Editing Number sign (section)

==Names==
'''Number sign'''
:"Number sign" is the name chosen by the [[Unicode Consortium]]. Most common in Canada<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Barber |editor-first=Katherine |title=The Canadian Oxford dictionary |date=2004 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Toronto |isbn=0195418166 |edition=2nd}}</ref> and the northeastern United States.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}}<!-- I am from Massachusetts and it certainly was called "number sign" there-->  American telephone equipment companies which serve Canadian callers often have an option in their programming to denote [[Canadian English]], which in turn instructs the system to say ''number sign'' to callers instead of ''pound''.<ref>{{cite web |title=Norstar Voice Mail 4.1 {{!}} Software Add-on Guide |publisher=[[Nortel]] |page=12 |url=https://downloads.avaya.com/css/P8/documents/100141949 |access-date=2015-12-11 |archive-date=2015-12-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151222090552/https://downloads.avaya.com/css/P8/documents/100141949 |url-status=live }}</ref> This name is rarely used elsewhere in the world, where numbers are normally represented by the letters "[[Numero sign|No.]]".
'''Pound sign or pound'''
:In the United States and Canada, the "#" key on a phone is commonly referred to as the pound sign, ''pound key'', or simply ''pound''. Dialing instructions to an extension such as #77, for example, can be read as "pound seven seven".<ref name="nyt">{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/24/magazine/on-language-hit-the-pound-sign.html | title=On Language; Hit the Pound Sign | author=William Safire | newspaper=[[The New York Times]] | access-date=May 21, 2011 | date=March 24, 1991 | author-link=William Safire | archive-date=July 21, 2010 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100721065416/http://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/24/magazine/on-language-hit-the-pound-sign.html | url-status=live }}</ref> This name is rarely used elsewhere, as the term ''pound sign'' is understood to mean [[pound sign|the currency symbol £]].
'''Hash, [[wikt:hash mark|hash mark]], [[wikt:hashmark|hashmark]]'''
:In the United Kingdom,<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/dec/08/hash-symbol-twitter-typography |title=How the # became the sign of our times |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |access-date=30 December 2014 |archive-date=31 December 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141231061916/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/dec/08/hash-symbol-twitter-typography |url-status=live }}</ref> Australia,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://getproofed.com.au/writing-tips/writing-tips-how-to-use-the-hash-sign/ |title=Writing Tips: How to Use the Hash Sign (#) |website=GetProofed |date=6 February 2020 |quote=In Australia, however, it was better known as the 'hash' sign and only used to mean 'number'. |access-date=9 January 2023 |archive-date=9 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230109105954/https://getproofed.com.au/writing-tips/writing-tips-how-to-use-the-hash-sign/ |url-status=live }}</ref> and some other countries,{{citation needed|date=November 2021}} it is frequently called a "hash" (probably from "hatch", referring to cross-[[hatching]]<ref>{{cite dictionary |url=http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/84445 |title=Hash sign |dictionary=Oxford English Dictionary |access-date=14 October 2013 |archive-date=16 November 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181116124751/http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/84445 |url-status=live }}</ref>).
:Programmers also use this term; for instance {{code|#!}} is "hash, bang" or [[Shebang (Unix)|"shebang"]].
'''[[Hashtag]]'''
:Derived from the previous, the word "hashtag" is often used when reading social media messages aloud, indicating the start of a hashtag. For instance, the text "#foo" is often read out loud as "hashtag foo" (as opposed to "hash foo"). This leads to the common belief that the symbol itself is called ''hashtag''.<ref name=hashtag /> Twitter documentation refers to it as "the hashtag symbol".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://support.twitter.com/articles/49309|title=Using hashtags on Twitter|website=Twitter|access-date=5 May 2016|archive-date=4 May 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160504192917/https://support.twitter.com/articles/49309|url-status=live}}</ref>
'''Hex'''
:"Hex" is commonly used in Singapore and Malaysia, as spoken by many recorded telephone directory-assistance menus: "Please enter your phone number followed by the 'hex' key". The term "hex" is discouraged in Singapore in favour of "hash". In Singapore, a hash is also called "hex" in apartment addresses, where it precedes the floor number.<ref>{{cite web|title=A Dictionary of Singlish and Singapore English|author=Jack Tsen-Ta Lee|url=http://mysmu.edu/faculty/jacklee/singlish_H.htm#hex|access-date=14 January 2016|archive-date=19 January 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160119143130/http://www.mysmu.edu/faculty/jacklee/singlish_H.htm#hex|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Address Formats|url=http://www.informatica.com/products/data-quality/data-as-a-service/address-verification/address-formats.html?code=SGP|access-date=14 January 2016|archive-date=8 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160308064622/https://www.informatica.com/products/data-quality/data-as-a-service/address-verification/address-formats.html?code=SGP|url-status=live}}</ref>
'''{{vanchor|Octothorp}}, octothorpe, octathorp, octatherp'''
