ASCII

ASCII:: /as'kee/ n.  [acronym American Standard Code for
   Information Interchange] The predominant character set encoding of
   present-day computers.  The modern version uses 7 bits for each
   character, whereas most earlier codes (including an early version
   of ASCII) used fewer.  This change allowed the inclusion of
   lowercase letters -- a major {win} -- but it did not provide
   for accented letters or any other letterforms not used in English
   (such as the German sharp-S
   or the ae-ligature
   which is a letter in, for example, Norwegian).  It could be worse,
   though.  It could be much worse.  See {{EBCDIC}} to understand how.
   
   Computers are much pickier and less flexible about spelling than
   humans; thus, hackers need to be very precise when talking about
   characters, and have developed a considerable amount of verbal
   shorthand for them.  Every character has one or more names -- some
   formal, some concise, some silly.  Common jargon names for ASCII
   characters are collected here.  See also individual entries for
   {bang}, {excl}, {open}, {ques}, {semi}, {shriek},
   {splat}, {twiddle}, and {Yu-Shiang Whole Fish}.

   This list derives from revision 2.3 of the Usenet ASCII
   pronunciation guide.  Single characters are listed in ASCII order;
   character pairs are sorted in by first member.  For each character,
   common names are given in rough order of popularity, followed by
   names that are reported but rarely seen; official ANSI/CCITT names
   are surrounded by brokets: <>.  Square brackets mark the
   particularly silly names introduced by {INTERCAL}.  The
   abbreviations "l/r" and "o/c" stand for left/right and
   "open/close" respectively.  Ordinary parentheticals provide some
   usage information.

     !
          Common: {bang}; pling; excl; shriek; <exclamation mark>.
          Rare: factorial; exclam; smash; cuss; boing; yell; wow; hey;
          wham; eureka; [spark-spot]; soldier.

     "
          Common double quote; quote.  Rare literal mark;
          double-glitch; <quotation marks>; <dieresis>; dirk;
          [rabbit-ears]; double prime.

     #
          Common: number sign; pound; pound sign; hash; sharp;
          {crunch}; hex; [mesh].  Rare: grid; crosshatch; octothorpe;
          flash; <square>, pig-pen; tictactoe; scratchmark; thud;
          thump; {splat}.

     $
          Common dollar; <dollar sign>.  Rare currency symbol; buck;
          cash; string (from BASIC); escape (when used as the echo of
          ASCII ESC); ding; cache; [big money].

     %
          Common percent; <percent sign>; mod; grapes.  Rare
          [double-oh-seven].

     &
          Common <ampersand>; amper; and.  Rare address (from C);
          reference (from C++); andpersand; bitand; background (from
          `sh(1)'); pretzel; amp.  [INTERCAL called this `ampersand';
          what could be sillier?]

     '
          Common single quote; quote; <apostrophe>.  Rare prime;
          glitch; tick; irk; pop; [spark]; <closing single quotation
          mark>; <acute accent>.

     ( )

          Common: l/r paren; l/r parenthesis; left/right; open/close;
          paren/thesis; o/c paren; o/c parenthesis; l/r parenthesis;
          l/r banana.  Rare: so/already; lparen/rparen;
          <opening/closing parenthesis>; o/c round bracket, l/r round
          bracket, [wax/wane]; parenthisey/unparenthisey; l/r ear.

     *
          Common star; [{splat}]; <asterisk>.  Rare wildcard; gear;
          dingle; mult; spider; aster; times; twinkle; glob (see
          {glob}); {Nathan Hale}.

     +
          Common <plus>; add.  Rare cross; [intersection].

     ,
          Common <comma>.  Rare <cedilla>; [tail].

     -
          Common dash; <hyphen>; <minus>.  Rare [worm]; option; dak;
          bithorpe.

     .
          Common dot; point; <period>; <decimal point>.  Rare radix
          point; full stop; [spot].

     /
          Common slash; stroke; <slant>; forward slash.  Rare
          diagonal; solidus; over; slak; virgule; [slat].

     :
          Common <colon>.  Rare dots; [two-spot].

     ;
          Common <semicolon>; semi.  Rare weenie; [hybrid],
          pit-thwong.

