>there is perhaps no character that holds more cultural weight than @
This is a wild claim. Even excluding the 52 Latin alphabet symbols, period has such more cultural weight than the at sign.
This is a wild claim. Even excluding the 52 Latin alphabet symbols, period has such more cultural weight than the at sign.
@ is somewhat different. It's not punctuation. It's not a letter. It's a symbol, used primarily as an abbreviation, like %. But while % is universal, @ is more regional.
Sure, these days it's part of email addresses. But it has a long history of meaning others things. And it's been used in different ways in different places and times. Growing up in the 80s, it was on my keyboard, but I had no idea what it was for.
If one takes "culture" here to span time, rather than location, then perhaps the argument makes more sense.
' (apostrophe) is very old as well.