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Comment by jackjeff | Hacker News Reader

Or 

I like the ⌘ glyph but outside the United States, keyboards don’t have the “command” name on the key. I find it hard to describe to my parents when doing support over the phone.

It was much easier when this key also featured the outline of the Apple logo , I could describe it as the key with the Apple on it next to the space bar.

I envy my Northern European neighbors that actually have name for the ⌘ symbol, or in Northern America where you can simply say the “command” key because that’s written on it.

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The “” (F8FF) unicode code point is in the “private use” section of Unicode, and therefore could depict anything, depending on the font. The closest thing to a standard is the Under-ConScript Unicode Registry¹, which reserves F8D0−F8FF to Klingon, where the F8FF character is the KLINGON MUMMIFICATION GLYPH:

https://www.kreativekorp.com/ucsur/charts/PDF/UF8D0.pdf

I honestly cannot fathom why HN filters most weird Unicode characters but allows private use code points.

1. https://www.kreativekorp.com/ucsur/

I still call it the "Apple" key, as this is how I learned it. And I somehow find it nicer than calling it the "command" key.

I learned it as the "Open Apple" key, and I used that for many years, until people stopped having any idea what I was talking about. And it's way too many syllables. I had to retrain myself to call it "command".

I refer to it as cloverleaf when I’m doing phone support for family and friends. Seems to convey the idea to them pretty clearly.

Same. Force quit will always be Open Apple-Option-Escape in my mind be my LC II still had the old markings in addition to the new.

But if you are trying to tell what to press to someone over the phone, they won't find the apple key.

This is most true, I always have to correct myself when I try to show keyboard shortcuts to my colleagues.

In the UK, Mac keyboards generally seem to have "command" written on the key in addition to "⌘".

At least the recent Finnish/Swedish keyboards do have both ⌘ and “command” written on the key.

Likewise with ⌥ (option) and ^ (control).

> I like the ⌘ glyph but outside the United States, keyboards don’t have the “command” name on the key.

All my German keyboards have it.

Italian keyboards as well.

On my laptop, with a Danish keyboard, it says "command" right below the ⌘ sign. Weirdly enough the larger USB keyboard it just says "cmd" on the left of the key and have ⌘ right aligned.

From memory, more recent non-US keyboards do have "command" as well as the symbol, and recent US keyboards have added the symbol, so we have eventually reached consistency.

I was told to call it “splat” (so long ago I could not attribute the source). Or maybe thats just a Bay Area thing?

I call it propellor but someone told me to call it splat in Chicago.

after reading this article I’m going to be calling it the tiny castle key

Bastion Fort Key!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastion_fort

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