48 3> SHADY CHARACTERS

how the # symbol came to be known as the “octothorpe” is entirely
more tortuous.

* * *

Works such as Robert Bringhurst’s Elements ofTypographic Style
(widely acknowledged as the modern bible of typography),
the American Heritage Dictionary, and the mighty Oxford English Dic¬
tionary have all weighed in with explanations for the origins of the #
mark’s most striking nickname. The fourth edition of the American
Heritage Dictionary, for instance, says of the word “octothorpe”:

Alteration (influenced by octo-) of earlier octalthorpe, the
pound key, probably humorous blend of octal, an eight-point
pin used in electronic connections (from the eight points of the
symbol) and the name of James Edward Oglethorpe.37

Unfortunately for this particular definition, the AHD appears to be its
sole proponent. Oglethorpe, founder of the American state of Georgia
as a refuge for inmates of English debtors’ jails, seems an improbable
candidate to be granted such an honor; his name is little known outside
the state he founded, and there is no real evidence to suggest a link
between Oglethorpe’s haven for alleged financial miscreants and the
character itself.38 The AHD provides no details of the provenance of
this theory, and it has a strong whiff of speculation about it.

Bringhurst’s Elements of Typographic Style, an encyclopedic and
otherwise reliable typographic reference work, takes a different tack:

In cartography, [#} is a traditional symbol for village-, eight
fields around a central square. That is the source of its
name. Octothorp means eight fields.39

THE OCTOTHORPE ?<► 49

A picturesque theory, and one with an apparent historical signifi¬
cance: the suffix -thorp(e) is an Old English word for village and still
occurs in British place names such as Scunthorpe.40 Nevertheless, it is
unusual to find a Greek prefix such as octo- wedded to an Old English
word in this manner, and the true derivation of the symbol as a cor¬
ruption of lb rather gives the lie to Bringhurst’s definition.

Lastly, the OED gamely advances two similar but separate etymol¬
ogies, both of which emanate from the unlikely linguistic wellspring
of AT&T’s hallowed research subsidiary, Bell Telephone Laboratories.
First cited is the industry journal Telecoms Heritage, which alleges that
a Bell employee named Don MacPherson needed a suitably distinctive
name for the age-old # symbol:

His thought process was as follows: There are eight points
on the symbol so octo should be part of the name. We
need a few more letters or another syllable to make a noun.

[... ] (Don Macpherson [... ] was active in a group that was
trying to get Jim Thorpe’s Olympic medals returned from
Sweden). The phrase thorpe would be unique.4'

The question ofwho exactly Don MacPherson was, and why he needed
to find a name for the # symbol was not broached. The OED's second
attempt, however, goes a little further, quoting a 1996 issue of New
Scientist magazine:42

The term ‘octothorp(e)’ [...] was invented for *#’, allegedly
by Bell Labs engineers when touch-tone telephones were
introduced in the mid-1960s. ‘Octo-’ means eight, and
‘thorp’ was an Old English word for village: apparently the
sign was playfully construed as eight fields surrounding a
village.43