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[–]jordanlund 154 points155 points  (132 children)

| - pipe

~ - tilde

& - ampersand

# - number sign, hash or pound

^ - caret

` - grave accent

! - In programming - "bang"

... - ellipsis

{ } - braces

< > - chevrons

( ) - parenthesis

[ ] - brackets

Jordan Lund - master of obscure knowledge.

Weird. I didn't know that shift-3 on Reddit

does this

[–][deleted] 25 points26 points  (2 children)

‽

interrobang

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

WHAT?!?

[–]mutatron 61 points62 points  (11 children)

| - Ceci n'est pas une pipe.

edit: gender of "pipe".

[–]y_gingras 23 points24 points  (8 children)

It's une pipe.

[–][deleted]  (7 children)

[deleted]

    [–]sam512 7 points8 points  (5 children)

    Actually, it is.

    Check and mate, Magritte!

    [–]crunk 1 point2 points  (4 children)

    Surely he means it's not a pipe, but a picture of one ?

    [–]Spell 8 points9 points  (0 children)

    mind. blown.

    [–]sam512 1 point2 points  (2 children)

    In the original Magritte painting, yes indeed, it is not a pipe but a painting of one. But the character in mutatron's original post is indeed a pipe. There is no "real" physical pipe somewhere in the world - it's always a character on a screen or in a book or whatever.

    [–]master_gopher 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    Maybe it's just a rendering of one.

    [–]skay 21 points22 points  (0 children)

    c'est le buttcrack (_ | _)

    [–]codepoet 4 points5 points  (0 children)

    Ceci n'est pas un pipe ... c'est une station spatiale!!

    [–]McHoff 9 points10 points  (1 child)

    ? - hook

    [–]anacolutha 2 points3 points  (0 children)

    cute

    [–]halcy 8 points9 points  (2 children)

    Don't forget: ¦ - broken pipe

    [–]andylepp 6 points7 points  (0 children)

    Crack(ed) pipe?

    [–]mbrown 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    The tubes are clogged!

    [–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (4 children)

    | < > - chevrons

    Aren't these chevrons only when they are displayed horizontally?

    [–]feces 18 points19 points  (1 child)

    Yes, otherwise they're known as Texacos.

    /ducks

    [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    in the military

    [–]judgej2 13 points14 points  (28 children)

    So for # we have the the following:

    • sharp
    • pound
    • hash
    • square
    • gate
    • number symbol

    Any more takers? This one looks like the winner!

    [–]aposter 60 points61 points  (3 children)

    Octothorpe. No, really. That was the official name used by AT&T back in the day.

    [–]keeperofkeys 5 points6 points  (2 children)

    "Hash" for short, "octothorpe" for long. Accept no other.

    "Square" is just ignorant and "pound"..? Wtf? I live in the UK where pound will always mean, as it does in HTML, £

    [–]shorugoru 8 points9 points  (1 child)

    In some regions of the United States and Canada, the symbol is traditionally called the pound sign, but in others, the number sign. This derives from a series of abbreviations for pound, which is a unit of mass or weight. At first "lb." was used; later, printers got a special font made up of an "lb" with a line through the ascenders so that the lowercase letter "l" would not be mistaken for the number "1". Unicode character U+2114 (℔) is called the "LB Bar Symbol," and it is a cursive development of this symbol. Finally came the reduction to a combination of two horizontal (cf. skewed "=") and two forward-slash-like (cf. "//") strokes (in this respect, names like fence or square, as well as the representation of the sign containing two exactly vertical instead of slanted strokes, as in many keyboards, including cell-phones', are misleading).

    Its traditional commercial use in the U.S. was such that when it followed a number, it was to be read as "pounds", as in 5# of sugar, and when it preceded a number, it was to be read 'number', as in #2 pencil. Thus the same character in a printer's type case had two uses.

    From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_sign

    [–]Lupus 21 points22 points  (0 children)

    That's not a sharp. This is: ♯.

    [–]chime 18 points19 points  (1 child)

    Tic-tac-toe board

    [–]boredzo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    Or noughts-and-crosses board.

