Sometimes called a "twiddle" or a "squiggle," the tilde key on your keyboard is surrounded by mystery. There it is, right above your Tab key; but what is it for, and where did it come from?

The tilde was originally introduced so that Spanish-typing typists could type the ñ. First you'd type a '~', then backspace, then an 'n'. Somewhere along the line, the tilde morphed into a general-purpose character with all sorts of geeky uses.

The most common use of the tilde these days is in Web address. Since users often keep personal or business Web pages on a server under their personal home directory, you will often see the tilde as part of a url. Such as: www.netidea.com/~achan (Achan's folder on Net Idea's server).

Lots of geeky chicks use the tilde in more creative ways:  ~ chick power ~

Here is a great article at suggests that tildes should not be used in web addresses: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/tilde.html. Note that there is a tilde in the address!

For a more detailed history of the tilde, click here.

28 January 2003  |   permalink