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The journey and many faces of the hash symbol

From the Romans to Twitter, the hash sign – or octothorpe – has had a rich history, and now this innocuous little character has found a mighty resurgence as the hashtag. What happened along the way?

By Anoosh Chakelian

Hash. Pound. Number. Octothorpe. Grid. Crunch. Diamond. Sharp. Mesh. Crosshatch. Thud. Thump. Splat. Scratchmark. Square. Hex. Flash. Tic-tac-toe. Pig-pen.

The host of names the “#” symbol has had over the centuries only just outnumbers the plethora of functions it has fulfilled. From when the Latin for “pound” began being written as “lb” (short for libra) with a line through the top, to the creation of millions of hashtags a day on Twitter, it has had a colourful history.

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