When reenacting or acting as a historical interpreter, its good to have a few historical dates and stories to share. This series will publish a few.

Notes on the Origin of the @ Symbol

The modern and now ubiquitous use of the @ in email addresses lends us to assume this is a modern symbol. The origin of the @ can, however, be traced to 16^th Century wine merchants who invented a number of abbreviations to simplify record keeping.  These scribes shortened the Latin ad (meaning ‘at’ or ‘towards’) by curling the tail of the d to wrap it around the a, thereby saving themselves two whole pen strokes.   It also has a mercantile origin. Florentine merchants used the @ as a shortening of amphorae – a unit of measurement for the wine, grains and spices that were shipped in the large jars of the same name. It went on to be used by other merchants to denote ‘at the rate or, written out as ’15 apples @ 15p each’. As a result, it became known in English as the ‘commercial at’.

Of course, today we all know this as the symbol that computer scientist Ray Tomlinson used in 1971 to join usernames and computer addresses on the Arpanet (the predecessor to the Internet). Tomlinson.   With so much commerce now taking place on-line, the ‘commercial at’ definition has endured even if its usage has changed.  I still like the idea of @ referring to an amphora of wine.  Much of what’s on the internet goes down better with a good stiff drink.

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