Quick Questions, Short Answers - No Debate

Easy way to remember: You affect an effect.

Which is kinda how I used to remember, until I just looked it up and there are noun and verb versions of both words.
Theoretically, you can:
Affect an effect
Effect an affect
Affect an affect
Effect an effectWhy does English have to be so crazy!

usasciencefestival.orgAnybody else down here for this?

In two different threads recently I've seen English people talking about money and, instead of using the pound sign '£'; they use this funny Polish letter: ''. Does the board mess this up automatically, or is this some new symbol everyone's using these days for a hypothetical currency?ABE: Well, that answers my question about the board's software. So what's with the s?Edited by caffeine, : No reason given.Edited by caffeine, : Edit2: accidental redundant word

I was able to find "￡" and ""Many Americans will take "pound sign" to mean "#".

That would be a hash.I've heard this called a pound sign plenty of times by Americans though, which raises another quick question! Where does that terminology come from?

I have no idea. But then I grew up in Australia, where "pound sign" meant the symbol you were looking for.

In the US "#" indicates a unit of weight, the pound. Wikipedia describes the origin of the symbol here. I don't think it sees much use in this way anymore, though if you were to fill in your weight on a form as "140#" most here in the US would know what you mean.--Percy

I seem to recall it being used in carpentry to designate nail size, though the term used was "penny", I might guess referring to the nail's pennyweight. For example, 8-penny nails were often used, but 16-penny nails are what you would use when framing a wall.

I'm not seeing the difference

I'm guessing it depends how your browser is set up to display HTML entity #163To me, it displays the libra symbol (the British monetary symbol, the stylized 'L') but I'm guessing others will see the Hash symbol. It displays what it thinks the 'pound sign' means to you. '#' {hash} is the pound sign for some, for others it is '' {Libra}

I just see two libras in the part i quoted:

quote:

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instead of using the pound sign ''; they use this funny Polish letter: ''.

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I don't see any hash tags. When he refers to "the pound sign" is he supposedly referring to one of these things: #Or one of these:

Same here.

quote:

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instead of using the pound sign ''; they use this funny Polish letter: ''.

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If you 'peek' you will see caffeine used HTML entity #163. Clearly, for you and I, that gets interpreted as '', the libra. Yes, some cultures call '#' the 'pound sign', and to reflect this the HTML entity for 'pound sign' is displayed as '#'. To us the 'pound sign' entity is displayed the libra.Maybe, for caffeine, the 'pound sign' is displayed as a 'funny Polish letter'.

Ooohhh...He was expecting the hash tag but saw the libra.When he said he "the pound sign", I thought he was referring to the libra.

Here in the oil-field chemical bidness, # is the most common symbol for pounds avoirdupois. But I don't see it much outside that area.