:Most scholars believe the word was invented by workers at the [[Bell Labs|Bell Telephone Laboratories]] by 1968,<ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://www.svpal.org/~dickel/octothorp/Encore_magazine.pdf |magazine=Encore |title=Pressing Matters: Touch-tone phones spark debate |author=Hochhester, Sheldon |date=2006-09-29 |access-date=2006-12-17 |archive-date=2007-09-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070926100216/http://www.svpal.org/~dickel/octothorp/Encore_magazine.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> who needed a word for the symbol on the [[Dual-tone multi-frequency signaling|telephone keypad]]. Don MacPherson is said to have created the word by combining ''octo'' and the last name of [[Jim Thorpe]], an Olympic medalist.<ref>Ralph Carlsen, "What the ####?" ''Telecoms Heritage Journal'' 28 (1996): 52–53.</ref> Howard Eby and Lauren Asplund claim to have invented the word as a joke in 1964, combining ''octo'' with the syllable ''therp'' which, because of the "th" [[digraph (orthography)|digraph]], was hard to pronounce in different languages.<ref name="Kerr">{{cite web |url=http://dougkerr.net/pumpkin/articles/Octatherp.pdf |author=Douglas A. Kerr |title=The ASCII Character "Octatherp" |date=2006-05-07 |access-date=2010-08-23 |archive-date=2010-12-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101215025150/http://dougkerr.net/pumpkin/articles/Octatherp.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> ''The Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories'', 1991, has a long article that is consistent with Doug Kerr's essay,<ref name="Kerr"/> which says "octotherp" was the original spelling, and that the word arose in the 1960s among telephone engineers as a joke. Other hypotheses for the origin of the word include the last name of [[James Oglethorpe]]<ref>John Baugh, Robert Hass, Maxine H. Kingston, et al., "Octothorpe", ''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'' (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000)</ref> or using the Old English word for village, ''[[thorp]]'', because the symbol looks like a village surrounded by eight fields.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-oct1.htm|title=Octothorpe|last=Quinion|first=Michael|date=19 May 2010|website=World Wide Words|access-date=10 May 2016|archive-date=18 May 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160518172649/http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-oct1.htm|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>Bringhurst, "Octothorpe". ''Elements of Typographic Style''</ref> The word was popularized within and outside Bell Labs.<ref>"You Asked Us: About the * and # on the New Phones", ''The Calgary Herald'', September 9, 1972, 90.</ref> The first appearance of "octothorp" in a US patent is in a 1973 filing. This patent also refers to the six-pointed asterisk (✻) used on telephone buttons as a "[[Astrological aspect#Sextile|sextile]]".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT3920926|title=U.S. Patent No. 3,920,926|access-date=16 September 2014|archive-date=2 March 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130302144808/http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT3920926|url-status=dead}}</ref>
'''[[Sharp (music)|Sharp]]'''
: Use of the name "sharp" is due to the symbol's resemblance to {{unichar|266F|nlink=}}. The same derivation is seen in the name of the [[Microsoft]] programming languages [[C Sharp (programming language)|C#]], [[J Sharp|J#]] and [[F Sharp (programming language)|F#]]. Microsoft says that the name ''C#'' is pronounced 'see sharp'."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/tour-of-csharp/ |title=A tour of the C# language |date=5 April 2023 |access-date=4 April 2024 |website=learn.microsoft.com |archive-date=8 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240308153937/https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/tour-of-csharp/ |url-status=live }}</ref> According to the ECMA-334 C# Language Specification, the name of the language is written "C#" ("{{resize|LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C}} (U+0043) followed by the {{resize|NUMBER SIGN}} # (U+0023)") and pronounced "C Sharp".<ref>{{cite book |url=https://ecma-international.org/wp-content/uploads/ECMA-334_7th_edition_december_2023.pdf |title=ECMA-334 C# language specification |edition=7th |publisher=[[Ecma International]] |page=xxiii |chapter=Introduction |date=December 2023 |access-date=4 April 2024 |archive-date=16 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231216004437/https://ecma-international.org/wp-content/uploads/ECMA-334_7th_edition_december_2023.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>
'''Square'''
[[File:Detail-Tastatur-FeTAp-751-1982.JPG|thumb|right|Detail of a telephone keypad displaying the [[Viewdata]] square]]
:On telephones, the [[International Telecommunication Union]] specification [[E.161|ITU-T E.161]] 3.2.2 states: "The symbol may be referred to as the square or the most commonly used equivalent term in other languages."<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-E.161-200102-I/en | title = E.161 : Arrangement of digits, letters and symbols on telephones and other devices that can be used for gaining access to a telephone network | publisher = [[International Telecommunication Union]] | date = 2 February 2001 | access-date = 23 December 2019 | archive-date = 2 November 2019 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20191102055736/https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-E.161-200102-I/en | url-status = live }}</ref> Formally, this is not a number sign but rather another character, {{unichar|2317|nlink=}}. The real or virtual keypads on almost all modern telephones use the simple {{code|#}} instead, as does most documentation.{{cn|date=January 2023}}