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etymology of octothorp(e)
Nov. 5th, 2003 10:29 pmI had only ever heard the Bell Labs story, but apparently a Robert Bringhurst's Elements of Typographic Style says that "In cartography, it is also a symbol for village: eight fields round a central square, and this is the source of its name." That page quoting him also says it's "the printer's traditional name". This etymology is all over the web, but I had no idea; I think these are largely-disjoint subcultures.
I assume that it is a cartographic symbol for a village, even an abstraction of fields. I wonder if perhaps the cartographic symbol had no name, but telephony came up with "octothorpe" for the same symbol, and the eight-thorp analysis coincidentally fit. That would be cute. ("Thorp" does not currently mean a field, but in Middle English it could, so we can go with that.)
The Bell Labs story dates the word to the early 60s. If it's traditional in printing or in cartography, it should occur earlier than that somewhere, so this shouldn't be too hard to answer. Pity Google doesn't do all past history yet.
I assume that it is a cartographic symbol for a village, even an abstraction of fields. I wonder if perhaps the cartographic symbol had no name, but telephony came up with "octothorpe" for the same symbol, and the eight-thorp analysis coincidentally fit. That would be cute. ("Thorp" does not currently mean a field, but in Middle English it could, so we can go with that.)
The Bell Labs story dates the word to the early 60s. If it's traditional in printing or in cartography, it should occur earlier than that somewhere, so this shouldn't be too hard to answer. Pity Google doesn't do all past history yet.
