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Mignon Fogarty is the creator of Quick and Dirty Tips and is widely recognized for her Grammar Girl website, podcast, and games.
When did the @ symbol first appear?
Different sources give varying dates for the origin of the "at" symbol, so I won't pin it down to one specific year. Let's just say it dates back a long time—at least to the Middle Ages.
Numerous sources, including the Ask Oxford website and a book titled Letter by Letter: An Alphabetical Miscellany, suggest that the "at" symbol is derived from shorthand for the Latin word "ad"—A.D.—meaning “to, toward, or at.” Scribes used it to denote prices in invoices and accounting ledgers, such as 12 eggs AT one penny each.
Alternate Names for the @ Symbol
The “at” symbol is officially referred to in English as the “commercial at,” likely due to its early use in business transactions. It has a variety of names in different languages, and one I particularly like is the Italian term, where it’s humorously called the “snail.” Fans of my work, particularly those familiar with my books, will recognize that I often use a character named Squiggly, who is a snail. The symbol has also been called a strudel and a cinnamon roll, which is fitting because of its shape, resembling a rolled pastry.
Why does the A have a Circle Around It?
In explaining the evolution from the Latin word "ad" to the “at” symbol, Michael Quinion shares on his website World Wide Words that when the symbol was written by hand (likely by medieval scribes), “the upstroke of the ‘d’ curved over to the left and wrapped around the ‘a.’ Over time, the lower part of the ‘d’ merged with the ‘a,’ forming a single symbol.” Thus, the circle around the “a” is actually a remnant of the upright part of the letter “d.”
A more recent account comes from an Italian history professor, who claimed to have found an “at” symbol in a document written by a Florentine merchant from 1536.
The sentence reads, "There, an amphora [an @] of wine, which represents one thirtieth of a barrel, is valued at 70 or 80 ducats."
Rather than indicating “at the price of,” the professor explains that the “at” symbol was actually an “a” representing “amphora,” a unit of volume, enclosed in a flowing circle, a common feature in the handwriting style of that era.
Regardless of the precise origin of the symbol, the “commercial at” has become more widely recognized today due to its association with modern technology.
The @ Symbol on Keyboards
A book titled Managing Web Usage in the Workplace mentions that pictures of old typewriters were examined, revealing that the @ symbol was commonly featured on keyboards starting around 1880.
@ in E-mail Addresses
Ray Tomlinson was the first to use the “at” symbol to format an e-mail address on ARPAnet in 1971, sending a test message from one computer to another. Interestingly, he’s often quoted as saying that he can’t remember the content of that message—it was just a simple test, and at the time, he didn’t think it was anything important.
When Should You Pronounce the @?
The appearance of the @ symbol before someone’s name has sparked an intriguing question about pronunciation: If the @ simply signals a response, should you pronounce it? For instance, if you’re reading a tweet addressed to me aloud, would you say “at Grammar Girl” or just “Grammar Girl”?
This remains an open question, but examples from the latest Associated Press Stylebook suggest that they would say the “at” because in writing, they refer to names using the at symbol as “an @reply” and “an @mention”—the use of “an” instead of “a” implies the @ is being pronounced. Do you pronounce the @? Feel free to leave a comment below to share your thoughts.
This article was first published by Mignon Fogarty on quickanddirtytips.com and is shared here because we admire her work. She is also the author of the New York Times best-selling book Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing.
