OCTOTHORP

Here's something interesting. But, why do we now call it the "pound" sign.

OCTOTHORP
(AHK-tuh-thorp)
(n.) The "pound" sign, "number sign," or "tictactoe sign"

Also spelled "octothorpe," this name for the "#" symbol dates from the 1960s. The story goes that it was coined by employee at Bell Labs after the telephone company introduced the # key on then-new
touch-tone phone systems. When instructing their first new client in the use of the new system, employee Don Macpherson supposedly dubbed that particular key the "octothorp." He chose "octo-" because of the
symbol's eight points, and added "thorpe" because at the time he belonged to a group trying to get the Olympic medals of the athlete Jim Thorpe returned from Sweden.

That's the story, anyway. But lacking firmer proof, the few dictionaries that even include this word fudge the issue, noting that its origin is "unknown." Another suggested origin involves the fact
that "thorpe" is Old Norse for "farm" or "village": Some have suggested that octothorpe is so named because the # resembles eight fields around a village. Suffice to say, it's not often that you hear "Please enter your password, followed by the 'octothorp'."

Well, nobody in the UK calls the '#' a 'Pound sign'. The pound - UK sterling; not the 'lb' type of pound - has it's own symbol which has remained the same for a good few years now (certainly pre-dates 1960) and seems fairly widely accepted. Sorry I can't be of more help.

Assuming the # sign does appear on UK telephones, what do you call it?

According to www.nightflight.com/ foldoc ('Free Online Dictionary
of Computing'):
"hash

1. "#", ASCII code 35.

Common names: number sign; pound; pound sign; hash; sharp; crunch; hex; INTERCAL: mesh. Rare: grid; crosshatch; octothorpe; flash; ITU-T: square, pig-pen;
tictactoe; scratchmark; thud; thump; splat.

The pronunciation of "#" as "pound" is common in the US but a bad idea; Commonwealth Hackish has its own, rather more apposite use of "pound sign"
(confusingly, on British keyboards the pound graphic happens to replace "#"; thus Britishers sometimes call "#" on a US-ASCII keyboard "pound", compounding the
American error). The US usage derives from an old-fashioned commercial practice of using a "#" suffix to tag pound weights on bills of lading. The character is
usually pronounced "hash" outside the US "

Most British programmers would call it a hash symbol; but no-one
outside computing would understand that. The only time I've heard
it used on phones, they called it the square key. I think most British
people avoid using it altogether, since we don't have an agreed name
for it. 'Tictactoe' would be a good name, except that the game is called
'noughts and crosses' in Britain.

I like pigpen! I can just hear the voicemail robots saying "if you wish to leave a message, press pigpen 5." Cool.