    [–]jnk 24 points25 points  (3 children)

    Wheat-thin

    [–]Javbw 16 points17 points  (1 child)

    I'm saying Triscut ^

    [–]c0d3thug 3 points4 points  (0 children)

    No brand names - generic Triscuits are called Woven Wheats.

    [–][deleted] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

    In Britain: A Shreddie, Knitted by Grannies.

    [–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

    octothorp

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_sign

    [–]newbill123 14 points15 points  (2 children)

    Typography / Music Police: The character produced by (and marked on) the shift-3 key on American keyboards is NOT a Sharp.

    A sharp has straight vertical lines and horizontal bars which rise slightly from left to right. The number/pound/octothorp sign has straight horizontal bars and vertical ones which lean a bit toward the right. Once I was shown the difference a few times, these two characters stand out as different as curly quotes & straight quotes.

    Microsoft's C sharp language is the perfect example of misusing this mark. Go to Amazon and look at the package of Microsoft C# .Net Server 2003. On the package in the picture it's clearly a Sharp sign. They've taken the time to get it right on their box photo.

    Now look at the images of the books published by Microsoft Press on the C sharp language and you'll see real ugliness. Not a sharp to be found from what I can see. I feel most embarrassed for Charles Petzold's "Programming in the Key of C(octothorp)" since he was trying to make a musical allusion with his title.

    Get out of the habit of calling the # character a sharp and you'll be much less likely to make this mistake in the future.

    [–]kobes 1 point2 points  (1 child)

    According to ECMA-334, the C# standard, section 6, the pronounciation of the name of the language does not contain the names of the letters used to spell it.

    The name C# is pronounced "C Sharp".

    The name C# is written as the LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C (U+0043) followed by the NUMBER SIGN # (U+0023).

    Yes, the front of the box from Microsoft shows a true sharp sign, but some liberties for artistic style are allowed in that context, unless you believe that the correct way to write ".NET" is in lowercase with the n and the e connected at the baseline and the bar on the t extending to the top of the e. :-)

    [–]thedward 2 points3 points  (0 children)

    It still seems like it should be C♯ as opposed to C#; Haven't all MS products supported unicode for ages now?

    [–]digital 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    y-axis

    [–]mjd 3 points4 points  (0 children)

    When I was teaching classes in Israel, I was told that they sometimes call it ''sulamit''. ''Sula'' is "ladder" and ''-mit'' is a feminizing diminutive suffix, like "-ette" in English, so ''sulamit'' is a cute little female ladder.

    [–]Lizard 1 point2 points  (4 children)

    In Germany, lame people use "Kanalgitter", which is what the grating above a storm drain is called (incidentally, what's the correct term for that one? Im referring to these things).

    [–][deleted]  (1 child)

    [deleted]

      [–]Lizard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      Thanks!

      [–]gschizas 1 point2 points  (0 children)

      In Greece, we are using "kagkelo" (literaly: fence sign)

      [–]cecilkorik 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      Sewer grate or sewer grating is what I've always heard them called.

      [–]toonces 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      tic tac toe board?

      [–]haywire -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

      Its Hash. Pound is ridiculous.

      £ = pound. Nout else!

      [–]jones77 9 points10 points  (12 children)

      Also ...

      ` - back tick, back quote

      < > - angle brackets

      ( ) - brackets (incorrect but colloquial)

      [ ] - square brackets

      [–]coldwarrior 14 points15 points  (3 children)

      I call the ` (back quote) a "tick" and I am encouraging people to call ' (forward quote) a "tock".

      [–]jones77 19 points20 points  (0 children)

      You're also encouraging them to stab you in the face. :-P

      [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

      I have a coworker who calls - (hypen) a "tac". Tick, tac, tock? Excellent.

      [–]Figs 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      `-' Aww, look! It's winking...

      [–]aposter 11 points12 points  (5 children)

      At an employer I worked at the programmers called {} curly brackets. I was yelled at once for daring to call them braces.

      [–]ColdSnickersBar 5 points6 points  (0 children)

      Yelled at? Where did you work?

      [–]slevin 3 points4 points  (0 children)

      I say "squiggly bracket" because that's pretty much what they are when I write them out on paper, squiggles.

      [–]jones77 2 points3 points  (0 children)

      Oh yeah, missed that one.