     < >
          Common: <less/greater than>; bra/ket; l/r angle; l/r angle
          bracket; l/r broket.  Rare: from into, towards; read
          from/write to; suck/blow; comes-from/gozinta; in/out;
          crunch/zap (all from UNIX); [angle/right angle].

     =
          Common <equals>; gets; takes.  Rare quadrathorpe;
          [half-mesh].

     ?
          Common query; <question mark>; {ques}.  Rare whatmark;
          [what]; wildchar; huh; hook; buttonhook; hunchback.

     @
          Common at sign; at; strudel.  Rare each; vortex; whorl;
          [whirlpool]; cyclone; snail; ape; cat; rose; cabbage;
          <commercial at>.

     V
          Rare: [book].

     [ ]
          Common: l/r square bracket; l/r bracket; <opening/closing
          bracket>; bracket/unbracket.  Rare: square/unsquare; [U
          turn/U turn back].

     \
          Common: backslash; escape (from C/UNIX); reverse slash;
          slosh; backslant; backwhack.  Rare: bash; <reverse slant>;
          reversed virgule; [backslat].

     ^
          Common hat; control; uparrow; caret; <circumflex>.  Rare
          chevron; [shark (or shark-fin)]; to the (`to the power of');
          fang; pointer (in Pascal).

     _
          Common <underline>; underscore; underbar; under.  Rare
          score; backarrow; skid; [flatworm].

     `
          Common: backquote; left quote; left single quote; open
          quote; <grave accent>; grave.  Rare: backprime; [backspark];
          unapostrophe; birk; blugle; back tick; back glitch; push;
          <opening single quotation mark>; quasiquote.

     { }
          Common: o/c brace; l/r brace; l/r squiggly; l/r squiggly
          bracket/brace; l/r curly bracket/brace; <opening/closing
          brace>.  Rare: brace/unbrace; curly/uncurly; leftit/rytit;
          l/r squirrelly; [embrace/bracelet].

     |
          Common bar; or; or-bar; v-bar; pipe; vertical bar.  Rare
          <vertical line>; gozinta; thru; pipesinta (last three from
          UNIX); [spike].

     ~
          Common <tilde>; squiggle; {twiddle}; not.  Rare approx;
          wiggle; swung dash; enyay; [sqiggle (sic)].

   The pronunciation of `#' as `pound' is common in the U.S.
   but a bad idea; {{Commonwealth Hackish}} has its own, rather more
   apposite use of `pound sign' (confusingly, on British keyboards
   the pound graphic
   happens to replace `#'; thus Britishers sometimes
   call `#' on a U.S.-ASCII keyboard `pound', compounding the
   American error).  The U.S. usage derives from an old-fashioned
   commercial practice of using a `#' suffix to tag pound weights
   on bills of lading.  The character is usually pronounced `hash'
   outside the U.S.

   The `uparrow' name for circumflex and `leftarrow' name for
   underline are historical relics from archaic ASCII (the 1963
   version), which had these graphics in those character positions
   rather than the modern punctuation characters.

   The `swung dash' or `approximation' sign is not quite the same
   as tilde in typeset material
   but the ASCII tilde serves for both (compare {angle
   brackets}).

   Some other common usages cause odd overlaps.  The `#',
   `$', `>', and `&' characters, for example, are all
   pronounced "hex" in different communities because various
   assemblers use them as a prefix tag for hexadecimal constants (in
   particular, `#' in many assembler-programming cultures,
   `$' in the 6502 world, `>' at Texas Instruments, and
   `&' on the BBC Micro, Sinclair, and some Z80 machines).  See
   also {splat}.

   The inability of ASCII text to correctly represent any of the
   world's other major languages makes the designers' choice of 7 bits
   look more and more like a serious {misfeature} as the use of
   international networks continues to increase (see {software
   rot}).  Hardware and software from the U.S. still tends to embody
   the assumption that ASCII is the universal character set and that
   characters have 7 bits; this is a a major irritant to people who
   want to use a character set suited to their own languages.
   Perversely, though, efforts to solve this problem by proliferating
   `national' character sets produce an evolutionary pressure to use
   a *smaller* subset common to all those in use.