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For the lazy: the symbol (⌘) has apparently been used at Swedish campgrounds and parks for decades. It's used to denote interesting features, both natural and man-made. It was inspired by the way Swedish castles look from above (a central building with a turret at each corner).



Andy Hertzfeld (original Mac's hardware wizard) tells the story in https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor... :

Our bitmap artist Susan Kare had a comprehensive international symbol dictionary and she leafed through it, looking for an appropriate symbol that was distinctive, attractive and had at least something to do with the concept of a menu command.

Finally she came across a floral symbol that was used in Sweden to indicate an interesting feature or attraction in a campground.


Apparently it started being used to denote a place of interest in Finland in the 1950's. Funny enough I have always thought that sign was universal, understood by all culture to mean you can park your car here and see something interesting.

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


There's just few things that are truly universal. One example from somewhat nearby: nodding means "no" in Bulgarian.


I've also met some Indian guys who bob their head when they're in agreement which is very similar to how I'd be used to people I know shaking their heads in disagreement.


I see that as a kind of figure-of-8 movement... when my friend and I visited India we decided that it was a cross between a nod and a shake ie. ambiguous yes/no, non-committal


I saw it in Iceland last year when driving around. Must be a Nordic/Scandinavian thing


It's also used in Lithuania.


> the symbol (⌘) has apparently been used at Swedish campgrounds and parks for decades

That's not how I know the sign. The Swedish Transport Agency has a page for this road sign[1].

It says, roughly translated: “The symbol indicates an historic site [or attraction] of national interest. The nature of the historic site is indicated in connection with the symbol.”

So, it's probably more commonly used to mark viking age burial grounds than campgrounds.

-- Picky Swede

[1] https://www.transportstyrelsen.se/sv/vagtrafik/Vagmarken/Lok...


> [...] used at Swedish campgrounds and parks for decades. It's used to denote interesting features

They aren't saying its used to denote the campground, rather the presence of a historic site or attraction at the campground.


Also used in Iceland!




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