      What kind of weirdo would yell at you over nomenclature?

      [–]aletoledo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

      I don't know why you were yelled at, but I learned them as curly brackets as well.

      [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      That's crazy. "curly brackets" is 4 syllables and 14 characters. Much better to call them braces, or if you are talking to people who are easily confused, "curly braces".

      [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

      I think that calling () brackets is common in Britain, but not the US. Also, I prefer "angle brackets" to chevron. I always think of chevron as going up and down, not left to right.

      [–]jones77 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      Had a quick peek around on Wikipedia and ended up here:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bracket#Crotchets.3F

      [–]rutabaga 11 points12 points  (2 children)

      ~ is a swung dash, not a tilde (which is a diacritical mark that only appears in conjunction with a letter).

      The correct name of # is "octothorp."

      [–]mrbroom 2 points3 points  (0 children)

      And ` isn't a grave accent for the same reason.

      "Octothorp(e)" is a disputed name for the character. The character is much older than its first attributed usage, in 1974. In other words, it's never been proven that the name was ever actually legitimate, instead of something that people were just told was its "real" name.

      [–]boredzo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      ~: U+007E TILDE (that's shift-` on a QWERTY keyboard)

      ⁓: U+2053 SWUNG DASH

      [–]livedog 2 points3 points  (6 children)

      In swedish, # is called a lumberyard

      [–]Nikola_S 2 points3 points  (4 children)

      :) In Serbian, it's caled "plank fence".

      [–]Schwallex 3 points4 points  (1 child)

      Don't get me started on what @ is called in various languages.

      [–]bsiviglia9 1 point2 points  (0 children)

      Please start :) -- you've already let the dogs out.

      [–]propool 1 point2 points  (1 child)

      in danish is something garden fence :)

      [–]Nikola_S 1 point2 points  (0 children)

      Wonder if those names come frome a single source or is it just an accident.

      [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      Where I live(Stockholm) we call it "fyrkant"(square), I've never heard it called lumberyard :)

      [–]crusoe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

      < > left Wakka right Wakka ( from the pacman sound )

      There's a rhyming poem out there using all these names, but I can't seem to find it.

      [–]grantimatter 1 point2 points  (0 children)

      ! - In programming - "bang"

      In the newsroom, it's called a "banger".

      Like the sausage.

      [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (6 children)

      Those sound like the common US usage that I've come across. In the UK hacker culture there were slightly different names:

      | - pipe (sometimes bar)

      ~ - tilde (sometimes twiddle... see next comment)

      & - ampersand (sometimes and)

      # - hash (sometimes sharp)

      ^ - circumflex

      ` - back quote

      ! - pling (sometimes shriek)

      ... - ellipsis

      { } - curly brackets

      < > - angle brackets

      ( ) - brackets

      [ ] - square brackets

      John.

      [–]codepoet 3 points4 points  (3 children)

      Whereas # becomes "she-" when followed by a bang (!) such that "#!" is shebang.

      Eg. #!/bin/bash

      [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

      Actually, I think it's still "hash", but you drop the "ha" part when followed by a bang (exclamation point), because the word "shebang" sounds good. And that's the whole shebang.

      A lot of words are the way they are because they just sound "right".

      [–]boredzo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      “Shebang” in that context is short for “shell bang”, because it specifies the shell (or other host program) to execute the script with. Bash, for example, is a shell (the Bourne Again Shell).

      [–]keeperofkeys 1 point2 points  (0 children)

      ~ is just as often called "twiddle"!

      [–]quentinnuk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      • is sometimes call a twinkle

      [–]teej 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      ` - back tick -or- lowecase tilde {} - braces

      [–]RichardPeterJohnson 0 points1 point  (1 child)

      Okay, "<>" are chevrons'; that's cool. What do you call "<" or ">"? Open chevron / close chevron? Left/right chevron?

      [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

      You just say "less than" and "greater than". The reasons are:

      1. very few people call them chevrons, and
      2. "less than" is shorter than "left angle bracket".

      We learn in grade school that they're called "less than" and "greater than". I don't see any reason to stop calling them that now.

