Apepollo11@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
The world (or at least the Anglosphere) has always called the # symbol the hash sign. I have no idea why Americans called it the pound sign - most places call the £ symbol the pound sign.
The term “hashtag” was not invented by an American. For the rest of us this makes sense - it’s a tag denoted by a hash sign - but I can see how it seemingly came out of nowhere if you used different words.
axh@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
I always read this as hash until I learn that the programming language C# is pronounced C sharp
adespoton@lemmy.ca 6 hours ago
In music, # denotes a sharp key or note and b denotes a flat key or note — this is Italian notation.
Traditionally in English, the # symbol was called the hash, because it looked like the end of a cooking implement used to hash vegetables (nowadays everyone would say mash instead).
In US typewriters, there was no £ symbol, so # was used to denote british pounds instead.
When the telephone button pad was created, there was room for two more symbols and tones, so the creators took the asterisk and hash from the typewriter and added them as extra signals.
When Twitter needed a way to denote a tagged word in a tweet, they decided to use the hash symbol.
grubberneonbelly@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Centuries of music has entered the chat