Pronouncing ASCII characters
What do you call a #? It's obvious (almost) what to call the alphanumeric characters in ASCII, but what do you call the other signs? In particular, when you're reading out a line of code from some arcane script, or when you're debating the usefulness of some planned ASCII-based syntax, how do you save time naming all the unpronounceable symbols?
One good approach is the monosyllabic standard. One character -- one syllable. Here is a list of useful names, with minimal etymology, collected variously from "personal experience" and the Jargon File. Some of these are less well-known than others (or not at all), so you need to get people used to them, before you actually start saving time by using them...
(space) is best called... "space"
! bang -- presumably because of the exclamatory or expletive use in human languages (also pling)
" quote -- common name
# hash (or grill, or pound)
$ buck -- pretty clear (or cash, which is better but too close to "hash" for easy distinction, or "ching" -- as in cash register opening)
% mod -- C modulo operator (also grapes, presumably for graphical reasons)
& and -- C operator (or amp -- short for ampersand)
' tick, or prime -- as mathematicians call it (or quote, if you call the double quotes something else)
( left
) right
* star -- graphical reasons (or times, from the C operator)
+ plus -- common name
, the awfully bisyllabic "comma", or INTERCAL's ridiculous-sounding "tail". You might get away with "com".
. dot (or point, or stop) -- all common names, more-or-less
/ slash -- common name
: dots -- graphical (also "colon", but that's two syllables, again)
; semi -- short for semicolon (also, can't remember where I heard this, "bird" -- must be graphical, somehow)
< bra -- physicists' jargon (bra and ket make up both sides of the angled brackets) (or from -- inspired by UNIX shells)
> ket (or to) as above
= equals -- obvious, but not monosyllabic (also, the Jargon File has "gets" or "takes", which make sense, but sound rather poor)
? what -- any question word should do...
@ at -- if you're reading this, you don't need to be told
[ square -- as in "square bracket"
] unsquare? (yuck) Still looking, here.
\ back -- as in "backslash"
^ hat -- graphical, used by mathematicians of their notation (also xor, after the C operator)
_ floor -- graphical (also "score", as in "underscore")
` grave -- for the similarly-shaped French accent
{ brace -- common name (or "curl")
} unbrace or uncurl
| pipe -- from UNIX shells (also "or", from the C operator, and "bar", for graphical reasons
~ tilde -- for the similar accent (or "not", for the C operator)
And while we're at it, W and 7 are a pain in the monosyllabic neck. "Dub" is sometimes acceptable for W (especially when pronouncing URLs), but what to do about "seven"...? mkb and EMH Mark3 both suggest the French sept (pronounced "set"). Perhaps it'll work.