Re: fortran character set

In article <NtNAi.57317$ax1.27600@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
James Giles <jamesgiles@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
John Harper wrote:
...
The problem is all the non-dollar currency symbols. Many Americans
call the hash mark or octothorp a pound sign, [...]

Used in that way it usually refers to pounds avoirdupois. I've
never encountered anyone (Americans or otherwise) that thought
it was really a currency symbol.

I seem not to have explained myself clearly enough. When Americans use
the phrase "pound sign" they mean pounds avoirdupois, as James said.
But when British, New Zealanders and possibly others use the phrase
"pound sign" they mean pounds in some currency. Either James never
used the phrase in the company of any such person, or he didn't know
that there had been a failure of communication.

For years I thought that Americans were misleading us when they said
that # was a pound sign, because I had no way to know that they were
using the other meaning of "pound". OED on-line has this distinction
right, but even they had to amend their entry for it last December.

-- John Harper, School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science,
Victoria University, PO Box 600, Wellington 6140, New Zealand
e-mail john.harper@xxxxxxxxx phone (+64)(4)463 5341 fax (+64)(4)463 5045
.

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