At that time, each programmer was typically connected to a particular mainframe machine via a phone connection and a teletype machine-basically a keyboard with a built-in printer. The symbol’s modern obscurity ended in 1971, when a computer scientist named Ray Tomlinson was facing a vexing problem: how to connect people who programmed computers with one another.

census), which were precursors to computer programming. Merchants have long used it to signify “at the rate of”-as in “12 widgets $1.” (That the total is $12, not $1, speaks to the symbol’s pivotal importance.) Still, the machine age was not so kind to The first typewriters, built in the mid-1800s, didn’t include Likewise, was not among the symbolic array of the earliest punch-card tabulating systems (first used in collecting and processing the 1890 U.S. The symbol later took on a historic role in commerce. Or the symbol evolved from an abbreviation of “each at”-the “a” being encased by an “e.” The first documented use was in 1536, in a letter by Francesco Lapi, a Florentine merchant, who used to denote units of wine called amphorae, which were shipped in large clay jars.

Or it came from the French word for “at”- à-and scribes, striving for efficiency, swept the nib of the pen around the top and side. One theory is that medieval monks, looking for shortcuts while copying manuscripts, converted the Latin word for “toward”- ad-to “a” with the back part of the “d” as a tail. The origin of the symbol itself, one of the most graceful characters on the keyboard, is something of a mystery. has even been inducted into the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, which cited its modern use as an example of “elegance, economy, intellectual transparency, and a sense of the possible future directions that are embedded in the arts of our time.”

Although the first documented use of was in 1536, the symbol did not rise from modern obscurity until 1971.Ĭalled the “snail” by Italians and the “monkey tail” by the Dutch, is the sine qua non of electronic communication, thanks to e-mail addresses and Twitter handles.

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