design marks.

read the paper last week - the "@" sign has been included in MoMa's influential architecture and design list. "@" started off as the 'thingy' - no one knows what to call it, we all just know it means 'at' and that it connects our nick/name to the email domain.

here is wiki's take:
The typographic character @, called the at sign or at symbol, is an abbreviation of the word at or the phrase at the rate of in accounting and commercial invoices.

well now, since then, "@" came to be a reference for all sorts of other things, dependant on the country. Italians informally called it the “snail”, Dutch and Germans call it the "monkey's tail" and the Chinese, "little mouse".

i cant bear to read the rest of the article cause it started going about numbers (accounting).

whoever wrote invented this - lucky one. cant say genius but it's fascinating.