Special characters

Special characters have been given pronunciations similar to letters and numbers in a radio alphabet. The most common pronunciations originated with users of Unix systems. Each of the ASCII printable characters has multiple names — some formal, some concise, some silly (Intercal is responsible for some of this).^[vague]^[1]

ASCII special characters

The following is a fairly complete list:^{[citation needed]}

ASCII CODE

21 ! - "bang", "shriek" - exclamation point
22 " - "quote"
23 # - "hash" - distinct from "pound" which is the British currency symbol, "sharp", "octothorpe"
24 $ - "bling", "ding" (cash register sound), "cash", "buck", "dollar"
25 % - "percent", "percent sign"
26 & - "amper" - distinct from "amp" in "&amp;" (see below) and the word "and"
27 ' - "tick"
28 ( - "paren", "open"
29 ) - "paren", "close"
2A * - "splat", "star"
2B + - "plus"
2C , - "twitch"
2D - - "dash","minus","tack"
2E . - "dot", "period"
2F / - "slash", "forward slash"
3A : - "two dots", "colon"
3B ; - "semi", "semicolon"
3C < - "waka", "less"
3D = - "equals"
3E > - "waka", "more"
3F ? - "hook", "query", "eh?" - question mark
40 @ - "whirl", "monkey", "at"
5B [ - "square", "left"
5C \ - "whack", "back slash"
5D ] - "square", "right"
5E ^ - "hat", "caret"
5F _ - "skid", "underbar", "underscore"
60 ` - "grave"
7B { - "curly", "embrace"
7C | - "bar", "pipe"
7D } - "curly", "unbrace"
7E ~ - "twiddle", "tilde"
B4 ´ - "acute"

#! - "sh'bang" (hash/bang)
/* - "slashterix"
*/ - "asterslash"
&amp; - "amper-amp" - the HTML and XML encoding for the ampersand character^[2]

References

^ "The Jargon File": "ASCII" edited by Eric S. Raymond
^ "HTML Compatibility Guidelines". World Wide Web Consortium.

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[1] "The Jargon File": "ASCII" edited by Eric S. Raymond

[2] "HTML Compatibility Guidelines". World Wide Web Consortium.

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