Today I Learned (TIL)

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TIL that the earliest appearance of the @ symbol is from 1345 (en.wikipedia.org)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The first time I came across the German word for this symbol was pretty jarring. The word is Affenschwanz, and it does, absolutely mean "monkey tail," which is fine and descriptive, if a little whimsical. The problem is that Schwanz is such a widely-used term for 'penis' that a poor Auslander might be forgiven for totally forgetting that it ever meant 'tail' at all and wondering what sort of madman decided to name the symbol a 'monkey penis.'

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I'm German myself and I've never ever heard it called like that 😅