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Old February 17th 08, 04:43 PM posted to uk.railway,uk.transport.london
Ian Jelf Ian Jelf is offline
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First recorded activity at LondonBanter: Jul 2003
Posts: 842
Default Pound sterling symbol and usenet posts

In message , Peter Campbell Smith
writes
"Mike Cawood, HND BIT" wrote in
:

There will also be some people who for bizarre reasons not worth
going into think that the symbol pronounced "pound" is a
noughts-and-crosses grid.


That's because the hash symbol in US keyboards is in the same place as
our pound symbol (shift 3).
Mike.


I believe the reason # is called a pound sign by Americans is that it is
sometimes used in the USA to mean pounds weight. In American usage, #3
means 'number 3' and 3# means '3 lbs'. The latter is a bit old-fashioned,
but you see it sometimes in markets and the like.


I seem to recall years ago hearing the # symbol called "Gate" as well.
Can anyone else confirm this?
--
Ian Jelf, MITG
Birmingham, UK

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