What do sleeping cats, little snails and strudels all have in common?


email in russian
To speakers of different languages around the world, these objects all resemble “@,” the little symbol that likes to populate our emails and tweets.

In English the symbol is boringly known as "at", but other languages offer more imaginative names.

Other languages are much more colorful in what they refer to it, using animals (or even pastries) to spice up their vernacular. 

So what do we call it in Russian?


In Russian this symbol is called  "собака" (dog)  or more often with diminutive suffix -ЧК-   "собачка" - that means little dog.

As far as I know in Italian the symbol is known as a chiocciola  and denotes a snail.

In Hungary, this symbol is called kukatsz which means little worm.

I have heard it called petit escargot - little snail  in France.

In Israel  the @ symbol is often referred to as strudel.   

Quite interesting names! 

What do you call that sign in your language?   Write it down in the comment box.

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