Tuesday, November 14, 2017

It Depends On Where The Meaning Of @ Is At

Sixty Grit gave us a nice striking photo of chair in his last post:


That's a mighty fine piece of Möbel.* Of course I was immediately reminded of something tangential (not tangenital you preverts).

Our "at sign" -- @ -- which has become ubiquitous, sorta kinda looks like that chairback. That jiggered my memory of something Swiss -- namely their name for @ which is Affenschwanz. Perhaps the Dutch cognate will be more revealing: apenstaartje. Well, maybe not. "Monkey tail" is what I'm getting at.

Here's a comprehensive list of how other languages name @. link  The Italians call it a chiocciola ("snail"). Curiously (and sadly), internet usage seems to be driving the universal adoption of the boring English term "at sign."
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*Möbel means furniture in German. Property is called Immoblien. You can see our words mobile and immobile in there. It makes perfect sense in German-logic sort of way: Furniture is mobile; property is not. A furnished apartment is said to be möbliert. Kuhl, huh?

6 comments:

chickelit said...

I hope Dickin' Bimbos Monkey Tail Home shows.

edutcher said...

Actually, I like affenschwanz better.

The Dude said...

I always liked Calder's work. He invented the Möbel.

And I know you like The Who's (Whose?) Goin' Möbel.

I, however, try to avoid being stuck inside of Möbel with the Meafus bluz agin.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

All this time I thought it was shorthand for "at"

ricpic said...

Rabel wrote in the previous thread: "...don't lean back in the monkey chair."

Ditto, dammit, ditto. Isn't that a chairmaker's first job, to make the damn thing sittable?!

ndspinelli said...

We bought a chair for our 2 year old granddaughter to sit @ the coffee table and color. The first time she sat in it she fell backwards immediately. Went and got a proper one.