Thread by @elongilad

1/12 🧵 You know this symbol: @
In English, we call it the "at sign." But around the world? It's a zoo, a menu, and sometimes... a nipple.
Here's how one symbol became a thousand different things 👇

2/12The @ first appeared in 1536 in a Spanish merchant's letter as shorthand for "arroba"—a weight unit from Arabic.
French merchants used it for "at the price of." English just called it "at."
Then 1971 happened, and everything changed.

3/12Engineer Ray Tomlinson needed to separate usernames from servers in email. He picked @ because it meant "at" and wasn't doing much else.
That's when the world's languages got... creative.

4/12 🐒 Most popular? MONKEY names:
🇳🇱 Dutch: "apenstaartje" (monkey tail) 🇩🇪 German: "Affenschwanz" (monkey tail)
🇵🇱 Polish: "małpa" (monkey) 🇷🇴 Romanian: "coadă de maimuță" (monkey tail)
Why monkeys? That curly tail, obviously.

5/12 🐌 The SNAIL crew:
🇮🇹 Italian: "chiocciola" 🇺🇦 Ukrainian: "равлик" 🇰🇷 Korean: "골뱅이" 🇧🇾 Belarusian: "сьлімак"
They see the spiral shell. Fair enough.

6/12 🦆🐶 The random animal kingdom:
🇬🇷 Greek: "παπάκι" (duckling) 🇷🇺 Russian: "собака" (little dog) 🇦🇲 Armenian: "շնիկ" (puppy) 🇭🇺 Hungarian: "kukac" (worm)
Greece really said "duckling" and moved on.

7/12 🐘 Scandinavians see ELEPHANT TRUNK:
🇩🇰🇳🇴 Danish/Norwegian: "snabel-a"
🇫🇮 Finland did something unhinged: first "cat tail," then switched to "miukumauku" (meow-meow).

8/12 🔄 Some focused on SHAPE:
🇳🇴 Norwegian: "krøllalfa" (curly alpha) 🇨🇳 Chinese: "圈a" (circle a) or "花a" (flower a) 🇻🇳 Vietnamese: "a móc" (hooked a)
Logical, but less fun than monkeys.

9/12 😴 The boring countries just borrowed English:
🇯🇵 Japanese: "アットマーク" (at mark) 🇸🇦 Arabic: "آت" (at) 🇱🇹 Lithuanian: "eta"
No creativity whatsoever.

10/12 ⚖️ Spain, Portugal, and France kept it traditional with the old weight measure:
🇪🇸🇵🇹 Spanish/Portuguese: "arroba" 🇫🇷 French: "arobase"
Respect for the classics.

11/12 🍽️ But then there's FOOD:
🇸🇪 Swedish: "kanelbulle" (cinnamon bun) 🇨🇿🇸🇰 Czech/Slovak: "zavináč" (rolled pickled fish) 🇮🇱 Hebrew: "שטרודל" (strudel)
And yes, Philippines went with... "utong" (nipple). 🇵🇭

12/12 🥐 Hebrew's "strudel" has the best origin story:
In the '80s, American techies used "strudel" as slang for @. Israelis heard it, adopted it, and never let go.
English moved on. Hebrew kept the pastry.
Sometimes borrowed slang outlasts the original.