@ whom?

Not certain what you mean Stera....had a look at questions but can't see it. On some forms of Social media, the @ before a profile name is in order to tag that person so they see the reply.not sure why it would be used on here though!

I hate that too :( It's rude !

I think it's from Twitter when you tweet someone it's at the start of the name of the person you are tweeting :-)

But, also on Facebook, you can tag a page by putting @ before the name.
But, I see no benefit of using it on here.

That does explain it a bit but I still think tis rude on here.
I've never Twittered so haven't come across it before.

Hi Sue, no you're not being old fashioned, just correct, I hate it too, a lot of people seem to think that as they have to use it on social media, they have to use it on here, I've noticed it quite a lot in the past, but no-one on here is @ anything, and as you say, it's rude, I think that some people are just so used to using it elsewhere, that they forget it's not needed, Derek.

So glad some people agree!

I'm "guilty" of using it on occasions when I reply to a number of people all in the same post on GoY!

It is used quite a bit on another gardening forum I also post on & I must have caught the habit. But I don't use it for everyone I reply to in a post on one of my blogs & that is the ONLY place I might use "@"!

As a rule I wouldn't use it on someone else's blog. But then I wouldn't reply perhaps to half a dozen people at the same time in the same post!

Sorry Balcony I wasn't getting at you,honest! But it doesn't save any time because you can just put the persons name. I guess its because I was always told you shouldn't talk at people but to them...

That's alright, Stera, I didn't take it personally! I quite agree with you & I was taught the same! In the context I use it it only means something like "to ..." Rather like addressing a letter perhaps! LOL! I may have used it with you if you commented on one of my blogs as well as several other people.

Don't think of the symbol "@" as meaning "at" but "to" & I think you will better understand it. After all it only means "at" when used in email addresses.

Hi, actually 'at' is exactly what it means, it was in use well before the internet, and is used to denote 'per',as in so many items @ whatever price each item costs so not just used in e-mail addresses, Derek.

Thanks, Derek for that clarification! :-)