A small glyph with lots of functions An article in Time magazine entitled The History of #—and 6 Other Symbols that Rule Twitter and the Web (published 4 years ago, but which I came across this year) talks about how various little known or underused punctuation symbols have gained more prominence after being adopted in computing and, more recently, on the social media. We learn that the at sign, @, was given a new lease of life in 1971 thanks to the creation of email, and the hash/pound sign, #, the formal name of which is octothorpe , was rehabilitated thanks to Twitter. The word "asterisk" comes from Latin / Greek words meaning "star" I wouldn't agree though with the author's take on the asterisk, *, described as "a singularly underemployed mark", which is "rarely seen in print". Was it really a neglected symbol resurrected with the advent of the Internet like the hash (#) and the slash ( / )? Admittedly, the asterisk has more uses to...