The Accidental History of the '@' Symbol

> The symbol later took on a historic role in commerce. Merchants have long used it to signify “at the rate of”—as in “12 widgets @ $1.”

Many of my Indian coworkers will also say "at the rate", whereas I (a native speaker of American English) would just say "at".

For example, in the context of a Java annotation like `@Singleton`, I would say "at singleton", and my Indian coworkers would say "at the rate singleton".

It was a fun bit of cultural exchange when I first heard this said out-loud.