Kanako's question of January 23, 2002 about "@":

"This is called 'at mark' in Japanese. What is it called in English?"

The @ symbol has several different names, but it is usually called the "at sign" in English.

When giving someone our e-mail address, however, we usually don't say "at sign"; instead, we just say "at" where the symbol appears in the address.

If your e-mail address is "taro@aol.com," for example, you might say it as follows:

t-a-r-o-at-a-o-l-dot-com (or) taro-at-a-o-l-dot-com