May 15, 2009 | Misc

Ever wonder where the “@” used in e-mail address formats came from?

Well, it’s not as if the inventors of e-mail came up with a new funny character first, and then it started showing up on computer keyboards. In English, the “@” is known as the “at” sign, derived from “at the rate of,” being used to indicate prices of commodities. But the earliest recorded use of the sign wasn’t in England.

Rather, reports Wired, referencing a The Next Web article, the earliest use of @ outside a monastery was in a letter written in 1536 by a Florentine trader named Francesco Lapi. It was used to mean “amphora,” a unit of measure.

Via the Bits blog at the New York Times.

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