科普：“@”在各種語言中分別叫什么？

　　Talking about the “at” sign is much more interesting if you’re not speaking English. The Wikipedia entry for @ lists names for it in over 50 other languages, many of which are colourful interpretations of its shape – and which, in true online style, often involve animal analogies.

　　說起“at”符號(@)，其他外語比英語的用法有趣得多。維基百科上給出的“@”詞條列舉了50多種外語下的名稱，在這之中很多都是對其形狀的生動解釋——通常是類比動物的網(wǎng)絡流行語。

　　Armenians call it ishnik, meaning a “puppy” (curled up on the floor, I assume). Chinese terms include xiao laoshu in Taiwan, meaning “little mouse” and quan ei on the mainland, meaning “circled A”. Danes, meanwhile, prefer snabela (an “elephant’s trunk A”).

　　亞美尼亞人稱其為“ishnik”，這是“小狗”的意思(大概是@像蜷成一團的小狗吧)。在中國，臺灣人叫它“小老鼠”，大陸人叫它“圈A”，意思是“圈住的A”。然而，丹麥人更喜歡叫他“snabela”(大象鼻子的形狀A)。

　　Hungarians have the less savory kukac (“worm” or “maggot”), Italians the slightly more palatable chiocciola (“snail”), while – two personal favourites – Kazakhs see a ай??ла? (“moon’s ear”) and some Germans a klammeraffe (“spider monkey”? – or, more precisely, “cling monkey”). If you’reGreek, you say papaki, meaning “little duck.”

　　匈牙利人的叫法“kukac” (“蟲子”、“蛆”)最倒胃口，而意大利人的叫法chiocciola(“蝸牛”)則相對可口一些，個人最喜歡的兩種稱呼是哈薩克人的ай??ла?(“月之耳”)和德國人klammeraffe(“蜘蛛猴”)。如果你是希臘人，你會叫它papaki，是小鴨子的意思。

　　There’s interest outside the animal kingdom, too. Bosnians go for ludo A (“crazy letter A”), while in Slovak it is a zavinac (“pickled fish roll”) and in Turkish a guzel A (“beautiful A”). There’s even a special Morse Code signal for @ – the only new symbol added since World War One – formed by running together the dots and dashes for the letters “A” and “C” as a single character: (·--·-·).

　　除了描述動物王國，這些外語對@也有其它稱呼。比如波斯尼亞人稱之為“ludoA”(“瘋狂的字母A”)，而斯洛伐克語中則叫“zavinac”(“腌魚肉卷”)，土耳其語中是“guzelA”(“漂亮的A”)。@甚至還有特殊的摩爾斯電碼符號——這是一戰(zhàn)后唯一加入新符號——它是由點和橫杠構成的單一字符(·--·-·)，意思是字母A(·-)和C(-·-·)。

　　All of which brings us a long way from email. For me, though, it adds a pleasant depth to the hastily tapped symbol on my keyboard: a little piece of the ancient Mediterranean lodged in modernity, and a supreme enabler of contemporary exchange.

　　不過這些都和電子郵件沒什么大關系。對我來說，它可以增加打字的樂趣：這個古老的地中海符號運用于現(xiàn)代社會，有效地促進著當代信息交流。