We were having a discussion about the name for the # symbol. I've used octothorpe, and smugly thought that was "proper english". Turns out that the ITU standard term for # is "square". I found a few different definitions and some information.
Ralph Carlson claimed Octothorpe was created in 1961 by Bell Labs supervisor Don MacPherson. He used "thorpe" because he was working on getting Jim Thorpe's medals returned from Sweden, and thorpe seemed to be not made up.
The dictionary said it is related to Oglethorpe.
Another option listed is that thorpe is the old english word for english, and the symbol looks like a village surrounded by fields.
Idly.org says that the # is derived from "lb", which is shorthand for Latin libra aka balance. And they claim $ is short-hand for US.... hmmm.
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