Symbols

So far in this lesson on technical language technical descriptions we’ve talked about things in sequence and dates.

Now we’re going to focus on symbols not every symbol.

There are billions of symbols.

We’re going to talk about the common symbols that you find on your keyboard.

And we’re not going to talk about every one but we’re going to talk about the ones that you come across relatively often when we need to say them.

And when we don’t need to say them this is one of the more confusing things that I find a lot of English learners come across.

Should I say this or not.

Is this symbol here as just a mark to let me know or to organize something so that I kind of know what’s going on or do I actually need to speak something here.

How do I know.

Well we can go through some of these things.

OK.

I mean obviously you know at the end of a sentence you have this thing and it’s called the period and you don’t say period.

You don’t say Mary had a cat named Bob period unless you’re dictating nowadays.

You can use your phone or your computer or whatever to speak and many kinds of software at the moment require you to say period when you want to end the sentence.

So yes usually you don’t need to but recently you need to more often.

I often use dictation with my phone and I speak and I say Mary had a cat period.

Her cat was yellow period to it writes down a period when I went to there are I guess what I’m trying to say is there are always some cases when you need to be able to actually say all of these otherwise useless.

All right.

This symbol it’s called a percent.

Think you know it 70 percent of people living in love of love.

OK.

This is a percent symbol percent symbol and it is almost always actually said when written almost always actually said when written.

Sometimes you might see it just as a visual reference but usually when you come across it you should read it.

OK.

We could say maybe a zero point two percent interest rate.

There will be some cases when you might see it in front of the number but you should still say zero point two percent.

So one of the difficult things when you’re reading out some technical language is you’ll see symbols in different places and what you say is actually not the order that you’re reading it in.

So you’re reading percent zero point two sometimes you’re saying zero point two percent.

It’s the same for for example the dollar sign.

This is called a dollar sign.

And I’m sure you already know that.

So we don’t really need to focus on it in this lesson.

But you would see something like that.

You don’t say dollar five and you don’t say dollar sign five you say five dollars.

So in many cases four different symbols you will have to read things out loud differently than your eyes actually see them.

All right.

Let’s go on to this one.

This one can be called a no sign a hash or pound.

When is it used for each of these.

So the number sign is generally not spoken.

OK if it’s spoken you would just say no you won’t say no sign I’ll just say no.

So if you see this written down somewhere things in order maybe you’re calling out names number seven.

Who’s number seven.

Number seven here.

OK.

So you would say just.

Number seven.

Number five hundred fifty three maybe.

I don’t know maybe there is some sort of drawing and there’s a random number in a bucket and you take one out number 62 which is number 60 to see here number 60 to say no.

OK.

Generally it’s there to just reference the number and we don’t say this part.

OK hash it’s also called the hash.

This started to become much more popular recently in the last I don’t know maybe ten years because it’s part of another word which is hash tag on social media.

It’s a G on social media Twitter wave for Facebook.

Facebook is Facebook have hashtags.

I think so you see hashtags to let you know what’s going on with the post that’s been that’s been shared on your your home feed or whatever or what it’s related to.

You can search for other posts that have the same idea or they’re related to the same topic.

It’s called the hash tag.

So when I’m recording this Instagram is quite popular.

That of course always changes from year to year.

But let’s say there’s a hash tag insta insta good I think is the number one hashtag.

I’m not even sure what it means to be honest with you or hash tag.

I can make my own if I write my name here where you make where you post things on Instagram if it’s still there.

Hashtag Luke pretty you say the word hashtag.

OK so that’s become much more popular recently.

Pound is something that you hear on the phone.

If you get an automated message on the phone they’ll say please press pound once you’re finished with your recording or when you’re finished with your recording please press pound.

So you’ll see that symbol on the phone.

And you push it if you’d like to speak with an operator please press pound.

So you hear that often in a recorded message.

So generally you won’t need to say pound you might often more often say hashtag.

And sometimes you might need to say no but not no sign.

Now the next one is very common and sometimes it’s said sometimes it’s not said minus sign is just like no sign.

