3.Stop Signs
3.停车标志
In the early days of automobiles in the US, there was precious little signage on the roads, and there was anarchic competition between cars, horses, and bicycles.
美国刚有汽车时，街道上标志难得一见，路上汽车、马车和自行车争相奔驰。
The first stop sign appeared in Detroit, Michigan, in 1915, the same year that the first electric traffic signal appeared in Cleveland.
1915年，在密歇根州的底特律市出现了第一个停车标志；同年，第一个电子交通讯号灯现身克利夫兰市。
The first stop sign was a simple 0.6-meter square sheet of metal with black lettering on a white background.
第一个停车标志是一个0.6m大小的方形金属片，黑字写在白色背景上。
In 1923, the Mississippi Valley Association of State Highway Departments developed a set of guidelines for signage design based on levels of danger.
1923年，州公路部的密西西比河谷协会根据危险程度设计了一系列标识指导方案。
The logic was that the more sides there were on a sign, the more potentially hazardous the situation was.
其原理为标志边越多，潜在危险越大。

The circle, with infinite sides, was used for railway crossings, and the octagon was designated for the second-highest level of danger.
圆形，因其边无数，用于公路和铁路的交叉口，八边形预示着危险程度为乙等。
Diamonds, meanwhile, were for warning signs, with rectangles used for purely information signs.
而菱形用于警告，矩形用于信息公告。
According to Texas A&M University Civil Engineering Professor Gene Hawkins, "You have to realize this was done by engineers, and engineers can be overly analytical."
德克萨斯农工大学土木工程教授吉恩·霍金说："这些图案是工程师设计的，他们会分析过度。"
The first octagonal stop signs still had a white background, which was later changed to yellow.
第一个八角形的停车标志背景为白色，后来换为黄色。
In 1935, the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways defined the stop sign as a 0.6-meter octagon with a yellow background and red or black letters.
1935年，《街道和高速公路交通控制设备标准手册》规定停车标志为边长0.6米的八边形，背景为黄色，字为黑色或红色。
This was changed in a 1954 revision that was developing a color code system for both railways and roads.
1954年，修订铁路公路标志色标法时改变了这种规则。
Hawkins explains, "Red has always been associated with stop. The problem was they could not produce a reflective material in red that would last. It just was not durable until companies came up with a product in the late '40s, early '50s."
霍金解释说："红色意味着停止。问题是，那时他们生产不出永不退色的红色反光材料。直到20世纪40年代末、50年代初，才有公司生产出一种耐用的材料。"
Further revisions of the Manual in 1978, 1988, and 2000 retained the iconic shape, which is now commonly recognized worldwide.
1978年、1988年和2000年的修订都保留了这个图标，即今天世界各地可见的停车标志。

2.Male And Female Symbols
2.性别标志
The standard explanation for the male and female symbols is that they were derived from Greek mythology, namely the Shield of Mars and the Mirror of Venus, items traditionally associated with the male and female genders, respectively.
对性别标志最权威的解说认为，他们来源于希腊神话，即《战神之盾》和《维纳斯之镜》，这两样东西分别代表男性和女性。
However, there is little evidence linking those particular objects to the current symbols, and the actual history is far more complex than that.
然而，说性别符号与这两样东西有关，证据不足，而真实历史比神话更为复杂。
In ancient astrology and alchemy, various celestial objects were associated with different Earth metals. The Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn respectively corresponded with gold, silver, iron, mercury or quicksilver, copper, tin, and lead.
古星相学和炼金术中有很多天体和地球上的物质有关，如太阳、月亮、水星、金星、木星、土星分别和金、银、铁、水银、铜、锡、铅有关。
This was the system learned by 18th-century botanist Carl Linnaeus, who was born before the development of the modern system of chemical notation using a letter or letters taken from the Greek or Latin names of the elements, which was developed in 1814.
这是18世纪瑞典植物学家卡尔·林奈发现的，他出生时，人们还没发明出化学符号法。化学符号法发明于1814年，是从物质的希腊或拉丁名中选一个或几个字母表示物质。
Before this, chemists often used the same symbols that medieval alchemists had used.
而在化学符号法发明前，化学家和中世纪的炼金师用的符号一样。

