WHAT IS AN OCTOTHORPE?

We recognize it as the Telephone Company “pound sign,” # but….

The American Heritage Dictionary says that it comes from the family name of James Edward Oglethorpe, the eighteenth-century English philanthropist who secured a charter for the colony of Georgia in 1732 as a refuge for unemployed debtors. This sounds extremely unlikely as Mr Oglethorpe’s name is hardly a household word these days (at least, outside Georgia).

Another story says that it is linked to a whimsical creation based on the idea that the symbol looks like a village surrounded by eight fields. Thorp is the Old Norse word for a village, which appears in many English place names, such as Scunthorpe or Cleethorpes, though it’s not known in North America. This is possible, though perhaps a little stretched.


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Source: Merriam-Webster Dictionary – Merriam-Webster Online