All About At

@ = At?

@ = Monkey?

@ = Strudel?

Along the same lines of the Tingo book, Washington
Post
writer Nancy Szokan takes us
round the world with
the ubiquitous tech symbol — @ — a global mark used by all, but named a wide variety of things in
different countries. Szokan points readers to the comprehensive Herodios
for a history of the many words that exist for @ around the world. The research was done by a linguist in Taiwan, and
includes interpretations for @ in over 30 languages.

There are a few food references to pastries and pickled herring, but most are animal references — elephant trunk,
pig tail, little snail, maggot and monkey testicle! In Sweden, it is sometimes called “kanelbulle”, a cinnamon roll.
Maybe it’s cuz I’m hungry, but it sure looks like a Cinnabon to me! I prefer that to animal body parts, thank
you.

[via TMN]