On Sun, 17 Feb 2008, Ian Jelf wrote:

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).

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?

Wikipedia's heard of it, and says it's telephone engineer's slang.

Can anyone remember the ritual needed to summon Clive?

tom

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