[Asterisk-Users] the 'pound' and '#' are the same?

[James H. Cloos Jr.]

>>>>> "Ryan" == Ryan Tucker <rtucker at netacc.net> writes:

Ryan> They are the same key.  I'm not sure how the # came to be associated
Ryan> with the word "pound", but in American English at least, they're the
Ryan> same key.

The weight measurement pound is abbreviated lb.  # looks similar in
some handwritings, thus the use of # for lb avoirdupois.

AT&T did several studies before introducing touch tone dialing to
determine what to name the * and # keys.  Stateside, number sign
was the only other common name for #; they determined that too
many people would go for a digit key when asked to press the
number key or number sign key.  Hense they adopted the name
pound for that key.  They named the * key the star key.

Another post said that the Brits call it a hash key.  I'm sure
BT (yes?) did similar studies to Bells, trying to come up with
a name users would recognize, be comfortable with, and not
confuse.

Ryan> The technical term for the # key (in the telephone world, at least) is
Ryan> an "octothorpe".  This comes from the fact that there's eight (octo)
Ryan> pointy things (thorpe).

Although my prefered name for #, it is in fact a neologism.  I think
I recall that it also came out of Bell Labs...

Yes, here is the scoop:

http://www.quinion.com/words/weirdwords/ww-oct1.htm

Some more interesting info is at:

http://info.astrian.net/jargon/terms/a/ASCII.html

-JimC