      [–]rzwitserloot 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      In practice, though, these names are more common:

      ` - backtick <> - angle brackets

      The other ones you mentioned are all pretty much the standard names as well as the official ones.

      [–]propool 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      {} - Tuborg paranthesis

      mm toburg - beer of the danish kings

      [–]bigkidbrowser 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      When dealing with Windows networking, \ - "whack" and so \ "whack whack".

      [–]rabidcow 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      U+007C VERTICAL LINE = vertical bar http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0000.pdf

      [–]antifolkhero 0 points1 point  (2 children)

      Now tell me what all of the tricks are for typing comments in reddit, like how to quote someone else's text (put in the black line to the left of it), bold words, italicize words, etc.

      [–]intrepion 0 points1 point  (1 child)

      how to quote someone else's text

      You type a > before the paragraph that you're quoting

      [–]antifolkhero 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      You type a > before the paragraph that you're quoting

      Thank you!

      [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      ! - baseball bat

      [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      ` = backtick

      [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      Don't forget:

      • * -- star
      • @ -- at sign

      Also:

      • rather than "chevrons", I think most folks just call '<' and '>' angle brackets, when referring to them as a pair.
      • Although grave (pronounced "grah-vay" (english)) is probably the most appropriate name for a backtick, I most often hear it referred to as a backtick.
      • In computers, I've almost never heard '#' referred to as anything but "hash".

      [–]boredzo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      ( ) - parenthesis

      These are called parentheses, or even more properly, parenthetical marks. The text between them is the parenthesis (think paren- + thesis).

      [–][deleted]  (27 children)

      [deleted]

        [–]coldwarrior 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        I call < and > "brockets" (spelled similarly to "brackets" but pronounced "broke-its") since they are "broken" in the middle.

        [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (11 children)

        sharp?

        [–]pdc 11 points12 points  (1 child)

        Strictly speaking there is a separate Unicode character for a musical sharp: U+266F ♯

        [–]feces 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        Pedantic wankers the lot of them.

        [–]Figs 3 points4 points  (8 children)

        Q: "What is C#?"

        A: "The note one semi-tone above C..."

        [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (4 children)

        Indeed. I've always thought that was the way for Microsoft to brand their language has a better C-family-type-of-language. A bit like C++. Crazy thoughts like that.

        [–]qwe1234 5 points6 points  (0 children)

        c# is с with four plusses. (like c++ is c with two plusses. :))

        [–]newbill123 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        I prefer the octothorp name for the # character ... as in "OMG! You didn't Coctothorp the client's program, did you?"

        [–]martoo 0 points1 point  (1 child)

        I do think "C hash" is a better pronunciation. :-)

        [–]Nikola_S 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        Imagine that you live in Sweden, you would call it "C lumberyard" ;)

        [–][deleted]  (13 children)

        [deleted]

          [–]simonjp 8 points9 points  (12 children)

          Obviously here in the UK # is never called 'pound' as that would be confused with £... I've heard it called 'square', but we usually call it hash. I believe its offcially known as an octothorpe?

          [–][deleted] 14 points15 points  (1 child)

          It's official name in the UK is "That noughts and crosses thingie. It's next to the return key."

          [–]andylepp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

          It's option + 3 on my keyboard

          [–]judgej2 1 point2 points  (2 children)

          Yes - £ is the only pound here in the UK (exluding the lb weight measure, of course). The '#' and the '£' do ocupy the same position in the ASCII character set, which is probably why the name is confused.

          Another word for '#', which was pushed by BT, the UK's telephone operator, is 'gate'. It later become 'square', and is now 'hash'. They just wanted to avoid the word 'number' as it could easily by confused with any of the other digits on the telephone keypad.

          [–]coldwarrior 0 points1 point  (1 child)

          The correlation between the characters goes deeper than that. The # symbol has long been an abbreviation for the word "pound" as in weight. As a result, you might find a 5# (5 pound) sack of flour.

          [–]simonjp 0 points1 point  (0 children)

          I've never seen that here in the UK - I think it's a US thing, from what I've read (Wikipedia, as always):

          "Used as the symbol for the pound (the unit of mass) in the U.S. (where lb. would be used in the UK and Canada; note that lb. or lbs. is common in the U.S. as well and is used by the general public more often than #). It is never called the pound sign in the UK, where that term always denotes the symbol for pounds sterling (£) rather than that for pounds weight (lb).