We don’t say sign but we do say minus and we’ll talk more about it when we’re talking about math problems.

But we would say for example seven minus seven seven minus seven.

Or sometimes we’ll say I’ll have tomatoes and onions minus cucumber minus cucumber.

That means please take away the cucumber.

Now sometimes it’s a dash.

And if it’s written in a number not for an equation not for a math problem but in a number like in an email address for example or maybe a user name then you will say dash dash dash OK.

And you actually should speak dash for phone numbers don’t actually say it.

The best way to think of it is if you need to take action on that and actually input it actually input input that then you should say it.

For example if you’re typing out someone’s user name to find them then OK say dash B maybe a dash VBA whatever it is.

OK.

Phone numbers not don’t say dash because if it’s a phone number it’s just there to separate the numbers and you don’t actually put that into the phone.

So don’t say it.

OK.

Hyphens are four words for example.

Thirty two.

We don’t say 30 hyphen two but when we’re talking about words when we’re talking about sentences then we use hyphen is there a hyphen between 30 and 2.

Yes there is.

There is a hyphen between 30 and 2.

OK.

So we can use the word hyphen to describe this thing between words but we don’t actually speak the word hyphen when we’re reading out a sentence.

Never never never.

We only use the word hyphen to describe what that is between words.

OK.

So minus sign for math minus to take something away but we don’t say sine dash for things like email addresses user names but not phone numbers and hyphen.

But we don’t say it it’s just a name for what we see.

If there’s this symbol between words like this one.

OK.

I realize I’ve killed my s h here.

So let me fix that.

There we are.

Sorry sir.

OK.

So let’s talk about underscore underscore we pretty much always say underscore when we see it sometimes it might be in a user name sometimes in an email address but because you actually need to put it in to input it and if you don’t it will be wrong.

You’ll find the wrong person then it has to be said Steve underscore Steve at blah blah blah.

Dot com that is maybe an email address.

So we should say it.

We should say it the next one is parentheses.

These are always pretty much always go together.

You don’t see one alone.

You don’t see just this one or this one.

So we pretty much always say parentheses will say the word parentheses first and then say the thing inside of it.

Now sometimes we will just say Alex co-founder Alex co-founder that’s his role or his.

What he does in this company maybe this is at the end of an email.

Alex co-founder if if we want to make sure people know maybe we’re on the phone that this is within parentheses maybe it’s in a sentence you can say Alex parentheses co-founder Alex parentheses co-founder.

OK so that’s when we would actually say parentheses or if we’re going to describe it you could say oh it’s by the way co-founder is in parentheses co-founder is in Peru sees if it’s a phone number though we don’t say it.

So if you see Parentheses in a phone number never say it because why not.

Because when you’re putting in the number you don’t actually put that in you don’t input it.

So usually we don’t need to say it because most of the time it’s in that sort of situation.

Often we don’t need to actually say parentheses because it just tells us a little bit of extra information.

So only if it’s necessary to know that it is inside of parentheses.

Do we actually say it.

And sometimes we can make the decision whether or not to say it based on whether or not we feel it’s important for people to know who are listening that it is inside parentheses.

So quotes or quotation marks often tell us that something was said.

And so when we’re reading something out we don’t have to say quotation mark because it is.

So we’re just saying what that person said.

She said I can’t I can’t.

But sometimes maybe if she said isn’t there and I just want to say I can’t.

And I want to make sure you know that it’s something someone said and I’m not saying it.

Then I have to say by the way that’s in quotes that’s in quotes that’s in quotation marks.

Usually we’ll say quotes.

So by the way I can’t it’s not what I’m saying.

It’s in quotes.

So we won’t actually say quotation mark.

I can’t.

Quotation mark.

No.

We’ll say I can’t.

That’s in quotes or quote I can’t quote I can’t say we’ll say either quote I can’t or that’s in quotation marks or that’s in quotations or that’s in quotes.

This one as I mentioned is air quotes.

If someone is looking at you she said I can’t I can’t I’m telling you that I’m not saying my own words.

