@ sign

I heard on the radio that the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) in NY acquired the @ sign for its department of architecture and design as a great example of modern design. The @ sign is of course ubiquitous today, with e-mail taking a role of ever-increasing importance as a means of communication.

The surprising news however is this is not a new symbol - it was being used since the middle ages to signify the preposition "at" while using fewer pen strokes. Venetian and Portuguese merchants in the 17th century used the symbol to signify "unit price". In the 20th century it was being used by accountants and had found its way into the teletype keyboard when it was "discovered" by Ray Tomlinson (a computer scientist) in 1971. He had been contracted by the US government and was working on what would eventually become e-mail. He used the @ symbol to make the e-mail address shorter and boosted this once-obscure symbol into modern day consciousness.