The Medieval Origins of the @ Symbol. Hyphens in Dual-Heritage Terms. Pitch.
Grammar Girl: For Writers and Language Lovers.
Mignon Fogarty, Inc.
4.5 • 2.9K Ratings
🗓️ 4 November 2022
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
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: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/where-did-we-get-the-at-symbol/transcript
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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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