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Interrobang

99% Invisible

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The Touch Tone Telephone

Scribes or writers got a bit careless, so theyd write faster and faster and faster. S he join the l to the b, and then maybe the a doesn't leave the paper before it does the little bar across the top. And so this seems to have given rise to the pound symbol, or hash mark, or lumber yard. Overtime, the symbol's meaning started to bificate. It was used, like l b, for the unit pound, and it also started to be used as a number sign. In 19 63, the invention of the touch tone telephone. So unlike previous phones, the numbers didn't have to be arranged in a circle on the dial any more

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