When is a pound sign not a pound sign?

When it is a #.  Hardly the best joke in the world but yet another example of the colour color difference that occurs when you travel across the north Atlantic.   The reason why I mention this is because I am starting to work on Cascading Style Sheets and in particular style selectors.   I had seen a video podcast about the ID selector and the presenter referred to the 'pound sign' as the symbol that it must start with.  The pound sign in this case was the #.  Now to us on this side of the pond this is the 'hash' mark rather than the pound sign which is, of course, £.

I have now seen the pound sign mentioned again in the Dreamweaver for Dummies book I am using so I decide to examine this problem a little further.  According to Wikipedia this goes not refer to the currency but rather the imperial measurement of weight/mass.  It also notes that apart from the USA and Canada the rest of the english speaking world calls this the 'hash' mark.

This is, of course, another example of the power of the dominant culture to impose their values on other cultures.  The culture that I am talking about is that of programing languages which are all defined in 'American English'.   One of the best examples of this is the ways that dates are handled within a program.   The default setting is the American i.e. Month, Day, Year - this is why we talk about 9/11 rather than 11/9.

So what is the point of this ramble through the arcane difference in names of symbols in programing languages?  Well I suppose not a great deal apart from the fact that you have to be aware of these differences.  In many ways the American way of spelling is more straightforward with their removal of superfluous letters, again such as the u in Colour.  This difference may become more important as the weeks and months advance in the new Presidency of Barack Obama, who may treat Britain with a little more reservation than previous incumbents.  The so called 'special relationship' has always been about self interest rather than anything else.

Phew!  Moving from difference in programming language to political relationships in three paragraphs - whatever next?