OT: The ampersand invasion

Italian VT300 terminals don't either, but you soon get used to typing COMPOSE - ( to get {

Yes, the USPS can be very uptight when you address things not according to its preferences. E.g. you MUST include your originating name and address in the top left corner of the envelope. Failure to do so could result in major delays in delivering the mail. No reason, just that's the way it is. Also, it is illegal to put anything in a property's kerbside mail box that has not been through the USPS system. "We own the inside of your mailbox, by Law". Personally-delivered Christmas cards must be delivered to the house directly, they cannot be put into the mail box. Belligerent 'letter-carriers' can remove the and dispose of them, undelivered. Land of the Free, remember?

Just to really confuse the British visitor, addresses can be really odd. We lived for a while in Edinburgh Drive, Dublin, Ohio.

And plenty call @ snail for what should be obvious reasons.

They were certainly present on the Macintosh Plus keyboard from 1986, and on all later ones. Perhaps your freind had an Apple II.

Or, of course, ??< and ??> !!

I've also come across quite a few people (mainly from U of Cambridge) who call it 'pling'.

That's how I always refer to it, but I have never been to Cambridge, or indeed any university.

Never really liked trigraphs, if you use compose the source all looks normal

But you probably had a BBC Micro, or Acorn Atom?

That was the name given to it by Acorn Computers with their BBC Microcomputer. Acorn were Cambridge based

In my recollection, the ! was used as a separator to specify a UUCP style path, and was distinct from a name@host separator.

E.g. see here:

"@" is an asperand, "&" is an ampersand.

That's two words "et cetera".

I've seen "visa versa" a couple of time recently, I hope t doesn't catch on.

Actually short for "exempli gratia".

Actually short for "id est".

One that gets me is people who confuse "warranty" and "warrantee".

#! at the start of a script we called "hash bang".

UUCP addressing used 'bang' in the community too, 'exclamation mark' is

The one that gets me is proscribe versus prescribe, with exactly opposite meanings.

Car breaks, and their roll in stopping a car...

As I said to The Other John - whoosh. I think it went over his head...

And of course there are the old favourites, 'infer' and 'imply'. I have also seen a big increase in the number of people who use 'I' instead of 'me', as in: "My brother came to visit my 2My brother came to visit my wife and I". Horrible, and totally wrong. They would not say: "My brother came to visit I". At least, I hope not, but you never know. Then there is the confusion between 'phenomenon' and its plural, 'phenomena'. This was committed in a TV documentary recently, by somebody who really should have known better.