in reply to Re^2: Reading lines beginning with pound # ignored
in thread Reading lines beginning with pound # ignored

In America, the telephones have...

I had to get up the dial pad on my mobile to check 😃
But it's the same here in the UK - at least it is on my Chinese-manufactured mobile!

When I got started on Unix I thought "hash" was programmer slang, like "bang" is for the exclamation point. I picked it up and started using it out of a desire to join programmer culture. Now I've just learned it was a Brittish-ism :-)

...and one we've exported to the world through the hashtag but ironically thanks to Chris Messina, an American blogger...

The official name for the exclamation mark or bash character is a pling. I learnt that from a school friend many, many years ago and very few people seem to ever use the term besides me and (presumably) said friend...

  • Comment on Re^3: Reading lines beginning with pound # ignored

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Re^4: Reading lines beginning with pound # ignored
by kcott (Archbishop) on Jun 25, 2023 at 02:30 UTC
    "The official name for the exclamation mark or bash character is a pling." [my emphasis]

    It seems that, unless I set up an account, I'm missing some of the information presented; nonetheless, this does look more like a definition of pling than a definition of exclamation mark.

    From "The Unicode Standard, Version 15.0" list of character names: (link to PDF) "C0 Controls and Basic Latin (Range: 0000–007F)".

    U+0021 ! EXCLAMATION MARK
    Informative alias list:
        = factorial
        = bang
    Cross-reference list (items start with '→'): 9 entries.
    U+0023 # NUMBER SIGN
    Informative alias list:
        = pound sign (weight)
        = hashtag, hash
        = crosshatch, octothorpe
    Informative note list (items start with '•'): 1 entry re musical sharp.
    Cross-reference list (items start with '→'): 5 entries including some characters mentioned elsewhere in this thread (e.g. ℔ and ♯).

    — Ken

[reply]

      Bod's confidence notwithstanding, I confess I'd never heard of pling before!

      Wiktionary lists the following synonyms for exclamation_mark:

      • exclamation
      • exclamation point (USA)
      • shriek (Britain)
      • bang (USA)
      • pling (computing)
      • astonisher
      • screamer

      as well as obsolete forms:

      • ecphoneme
      • mark of admiration
      • note of admiration
      • note of exclamation
      • note of interjection

      From the many names suggested in this thread, the only ones I've heard (in Australia) are:

      • exclamation mark
      • bang
      • shriek
      • factorial

[reply]
Re^4: Reading lines beginning with pound # ignored
by ramrod (Priest) on Jun 22, 2023 at 20:30 UTC
[reply]

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