电子邮件的起源和传说.docxVIP

人人都知道写电子邮件地址的时候，要加一个@字符，把用户名和邮件服务提供商的名字分开。关于@的起源，说法不一。它的读法就更加是五花八门，而且不乏有趣的联想哦！ What do you call the @ symbol used in e-mail addresses? That little a with a circle curling around it that is found in email addresses is most commonly referred to as the “at” symbol. Surprisingly though, there is no official, universal name for this sign. There are dozens of strange terms to describe the @ symbol. Several languages use words that associate the shape of the symbol with some type of animal. 一些语言根据@ 的形状对它进行了有趣的描述： For instance, some quirky names for the @ symbol include（看看这些语言丰富的想象力，它们认为@像什么呢？）: apenstaartje - Dutch for “monkey’s tail” snabel - Danish for “elephant’s trunk” kissanhnta - Finnish for “cat’s tail” klammeraffe - German for “hanging monkey” papaki - Greek for “little duck” kukac - Hungarian for “worm” dalphaengi - Korean for “snail” grisehale - Norwegian for “pig’s tail” sobachka - Russian for “little dog” Before it became the standard symbol for electronic mail, the @ symbol was used to represent the cost or weight of something. For instance, if you purchased 6 apples, you might write it as 6 apples @ $1.10 each. （@被应用于邮件地址之前，它是价钱或者重量的计量符号。） With the introduction of e-mail came the popularity of the @ symbol. The @ symbol or the “at sign” separates a person’s online user name from his mail server address. For instance, joe@. Its widespread use on the Internet made it necessary to put this symbol on keyboards in other countries that have never seen or used the symbol before. As a result, there is really no official name for this symbol. （现在的邮件地址中，我们用@ 把用户名和邮件服务提供商的名字分开。） The actual origin of the @ symbol remains an enigma1. （@ 的真正起源其实还是个谜。） History tells us that the @ symbol stemmed from the tired hands of the medieval monks. During the Middle Ages before the invention of printing presses, every letter of a word had to be painstakingly transcribed by hand for each copy of a published book. The monks that performed these long, tedious copying duties looked for wa