User:Bigpeteb/sandbox/Special characters

Special characters have been given pronunciations similar to letters and numbers in a radio alphabet. The most common pronunciations originated with users of Unix systems. Each of the ASCII printable characters has multiple names — some formal, some concise, some silly (Intercal is responsible for some of this).

ASCII special characters
The following is a fairly complete list:

Paired characters
Characters such as parentheses have a pair of distinct left and right (opening and closing) forms.

Unique readings
Almost all programming languages combine characters together to create additional meanings beyond what the characters would represent individually.

ASCII CODE 28 ( - "paren", "open" 29 ) - "paren", "close" 2A * - "splat", "star", "asterisk" 2B + - "plus" 2C, - "twitch", "comma" 2D - - "dash","minus","tack" 2E. - "dot", "period" 2F / - "slash", "forward slash" 3A : - "two dots", "colon" 3B ; - "semi", "semicolon" 3C < - "waka", "less" 3D = - "equals" 3E > - "waka", "more" 3F ? - "hook", "query", "eh?" - question mark 40 @ - "whirl", "monkey", "at" 5B [ - "square", "left", "bracket" 5C \ - "whack", "back slash" 5D ] - "square", "right", "bracket" 5E ^ - "hat", "caret" 5F _ - "skid", "underbar", "underscore" 60 ` - "grave" 7B { - "curly", "embrace", "brace" 7C | - "bar", "pipe" 7D } - "curly", "unbrace" 7E ~ - "twiddle", "tilde" B4 ´ - "acute" /* - "slashterix" */ - "asterslash" &amp;amp; - "amper-amp" - the HTML and XML encoding for the ampersand character
 * 1) ! - "sh'bang" (hash/bang)

Origin of names: