@ dog

There happened an interesting thing. One of my med students asked: "What's the Russian for the symbol @?" I replied without even thinking: "Собака (sobaka = dog)". All of ther present students looked at me in surprise: "A dog?!" Yes, a dog... They were laughing and asking why dog??? And I really didn't know why! Having come home I decided to investigate the case. With the help of the blessed internet I know the truth now... 

There's a version that the symbol resembles a coiled up dog (personally I find it weird because I dont see any dog... may be the problem is in my poor imagination). The second version is that the English pronounciation of the symbol "at" resembles the dog's barking... still... not very convincing. The most suitable story is... Once upon a time when the computer games era was just starting (at least in Russia) there was a game called Adventure which happened to be a text one. In this game a player was supposed to travel along the labyrinth and fight with the evil creatures. As the game was a text one all the creatures, walls of the labyrinth, treasures and a player were pictured as text symbols ("!", "?", "-"). The thing is that a player had a companion, a dog, which was marked as @ and perhaps this is why the symbol was called СОБАКА.

       Best wishes and keep an eye open for this weird world =)