Delayed Echoes

Because it is used in every e-mail address and many tweets, you might be forgiven for thinking that the remarkably common symbol @, which English-speakers know as the “at sign,” but Italians call a “snail,” and south Slavs know as a “monkey,” is a fairly recent invention. In fact, as Wired magazine’s Tony Long points out, a Florentine merchant named Francesco Lapi used the symbol @ in a letter written 473 years ago today, on May 4, 1536.

The symbol ended up on typewriter keyboards after it evolved over the centuries into commercial accounting shorthand for the phrase “at the price of” in records of transactions written by English merchants.

Okay, a “snail” I can understand. By why a “monkey”? (via Coudal)