> An octothorpe is better known as which word?And the answer: a hashtag.The # symbol has had many familiar names over the years, from pound sign andnumber sign to hashtag. The octothorpe gets its peculiar name from telephonecompanies, when operators needed a name for the symbol with eight points.Photo credit: socialmediaweek.org[https://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2018/02/history-hashtags-symbol-changed-way-search-share/].2007 brought many gifts of the modern age – the iPhone, the growth of Twitter,the Pixar film Ratatouille – but perhaps most significantly, the hashtag wasborn. Coined in its modern iteration by Twitter user Chris Messina, the hashtagquickly caught on as a means of following a single topic, person or discussionwithout having to search words separately. However, the pound symbol/hashtag/octothorpe is no new invention. In fact, itactually dates back to Ancient Rome, where it began as the Latin term librapondo, translating to "pound in weight." The phrase was soon abbreviated to lb,which we still use today to refer to weight. As lb became standardized, it wasoften spelled with a bar across the two letters – ℔ – to show they wereconnected. Time and the writing of messy scribes took its toll, and the termmorphed closer to the classic #. Its meaning, which originally referred to theunit pound, also began to be used as a number sign. Thankfully, the firsttelephones were created included the symbol, ensuring its longevity for years tocome. #Thankful.