Symbols are increasingly used in our everyday messages. We must have a mutually agreed-upon set of names for symbols so we can understand each other exactly.
We define the following standard symbol names. As you will see, we use the common name for symbols, which should make speaking and copying symbols very straight-forward.
Some symbols have multiple common names:
Symbol | Voicing | Notes |
---|
. | period | When at the end of a sentence |
. | decimal | When in numbers |
. | dot | When used in email, packet and internet addresses |
, | comma |
|
: | colon |
|
; | semi-colon |
|
? | question-mark |
|
! | exclamation-point |
|
- | minus-sign | When in numbers |
- | hyphen | When in words |
- | dash | Elsewhere |
+ | plus-sign |
|
= | equal-sign |
|
@ | at-sign |
|
# | pound-sign |
|
$ | dollar-sign |
|
& | ampersand |
|
* | asterisk |
|
/ | slash |
|
\ | backslash |
|
" | double-quotes |
|
' | apostrophe | When within words |
' | single-quote | Elsewhere |
` | back-quote |
|
% | percent-sign |
|
( | left-parenthesis |
|
) | right-parenthesis |
|
[ | left-square-bracket |
|
] | right-square-bracket |
|
{ | left-curly-bracket |
|
} | right-curly-bracket |
|
< | less-than-sign |
|
> | greater-than-sign |
|
_ | underscore |
|
| | vertical-line |
|
^ | caret | CARE-et |
~ | tilde | TILL-dee |
° | degree-sign |
|