The pronunciation of "#" as "pound" is common in the US but a
bad idea; Commonwealth Hackish has its own, rather more
apposite use of "pound sign" (confusingly, on British
keyboards the pound graphic happens to replace "#"; thus
Britishers sometimes call "#" on a US-ASCII keyboard "pound",
compounding the American error). The US usage derives from an
old-fashioned commercial practice of using a "#" suffix to tag
pound weights on bills of lading. The character is usually
pronounced "hash" outside the US.
The name "octothorpe" was made up by a Bell Labs supervisor,
Don Macpherson.
Octothorpe story.
(2003-07-05)
Nearby terms:
Harvest C « hash « hash bucket « hash character » hash coding » hash collision » hash function
