Chris Hoshino-Fish: that funny symbol @

Does anybody remember a time when you looked at that funny "a" with a tail and said "hey, what in the fuck is that thing?" If you grew up in the late 80s and 90s like myself, then you probably laughed a lot @ those silly adult who were troubled by this harmless symbol. And with the advent of email, they were forced to deal with this nasty symbol. Luckily for us Americans, it had already been in use in supermarkets and such to describe how much items cost per pound. It was natural to just say it meant "at" and continue on. But what about the people of the world, who don't speak english (fuck em). Well, some translations are pretty funny.
In Dutch, they call the symbol "apestert" which means "little monkey tail". In Czech, they call it "zavinac", which means pickled herring. No joke. In Finnish, they say "kissanhnta" or cat's tail. I'm starting to see a recurring theme. Those silly Eastern Europeans the Hungarians call it "kukac", or maggots. Weird. My personal favorite is Thai. They call it "ai tua yiukyiu", or the wiggling worm-like character.