Subject: Re: What's up with #'? From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 19 Nov 2002 04:17:47 +0000 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3246668267166605@naggum.no> * Donald Fisk | Some of us Rightpondians are a bit tardy in converting to Euros, so not | only do we have pounds (GBP), but we have pound signs (£) on our | keyboards. I assume you know what the currency pound sign looks like. It appears that many British English users do not know that #5 is pronounced "number 5" and 5# is pronounced "5 pounds", as in lbs, and to American English users, # is therefore equally "number sign" and "pound sign". Oxford Reference Online does not even sport "number sign" despite the 100 reference works they span. Neither does The New Oxford American Dictionary, but all real American references list both meanings of "pound sign" and have a "number sign", too. -- Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.