50 ÿ* SHADY CHARACTERS

Again a cartographic theme is invoked, though because it takes the
shape of the symbol as the starting point, it might be lent more cre¬
dence second time around.

In short, the only commonality to be found between these three
sources and their four claimed etymologies is the agreement that
“octothorpe” is formed from octo- plus “thorp(e)”. Discounting the
American Heritage Dictionary’s fanciful invocation of James Edward
Oglethorpe, and ignoring Robert Bringhurst’s charming but flawed
explanation, two sources remain, both of which mention Bell Labs.
Why, exactly, did the engineers at America’s premier telecommuni¬
cations laboratory feel the need to give this centuries-old symbol a
new name?

* * *

Bell Labs, the one-time research arm of telecom giant AT&T, pro¬
duced some of the twentieth century’s most influential devel¬
opments in science and technology. It boasts seven Nobel Prizes in
Physics awarded for, among other things, a demonstration of the wave
nature of matter, the invention of the transistor, and the discovery
of background cosmic radiation. Other notable products include the
laser, radio astronomy, the first communications satellite, and the
UNIX operating system,* a key component of the Internet and of
modern computing in general.45

Most relevant in terms of punctuation, though, is a small linguistic
innovation that emerged in the wake of a much larger technological
one. Engaged in the 1960s in reinventing the world’s ageing telephone

In certain UNIX programs, the hash symbol is forced into a shotgun marriage with the excla¬
mation mark-the “bang” in printers’ parlance-to yield #!, the “hash-bang” or “shebang.”44

THE OCTOTHORPE 51

dialing system, one of the many Bell Labs engineers working on this
mammoth task was almost certainly responsible for coining the
term “octothorpe.” And though the octothorpe’s birthplace is well
recorded, the question of exactly who created it remains contentious.

Since the arrival in the late nineteenth century of the earliest
automated exchanges, telephone calls had been routed from caller
to recipient by a method known as pulse dialing. Each digit of the
recipient’s number was transmitted to the exchange by interrupting
the line a number of times equal to the desired digit, producing a series
of characteristic “ticks” as the telephone’s rotary dial was released. At
roughly ten pulses per second, dialing a number tied up expensive call
routing equipment for too long, and the problem was compounded as
telephones became more and more widespread.46 Pulse dialing was
overdue for replacement.

Devised in the late 1940s and refined a decade later with the
advent of affordable transistors, Bell Labs’ new system consisted of
a grid of buttons, each of which transmitted an audible tone when
pressed.47 Named the “dual-tone multi-frequency” system, or the
friendlier “Touch-Tone” for public consumption, the design was sim¬
ple but ingenious.48 Its frequencies were selected to avoid confusing
human voices with button presses, while by transmitting tones in
the normal range of human hearing, the new system could be used
over existing copper wiring without the need for costly upgrades.49
Lastly, unlike pulse dialing, where the tick-tick-tick of each digit
traveled no farther than the local exchange, the audible notes of
a Touch-Tone handset reached all the way to a calls recipient,
allowing callers to control systems such as voice mail or telephone
banking.50

Though the underlying system supported a four-by-four grid of
sixteen buttons, the first consumer handsets had only ten: the first
three rows carried the digits 123, 456, and 789 respectively, with о