KeyChars Trivia Quiz

Answer: ~

The tilde (~) is a character which has come to the English language from Latin, via Spanish and Portuguese. The Latin "titulus" means "title" or "superscription", and it was originally used as an accent in combination with a letter. Medieval scribes also used tildes for omitted characters, where it could represent one or many letters, as an economy measure in terms of both time and materials.

In Spanish, the tilde is used in combination with the letter "n" (Ñ, ñ) to create a different letter where it is seen as part of the character in the same way as the dot on the letter "i". Some English loanwords such as "jalapeño" and "piña colada" use the tilde as an accent. Latin alphabet fonts contain both uppercase and lowercase vowels with tilde accents.

Mathematically on its own, "~" is used to mean "about", "approximately" or "equivalence", such as "~3" or "x~y". In logic, it can indicate negation of a proposition, such as "~z" for "not z". In addition to mathematics, the tilde has also found numerous uses in the computing discipline.

On occasion, Phoenix Rising's retired computing teacher, psnz, has been known to refer to the tilde as "squiggle".

Answer: ^

Also known as freestanding circumflex, the caret was originally a mark used in proofreading to indicate the place where a phrase, a word, or a punctuation mark needed to be inserted in a text. Meaning "it lacks" in Latin (from the verb "carere" - "to lack", "to be without"), the caret is shaped like an inverted lower-case V.

Now widely used in computing and mathematics, in typewriter keyboards designed for languages that use diacritics the caret was often used as a "dead key" - meaning that the mark could be overprinted on a letter (or the other way round) without the paper carriage moving on. On QWERTY computer keyboards, the caret is produced by pressing Shift+6; in online interactions (such as forums, chats, and social media), one or more carets represent an upward-pointing arrow, indicating emphasis or agreement.

The circumflex proper (from the Latin for "bent around") is a diacritic used on both vowels and consonants to mark pitch, length (as in French), stress (as in Portuguese), vowel quality (as in Romanian), or other articulatory features.

This question and its answer were duly emphasized by LadyNym.

Answer: &

The origin of the ampersand, '&', is Latin with the word 'ampersand' appearing in the late 18th century as a contraction of 'et per se and' ("and on its own and"). The symbol is a ligature (merging) of the word 'et' (= and) in cursive script. Its creation is usually attributed to Cicero's scribe and slave, Marcus Tullius Tiro, who developed the world's first acknowledged shorthand system for writing. 'Tironian notes' (in Latin, "notae Tironianae") were created in 63 BC and were then used over the next millennium. In common present usage, the ampersand joins two names or linked items (frequently in names of companies, but no commercial endorsement here!), rather than as a replacement for the word 'and' when that word is used as a conjunction.

This question was placed between 2 & 4, by Phoenix Rising member MikeMaster99.

Answer: Vertical bar

The pipe symbol is also known as the 'vertical bar'. The 'pipe' is most commonly encountered in computer science, mathematics and type setting, although it was also used in medieval Europe as an alternative to the forward slash, indicating the end of a written phrase or text segment. Although there are a very large number of related uses, in computer nomenclature, the pipe indicates that the output of one data/information stream becomes the input to the next, much like the everyday pipe acting as a conduit for water moving from inlet to outlet. Arguably the most frequent use in mathematics is to indicate the absolute value of a variable, x, when written with the pipe either side, however it is also used in conditional probability and in logic where it is known as the Sheffer stroke. Musicians will be familiar with the single or double pipe followed by a colon indicating the beginning of a section of music and at the end the colon comes before the single or double pipe.

A double vertical bar is used in literary criticism and analysis to mark a caesura (strong break) within a verse, common in Old English poetry such as "Beowulf".

This question was inserted into the text by Phoenix Rising member MikeMaster99, who, after reading the myriad of uses and applications of this symbol, is now off to a bar with the intention of course to remain vertical!

Answer: #

"Octothorpe" is but one name for the character "#", which is also variously known as the number sign, pound sign, sharp, hash and latterly, hashtag to denote social media topics.

The origin of the character probably began with a ligatured (joined) "lb" (pounds avoirdupois from the Latin "libra pondo" meaning "pound weight".) Unicode calls the character the "number sign". "Pound sign" or "pound" is a United States usage, particularly on telephone keypads. Hash or hashmark is a United Kingdom term, possibly from "hatch" since the character is cross-hatched.

The "octothorpe" term (with various spellings) was probably coined at "Bell Telephone Laboratories" (c. 1968) where workers wanted a word for the symbol as used on telephone keypads. There are various tales as to the origin of the name, none particularly compelling or conclusive.

The character has a variety of uses in mathematics, computing and even chess notation, with many disciplines adopting it for their own purposes. When it precedes a number, it is read as the word "number". In press releases, ### marks the end of the piece. Other names for the "#" character include crosshatch, crunch, flash, gate, grid, mesh, pig-pen, scratch, tic-tac-toe and unequal. This list is by no means exhaustive!

