<----What's up w/ the coffee mug??

[rodekill]

Did anyone ever actually use the '@' sign before email?
Did anyone even know that '@' was 'at'?

[Scummbuddy]

So you mean... The pink poster could've been the AGS logo :o ?

Could have been worse... we would have been dragging stupid obnoxious keys to mittens and waved them around and gotten them signed by everyone else. You know, those over-sized ones that are sometimes given away as 'keys to cities', but are also seen on my grandmothers walls as 'decoration'.

You know, out there, according to Stephen Hawking, whom, I believe used us as his example, believes there are infinite parallel universes out there, and there are Mittens get-togethers, where our evil-opposites, (so some of us are nice) and oogle pink posters. Whats on them, I cant see from my worm hole direction, but I believe its a girl.

[Las Naranjas]

In The Demolished Man by Bester [1952] there's a character called @tkins, which is interesting.

[Kinoko]

I have a question of my own, regarding the subject of this thread... how much longer does it really take to type "with" rather than "w/"?

I only just noticed that. I always write that when I'm making notes at uni, but I've never ever thought to type it. I do find 'with' much quicker to type myself. Hand writing though... once I saw someone else do it, I got into the habit and I can do it in a flash. I also hand write (again, only when making quick notes) something/someone/somewhere as s/thing, s/one and s/where.

[Haddas]

Rodekill. Acoording to this book I have the '@' letter was invented by a monk during medieval times, possibly around the 15th century. I have sadly lost the book, but this is what I remember. @ started getting used in emails because it had no real purpose and they needed something.

[TerranRich]

After all, that @ symbol was taking up precious space on the keyboard...might as well have used it for something.\

Betcha also didn't know that & is designed to look like "Et" and the word "ampersand" is derived from "And per se and". What that means, I haven't the faintest clue.

[Haddas]

perse means ass in finnish! Did that clear things up? I'm sure it did!

[Proskrito]

Did anyone even know that '@' was 'at'?

i think @ is an old weight unit. In spanish it has a name, ('arroba', dont know if it has one in english), nothing to do with 'at', so it doesnt make much sense in email adresses. Like if you said 'john kilogram yahoo dot com'.
just FYI : )

[Mr Jake]

the AOL scientist era..... 'omglol did u no dat e\thing is made of @oms!!!!!'

[Sutebi]

Yeah, I read a stupid essay on @ in Spanish once. . .yeah.

It mentioned something about the sign (arroba, as said) was used by merchants or something a while ago in their transactions, so it might have been used as unit of measurement. I don't know. It was very vague and I wasn't really paying attention.

[DragonRose]

Everything you want to know about the at sign

As to that "and per se and" thing Rich mentioned, it means "and by itself is and."  I'm guessing the first and means the sign and the second is used as a definition. So basically it comes out as "& is all you need to say and." Yay for half remembered Latin classes!

[mister J frost]

I wonder if centuries from now archeologists will dig up old harddrives and marvel at how twenty-first century humans can begin a thread on the subject of the origins of the blue cup and end it with a long dissertation on abbreviations and symbols.

Astounding.

[Gilbert]

Let's move back on topic then.

[remixor]

Hey man, it's just one of life's glorious mysteries.  Ya gotta have faith.

[Goldmund]

Gilbot has loads of fun insulting us with a vulgar and obscene chinese symbol, whose meaning (apart from the Gil himself + several million chinese people) nobody gets.

[Phemar]

The blue cup holds pure grog ... and perhaps some Fosters if you're feeling lucky

[TerranRich]

Several million Chinese people? What decade are you in? It's more like a billion.

My blue cup is used as a hat when I want to feel pretty.

[SSH]

After all, that @ symbol was taking up precious space on the keyboard...might as well have used it for something.\

Betcha also didn't know that & is designed to look like "Et" and the word "ampersand" is derived from "And per se and". What that means, I haven't the faintest clue.

I did, and this is WHY:

When printers had to lay out movable type by hand, there was usually one guy setting the lead letters in the correct place on the plate for printing, and one guy would help him by finding the letters in the big box of letters for that font. So, the typesetter would say "L and O and L and Space and O and M and F and G and And and ..." for "LOL OMFG&". Obviously "And and and" is a bit confusuing, so for the and which referred to the "&" character, he would say "and, per se, and".

SO there you go.

[Andail]

SSH, a fountain-festival of knowledge

[Haddas]

All hail SSH, the new supreme ruler of oracleness. please do share your wisdom with us more.