in English probably originated with the French in expressions like: ten apples a Euro = dix pommes Euro. We may also have inherited it from Spanish or Portuguese, who used a similar sign for their "arroba" from the Arabic ar-roub "the quarter," a measure of solids and liquids. The evidence for either story is sketchy. (Thanks to the curiosity of Don J. DeBenedictis for raising questions about today's non-Word of the Day.) Audra Himes, yourDictionary.com I love this kind of trivia.

Me too. :) Thanks!!!

We call it a "commercial A" or : "un A commercial"...

You are in Quebec, right quixote?

Mais oui.

I've heard "each"--Kansas, mid-USA

In Italy it is "chiocciola" (that is a snail, without the 'little'), "chiocciolina" is used seldom... But now the 'at' is spreading, maybe because it's shorter...

Yes, but it doesn't have the appeal to the imagination that "chiocciola" has.