Pinotage - re pound sign

[Quizmonster]

Pinotage, re your latest post here, you're probably right and nobody does know. However, it is possible to make an educated guess as to how the suffixed # meaning 'pounds weight' came, over time, to mean 'number'. The # was always in close association with a number, anyway, as in 'carrots 16#', so I can easily envisage a businessman shipping 16 crates - rather than carrots! - marking them '#1' to '#16' as an easy checking device for both himself and the person taking delivery.

In other words, a symbol that was well known to traders was simply adapted to another use. This is, after all, exactly what happens to language/communication all the time. As a young man - a long time ago! - I would have been perfectly happy to tell my friends that I had attended a 'gay' party the evening before. (It meant bright, cheerful etc then.) I'd think twice about saying any such thing nowadays! Things change and that's all there is to it. Could that be the answer? (I thought I'd better make this a question!)

[paulz]

QM - lord knows what spillmiester will make of that [not your grammar but language moving on] - but it's on a par with saying I'm going camping [as taboo now as saying in the States "do you want a fag"]. The other thing I always associate the hash sign is with the godawful phone systems, press 1 to mad, press # for vivaldi, press 3... :+)