I’m saying someone else’s words.

And it’s a way to sort of mark that forward slash and backslash almost always said because usually it’s in a you are L most of the time when you see these it’s in a U.R.L.

you need to be able to type that in when you’re when you’re putting in the U.R.L.

So we’ll say forward slash backslash.

Sometimes it’s just set as Slash if it’s in a sentence for example.

And there are two options.

For example you could have a banana or Apple and it’s telling you that you can choose a banana slash apple banana slash Apple OK or sometimes you could say banana or apple banana or Apple.

OK so you could say or there or you could say slash there if it’s in a U R L it’s very very important to make sure to say this one or this one because forward slash goes this way and backslash goes that way.

So it’s very important to say which one you’re talking about.

Comma is pretty much never said it’s only said to describe what this thing is.

This thing is called a comma.

This is a comma.

If you’re doing dictation like I mentioned before then you might actually say comma I said comma that.

OK but most of the time you do not need to actually say it when you read it.

Ninety nine point nine nine percent unless you are dictating what about Colon.

What about Colon if you remember in our email class we used a colon to create a list.

It’s called a colon colon and we used it to create one 2 three things or two things I think it was that needed to be done a request.

So we’ll often say please do the following then we’ll write a colon then we’ll say 1 2 and 3.

So usually you do not need to say colon colon unless you’re describing something like what you’re doing.

And then I wrote colon 1 2 3.

But if you’re actually just reading for example that email that we read in the class about writing emails you do not need to say colon.

So this is very similar to comma and in fact semicolon is the same way most of the time you do not need to read out semicolon unless you’re describing what you’re doing.

You need a semicolon here.

I think if you put a semicolon there then the whole sentence will make more sense.

Oh yeah.

Good idea.

So you need to know these things like commas colons periods to help other people maybe with their grammar with their sentences.

Otherwise you don’t need to actually say them an asterisk is usually used to reference or mentions something below.

Maybe this is beside a name or a statement about a product on a box and then at the bottom you need to read more details about that.

So if you see an asterisk you don’t need to say asterisk.

You just look at the bottom of the box.

So in that way it’s kind of similar to these where you really only need to say it.

If you’re talking about that thing or you really need to say oh there’s an asterisk there I wonder what it says at the bottom of the page or at the bottom of the box star then is used on a phone if it’s on a phone it’s called a star if it’s on a page a product a box.

It’s called an asterisk.

OK.

Sometimes you need to say you need to press star you need to press star.

Usually not.

Not many things require you to push the star key but sometimes right.

Sometimes on a computer keyboard it’s an asterisk on a phone.

It’s a star.

That’s a simple way to remember it.

All right.

Well how about this one the old classic period that we talked about at the beginning of our symbols discussion.

Well it’s called a dot.

It’s called a period and it’s called a point just like comma colon semicolon an asterisk.

We typically don’t need to and also hyphen we typically don’t need to say this when we read it period.

But as I mentioned earlier if you’re dictating you do or if you’re making a clear point about something and you want to focus on the fact that there’s no way around it.

I’m going tomorrow.

I don’t care if it rains.

I don’t care if you say no I am going period.

The meaning of that period if I say it is there’s no other option.

There’s no alternative.

I am very very clear about my opinion and nobody can tell me not to.

Nothing can stop me usually.

So it’s very certain.

This is the end period.

Oh it’s usually very serious.

OK.

Dot would be for things like email addresses so we can consider this one more like e-mail or a U.R.L.

Web site.

We always say dot com and a point for a number.

So for example zero point three or six point two or seven point one so point four numbers period four sentences and dot for you are L’s e-mails and things like that.

Hopefully you’re clear on these symbols.

There are lots of others certainly but at least you should have an idea about when you can use these when you should say them when you shouldn’t say them and when they’re just meant to describe that thing and you only use it when you’re talking about for example a hyphen you need a hyphen there.

I think really yes you need a hyphen there.

Oh OK.

Add a hyphen.

Now let’s go on and actually look at a real example.