Linnaeus decided to borrow the chemical system for his botanical notation as a crude form of shorthand. He first used the symbols formally in a 1756 dissertation on hybrid plants and then later in his work Species Plantarum.
林奈借用化学符号系统形成了生物学符号速记的雏形。他在1756年写杂交植物论文时正式使用了这种符号，后来，他也在著作《植物种志》使用了这些符号。
He used the old astrological and alchemical symbols for Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and the Sun to represent woody, herbaceous perennial, biennial, and annual plants and the symbols for Mars, Venus, and Mercury to represent male, female, and hermaphroditic conditions.
他用标记土星、木星、火星和太阳的古占星术和炼金术符号来表示木本植物、草本植物、多年生植物、两年生植物和一年生植物，并用火星、进行和水星符号代表阳性、阴性和两性畸形的情况。
Soon, other botanists and zoologists adopted the use of these symbols, as they were convenient and easy to remember.
由于这些符号方便易记，其他动植物学家很快便接受了这套符号。
Various attempts to link the symbols to pictographs, runes, and Babylonian astrological symbols have not panned out, and they are largely believed to be truncated forms of works in the early Greek script.
人们试图将这些符号和象形符号、北欧符文及巴比伦占星符号结合，但各种尝试都以失败告终，且人们认为这些符号是从早期希腊文中截取而来的。
The female symbol is derived from the goddess Phosphorus (associated with the planet Venus but not the Roman goddess) and the male symbol from the planet Thouros (the planet Mars but not the Roman god).
阴性符号源于金星（金星星球而非罗马女神），阳性符号来源于火星（火星星球而非罗马的神）。

1.Question Mark
1.问号
There are a number of contending explanations for the question mark, which was once called the interrogation point.
对于问号（曾叫the interrogation point）的解释，有很多争论。
The most popular explanation is that it derived from the Latin word quaestio, or "inquiry," which was written in shorthand as "qo" and eventually became the mark we use today.
最常见的解释说，问号来源于拉丁词"quaestio"，即"询问"，可缩略写作"qo"，最终成为我们今天使用的问号。
Others believe the question mark could have derived from a neume used in medieval musical notation called the punctus interruptus, which indicated the intonation at the end of a question.
还有些人认为问号可能来源于中世纪教堂音乐中一种叫做"punctus interruptus"的乐谱符号，这种符号表示问句的结尾。
Some even believe that it came from Egypt and was derived from the appearance of a cat's tail.
还有人认为问号来源于埃及，是仿照猫尾巴创造而成。

Others believe that the English scholar Alcuin of York developed the first question mark while he was working at Charlemagne's court and developing a new system of punctuation. His question mark resembled a point with a tilde above it and became widely accepted by the ninth century.
还有一派观点认为，问号是约克的阿尔昆在查理曼大帝宫廷供职时发明的标点符号。他发明的问号形如"上方有波浪符的点"，此符号在九世纪时广泛使用。
The most recent theory was proposed in 2011 based on fifth-century Syriac manuscripts of the Bible, which are known for their liberal use of dots with unclear meaning.
2011年，根据古叙利亚手书的《圣经》，出现了问号来源的最新说法，书里出现大量点号，但意义不明。
Cambridge University's Dr. Chip Coakley believes that one of these, the zagwa elaya, or "vertical double dot," is placed above certain questions that are not immediately obvious as questions.
剑桥大学的契普·克利博士认为其中的一种符号——"zagwa elaya"——"垂直双点"，用于一些问句性质不太明显的问题。
For example, "What are you doing?" is still obviously a question with a mark, but "You're leaving?" would become a statement without it.
例如"你在做什么?"，如果没有问号，仍被当做问句，但"你要走了？"这句话没有问号的话，会变成一个陈述句。
While it is likely that the question marks used in later Greek and Latin script were an independent invention, if Coakley is correct, the zagwa elaya is the earliest known question mark in history.
然而，后来在希腊和拉丁文中使用的问号，是新发明，与此无关。如果克利博士观点正确的话，zagwa elaya是史上已知最早使用的问号。