Phoenix Rising's psnz scratched out this piece of "interesting information".
###

Answer: :

The colon (:) is a punctuation mark consisting of two dots one above the other. The English word "colon" is from Latin "colon" which came from Ancient Greek "kolon", meaning "member", or "portion". In this context the Greek colon did not refer to punctuation, but indicated that it was a section or portion of a complete thought or sentence. Over time, the colon came to be used as a full stop or to indicate a change of speaker. Around 1600 in English, it became a pause somewhere between a comma and a full stop/period. Up to the late 18th century, the appropriateness of a colon was still being related to the length of a pause.

The colon in contemporaneous English usage includes, when it precedes an explanation, a list or a quotation. It is also used as a separator between hours and minutes in time. However there are different usages between British English and American English. It is acceptable to capitalise the first letter after the colon in American English if the first word is any independent clause. There are also differences within various style guides about its usage which adds to the confusion.

This question was written by 1nn1: Phoenix Rising team member, quiz author, and Fun Trivia editor.

Answer: `

The name "grave" given to this diacritical mark is a literal Latin translation ("gravis") of the Greek "bareÎa", the feminine form of the adjective "barús", meaning "heavy" or "low-pitched". The grave accent first appeared in Ancient Greek to indicate a lower pitch than the one marked by the acute accent; it is now used in a wide range of modern languages to mark stress, pitch, or other features.

In Romance languages such as Italian and Catalan, the grave accent marks the stressed vowels at the end of words - as in the case of "città" ("city") or "virtù" ("virtue"). The grave accent can also distinguish between open and closed vowels (as in French, or in Italian for E and O), or to disambiguate between homophones - as in Italian "la" (the feminine singular form of the definite article) and "là" ("there"). In tonal languages such as Chinese, the grave accent indicates a falling tone. In English, on the other hand, it is occasionally used in poetry - often with words ending in "-ed" - to indicate that a usually silent vowel should be pronounced to fit the metre.

On a QWERTY keyboard, the grave accent is a key by itself, which produces the stand-alone character. In the countries or territories where this diacritic mark is routinely used, the precomposed characters are provided on standard keyboards.

LadyNym hopes that the importance of this question was properly stressed.

Answer: /

The virgule is also known as the slash, forward slash, solidus or oblique (18th Century). Its name comes from the Latin word "virgula", meaning "little twig". Curiously, the French word for the comma is also "virgule". The Unicode name for the character is solidus, a derivation from the "shilling mark" used in pre-decimal currency (as in 2/6 for two shillings and sixpence).

The virgule is a short oblique stroke used as a dividing line, as in dates (mm/dd/yyyy). The solidus is also used between two words indicating that the appropriate text may be chosen, for example: his/her attorney. In mathematics, the slash may indicate a fraction (5/8 for five eighths) and it is also used to indicate division. The computing discipline uses the forward slash in several ways, including file paths, Internet URLs and programming.

Jack/JAM6430 from Phoenix Rising was pleased/delighted/ecstatic to contribute this question to the quiz.

Answer: @

The @ sign suffers from not having a single name in English. It is known as the 'at symbol'; 'commercial at'; or 'address sign'. Because of this single word name absence, it is also, but uncommonly known in English by its French or Spanish names: "arobase" or "arroba" respectively. Some have tried to coin new terms such as 'asperand' and 'ampersat' but these terms have not entered the English lexicon.

Its initial usage was an accounting abbreviation for "At the rate of". As such it did not appear very often on commercial typewriters until the '50s, though there was one verifiable example that is dated at 1889, and they have appeared on 'Underwood No. 5' typewriters since 1900. Its use increased logarithmically in 1971 when BBN technologies' Ray Tomlinson introduced it to make email address formats (SMTP) different from other formats. In this context '@' takes the form of "located at" . It is also used as a handle on social media (eg "@Jillcitizen" ).

One interesting differentiation between British English and American English is in the sporting arena. In British English opposing sports teams have their names separated by a "v" or "Vs" (for versus) where the home team is written first. In American English the convention is the obverse, the away team can be written first with "@" to indicate which team's home venue the game will be played.

This question th@ 1nn1@Phoenix_Rising team member wrote, was form@ted whilst e@ing non-f@ kumqu@s and drinking musc@ as tre@s.

Answer: Curly

Brackets are a family of punctuation marks, each consisting of a pair of opening (fore-facing) and closing (back-facing) characters. The different forms are:
(Rounded brackets or parentheses)
[Square brackets]
{Curly brackets or braces}
«Angle brackets (less than, greater than), or chevrons (shown)»
These punctuation marks are typically used to separate a piece of text or data from its surroundings.

Braces { and } have an imaginative list of names, including "swirly brackets", "squirrelly brackets", "gull wings", "seagulls", "French brackets", "Scottish brackets" and even "moustache brackets".

Their use in prose and formal writing is rare. In music, "accolades" or "braces" are used to connect staves (lines) of music that are played simultaneously. Many computer programming languages use braces to enclose lines of code and create scope. In mathematics, braces have found a use as set delimiters.

{Phoenix Rising's psnz braced himself to write this piece of interesting information.}