Name of this symbol ※

[Eway]

Do this symble "[font=&#26032]※" has an English name?[/font]
[font=&#26032]What do you call it when you're referring to it?[/font]

 

[Tdol]

I don't think I've ever referred to it. ;-)

 

[Eway]

All right, then,

if I say it's "two slashes cross each other with four dots on each side",
can people understand which symbol I'm talking about?

Or....there's someway to address it more clearly....err...by words;-)

 

[Tdol]

I'll try to find out- what's it used for? ;-)

 

[Eway]

For explaining to foreigners the pattern on Chinese antiques:-?

 

[suzivi]

Re: Name of this symbol ?

The symbol you've asked about is called an "asterisk". It's used to point to a footnote or extra comment you'd like to add to what you've already written.

e.g. I won't be able to make it on Saturday.*
(At the end of the page you'd show an asterisk followed by your quote or extra comment.)

 

[ShaneX]

Name of this symbol ※ (UPDATE)

When issuing a Google search for the character above a post in this lovely forum has an outstanding page 1 pagerank on the search engine. The post in question is titled exactly as above, sans the "(UPDATE)" suffix, and can be found here:
http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/threads/8892-Name-of-this-symbol-※


Within this thread the original poster asked the question:
Does this symbol "※" have an English name?
What do you call it when you're referring to it?


However no accurate answer was provided within the thread, and due to it being very old it has since been closed. I am reposting this here in part because I have frustratingly come across this answer-less forum post multiple times over the past couple months, but also in the hopes that it too will also garner favorable page rank on Google and provide the answer to any future Unicode/character script explorers.

Within the thread user 'suzivi' referred to it as an "asterisk," which is not exactly correct, though her description of its use is partly correct. The symbol is used in, but not necessarily limited to, Japanese and old medieval-age Latin. In Japanese it is used somewhat similarly to how we use asterisks, as a note to the reader of the text to draw their eyes to the proper location for additional supporting information for the passage in which it was used. It is not traditionally used the way we use asterisks, daggers, and superscript numerals in square brackets, to reference a specific line in the footnote area of the document; instead, it is most often used directly following the passage in which it was found. Nowadays however with technology and structured literature evolving as it has, it is more common to see it being used in this way, referring to a specific footnote. When this is done the character is immediately followed by a standard English (Arabic) Numeral, for example: ※1, ※2, ※3...


In Japanese this symbol is named a "Komejirushi," or "kome" for short, meaning "rice symbol" as it looks distinctly similar to the kanji character for "rice." Since this isn't technically an English character it never had an official English name. HOWEVER, the symbol was incorporated into the Unicode Standard (character U+203b) to support its digital use in language character sets that require it. Due to this, the character has been given an official name within the Unicode Standard, a 'REFERENCE MARK.' It is also common to see the character referred to unofficially as a "Note" symbol.

Thank you,
Shane Blaha
twitter.com/shanex

[link] added by moderator.

 

[Tdol]

Re: Name of this symbol ※ (UPDATE)

I have moved your post into the thread, ShaneX. Thank you for your answer.