Back in 1971, American computer programmer Ray Tomlinson, known as the inventor of email, sent the first electronic message, indicating a recipient’s location with the ubiquitous symbol (@).
Today, accounting and programming experts use the at symbol most frequently, but creative designers are right behind them.
There are three main theories of the origin of the @ symbol:
– It represents the Latin word “ad” meaning “toward.”
– It is born from the French word “à” meaning “at.”
– It is an abbreviation for “each at,” first documented in 1536 in Spain. Florentine merchant Francesco Lapi sent a letter from Seville to Rome, using the @ symbol to denote a unit of wine. “There, an amphora of wine, which is one-thirtieth of a barrel, is worth 70 or 80 ducats,” he wrote, representing the amphora with @.
Thanks to its unique shape, @ has many nicknames:
Strudel (Israel), monkey’s tail (Denmark), little duck (Greece), dog (Russia), snail (Italy), sleeping cat (Finland), worm (Hungary), rolled pickled herring (Czech Republic), mouse (China), and more.