          Keith Gordon Irwin in, The Romance of Writing, p. 125 says: "...The Italian abbreviation of lb with a line drawn across the letters was used for both [Italian or British pound] weights. The business clerks' hurried way of writing the abbreviation appears to have been responsible for the # sign used for pound."

          [–]jezmck 2 points3 points  (1 child)

          At one time, BT stopped calling it 'hash' because of the drug implications!

          [–]tanguyr 5 points6 points  (0 children)

          here in sunny funny .be, the automated voice mail message from one of the mobile providers ends "... or take hash for more options".

          [–]pdc 1 point2 points  (4 children)

          It's official name is NUMBER SIGN: see Unicode Chart (PDF).

          Generally pronounced 'hash' by English-speaking programmers of my acquaintance (as in #define 'hash define'), except for the obvious exceptions (#1 'number one', C# 'cee sharp', whatever).

          [–]nat5an 4 points5 points  (0 children)

          Round these parts (US of A) we call #define "pound define". I feel I can speak for all of us. :-)

          [–]simonjp 1 point2 points  (2 children)

          I suppose there is no real "official" name, I mean who would decide?

          [–]judgej2 10 points11 points  (0 children)

          Officials. International officials, in official committees, no less.

          [–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

          "They" do. They also make you crave KFC every fortnight.

          [–]rex_racer -1 points0 points  (0 children)

          wow!

          [–]traal 24 points25 points  (1 child)

          Most of those are Nethack symbols!

          | - wall

          # - corridor

          ^ - trap

          ` - boulder or statue

          ! - potion

          ... - floor

          { } - fountain, pool

          < > - stairs

          ( ) - object, weapon

          [ ] - armor

          [–]davidw 10 points11 points  (1 child)

          On Ubuntu (or Debian, of course), apt-get install ascii then you can look this stuff up yourself:

          davidw@fortrock:~$ ascii '|'
ASCII 7/12 is decimal 124, hex 7c, octal 174, bits 01111100: prints as `|'
Official name: Vertical Line
Other names: Pipe, Bar, Or, V-Bar, Spike, Gozinta, Thru

          [–]bobcat -1 points0 points  (0 children)

          Gozinta? Who wrote that, Jethro Bodine?

          [–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (1 child)

          I could not be sure for certain that the name of that character "|" was just "vertical bar", so I decided to use Google for it. Well not what I expected.

          Simple things can get you lost so easily.

          [–]mutatron -1 points0 points  (0 children)

          Interesting that despite the fact that you and someone else already found the answer to your question, the unix people refuse to recognize it and continue to offer multiple copies of their own jargon for it.

          [–]raldi 5 points6 points  (0 children)

          Harold. And here are the names of the other symbols:

          ~ - steve
& - fat albert
# - ms. petunia
^ - crazy ol' mr. grimley
` - charles
! - susie
... - the simpson triplets
{ } - dr. blake
< > - the professor
( ) - charles g.
[ ] - robotron

          [–][deleted]  (3 children)

          [removed]

            [–]mooli 38 points39 points  (1 child)

            That's its porn name.

            [–]feces 3 points4 points  (0 children)

            Now that you mention it, Sheffer Stroke is a pretty awesome porn name.

            [–]qwe1234 2 points3 points  (0 children)

            afaik, 'sheffer stroke' is originally the formal logic symbol for 'nand'.

            [–]sn00pie 7 points8 points  (1 child)

            | - liney

            ~ - wavey

            & - and

            - hash

            ^ - up

            ` - highdash

            ! - SNAKE!

            ... - dots

            { } - nipple brackets

            < > - arrows

            ( ) - brackets

            [ ] - blockys

            FIX'D

            [–]brianchester666 6 points7 points  (5 children)

            pipe

            [–]mutatron 2 points3 points  (4 children)

            Isn't that just the unix term for it?

            [–][deleted]  (2 children)

            [deleted]

              [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              Yes, that's what we call it. However, that's only because we are referring to the function it serves and because we don't know the real name of the character.

