Are Hashtag Changing The Future of "#"?
@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
United States
February 1, 2012 6:39am CST
with twitter using the symbol "#" that we used to only see on telephones and calling it "hashtags" are the future generations going to be asked to press the "hashtag" when they do anything with automatic phone calls? you know when you call and have to hit buttons to choose options such as when you call your credit card or any kind of customer service and they usually have you press the "#" aka POUND button eventually and well this new generation is getting used to it being part of a "Hashtag" that it makes me wonder if we will soon be hearing.
example of calling a credit card or something:
"press 1 for statements, 2 for current charges, and press the HASHTAG for etc."
who the heck came up with that anyways? to me its annoying. maybe im just too old to understand at my old age of 30 =P
3 responses
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
1 Feb 12
In America, the # is usually called the 'pound' symbol. In Canada, it is generally referred to as the 'number sign' and in the rest of the world as a 'hash' (from the French 'hacher' meaning to chop because of its resemblance to axe cuts on a tree trunk or chopping board).
I think that it is largely Twitter's use of the symbol as a tag function which has led to people calling it a 'hashtag'. In most of the phone-using world, the symbol is called the 'hash key'. It is only Americans and Canadians who give it a different name, indeed, in America and Canada particularly (and less often in the rest of the world) it is very commonly used to denote not a weight (or a unit of money) but as a symbol preceding a number to denote ordinality (or to represent the word 'number' in . For example, I might refer to a particular response in a discussion as 'Response [number] 3' or abbreviate it to '#3'.
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
1 Feb 12
By the way, I'm a lot more than twice your age, so if you think yourself old at 30, know that you are really just a spring chicken!
@craziestqueenever (1819)
• Philippines
1 Feb 12
You can blame it to the developer of Twitter. The hashtag on Twitter is definitely used to organize or categorize your tweets. I think this hashtag is often used as a replacement to the word "number".
@beamer88 (4259)
• Philippines
1 Feb 12
If you're old at 30, then I'm probably ancient at 35 :) Your question is as good as mine. Hashtags? I have always called that symbol the number sign (where I'm from, that is). Fortunately, all recorded messages still ask me to press the number sign and not the hashtag. Sometimes I wonder why people have to come up with different names for symbols. It would just confuse people.
