The Medieval Origins of the @ Symbol. Hyphens in Dual-Heritage Terms. Pitch.

Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing

Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Society & Culture, Education

4.5 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 4 November 2022

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

900. The story of the @ symbol is much bigger than email. In fact, it was used for hundreds of years before being saved from obscurity by the invention of electronic communication. I explore the medieval origin story of @, plus share a bunch of fun names for it in other languages. Also, many style books recently removed the hyphen from dual-heritage terms like "Asian American," and I explain why in a segment that includes a tribute to former Los Angeles Times editor Henry Fuhrmann.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm a new on Fogarty and you can think of me as your friendly guide to the English language.
0:11.6	We talk about writing, history, roles and cool stuff.
0:15.1	Today we're going to talk about hyphens and the origin of the at symbol.
0:19.8	But before we start, I do want to mention that this is episode 900 of the podcast 900
0:26.2	episodes.
0:27.2	I know a few of you have been with me since the beginning and thank you so much.
0:31.9	And welcome to everyone who's joined along the way.
0:34.7	I didn't have the wherewithal to make a big deal out of the milestone this week, but it's
0:38.3	pretty amazing.
0:39.4	And I did want to acknowledge it a little bit.
0:41.6	And I did look at the stats and we are at well over 100 million lifetime downloads,
0:47.0	which feels unreal.
0:48.5	It blows my mind.
0:49.7	Anyway, I am incredibly grateful to have had the amazing job of putting together this
0:54.8	podcast 900 times.
0:57.5	So thank you.
0:59.4	In 2019, the AP style book changed its recommendation from using hyphens in dual heritage terms
1:06.9	like African American and Asian American to not using hyphens.
1:12.4	And the reason I decided to talk about it today is that the influential copy editor from
1:16.9	the Los Angeles Times who advocated for the change Henry Furman recently died soon
1:22.5	after a cancer diagnosis at age 65, which led to some great retrospectives on his work.
1:28.6	And frankly, I hadn't realized that I hadn't covered it before.
	...

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