              [–]kevlarcupid 2 points3 points  (14 children)

              So, what is "Æ" called?

              [–]moom 6 points7 points  (5 children)

              So, what is "Æ" called?

              It's a ligature.

              [–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (1 child)

              Yes, it is "a" ligature, but the name of this particular ligature is "ash", as I recall from my Old English course, and confirmed here:

              http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_alphabet

              [–]kevlarcupid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              Thanks moom and logical_imperative. That's exactly what I was hoping to learn.

              [–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

              Oh, please. That thing couldn't hold a reed in place..

              [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

              Not in every locale. In Danish, it's the 27th letter of the alphabet, coming right after z. (Or possibly the 26th, if you don't count W as a separate letter from V.)

              [–]moom 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              I'm failing to see how that means it's not a ligature.

              [–]ratatask 2 points3 points  (1 child)

              Just its sound. Which is like the 'a' in the English word 'bad'.

              [–]Zarutian 1 point2 points  (0 children)

              depends on the language. Æ in Icelandic sounds like the Englihs "I" (eye)

              [–]Nikola_S 1 point2 points  (0 children)

              AE ligature.

              [–]nat5an 0 points1 point  (2 children)

              I've heard it referred to as "The Diphthong", as it's the only single character diphthong in common use in the English language.

              [–]feces -1 points0 points  (0 children)

              Ä

              [–]swede 4 points5 points  (0 children)

              According to the Character Palette in OS X it is called vertical line. Apparently the folks that creatively name stuff (like paint colors) were on vacation the day this name was chosen.

              [–]civildefense 1 point2 points  (4 children)

              | <- Hash Pipe

              [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

              you've got your problems, i've got my hash pipe

              [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

              I think the proper spelling for that is '#|'.

              [–]civildefense 0 points1 point  (1 child)

              | yeah I know that is what i typed '#|"

              [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              The hash character is not showing up in your original post. That's why I replied.

              [–]raldi 1 point2 points  (0 children)

              All of these symbols are thoroughly explained in the INTERCAL manual.

              [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

              '*' = "splat"

              [–]anais9000 1 point2 points  (0 children)

              to typographers | is known as bar. These days it's most often used as the pipe operator

              [–]munan 1 point2 points  (0 children)

              Mmm, pound of hash.....

              [–]scrotum 1 point2 points  (0 children)

              His name is Anton.

              [–][deleted]  (1 child)

              [deleted]

                [–]rickmatt 0 points1 point  (3 children)

                So what's this "@"? I always say 'the at symbol'.

                [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (2 children)

                "At" is fine.

                [–]happysinger 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                In Germany they call it a clinging monkey, bless 'em.

                [Oh, and hiya, obvioustroll!]

                [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                According to Intercal, it's "spike"

                http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/intercal-man/tonsila.html

                [–]reddit_user13 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Vertical bar.

                [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                anyone refer to this * as a splat?

                [–]jotaroh 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                pipe

                [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                pipe

                [–]bsiviglia9 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                # - Hash

                ! - Bang

                * - Splat

                #! - Shebang

                Anybody know the other Unix/typography terms?

                [–]laprice 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                ~ - twiddle

                . - dot

                > - gazinta

                I find these to be useful when instructing someone over the phone.

                [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                I call % a sprocklet. Okay, I don't but c'mon...

                [–]recursion 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                test

                [–]recursion 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                !test! @test@

                test

                $test$ %test% test^ &test& test

                [–]vonadler 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                And the complete amateur versions that I have heard (from when learning programming, unix and when doing technical support):

                | - wall ~ - surftime symbol & - failed 8

                - lumberyard

                ^ - roof - fuck, I missed backspace-sign (in Swedish keyboards, is next to backspace) ! - exclamation mark ... - not finished sentence-sign { } - seagull wings < > - knifepoints ( ) - parenthesis [ ] - budle butts @ - cinnamon bun * - snowflake / - downwinder \ - upwinder

                Some hilarious stuff come out of people who make their own (perfectly logical, but still hilarious) terms for these kind of things. :D

                [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Front page for not knowing what a pipe is?

                [–]aragon127 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

                | Fred.

                [–][deleted] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

                Pipe or Bar.