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Why Is the Dollar Sign a Letter S?
- blahedo 12y agoI've heard this etymology before, but the article would be a lot more convincing if it showed an actual in-the-wild example of the "intermediate form" of the symbol, with the P and S exactly superimposed on each other...
- lamuerteflaca 12y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_sign http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_sign I see no reason why make something up that would be quite easy to disprove by looking at old records.
- eru 12y agoOh, it's still the internet. People are lazy, and people make up things all the time.
- nemo 12y agoFlorian Cajori's A History of Mathematical Notations goes into the history and notes examples of old written manuscripts showing the intermediate form in use, with one example where both were used interchangeably in a letter. He examined the question in depth, showed that the earliest uses in the US had a single stroke, with the double stroke only coming later, and dealt with the other theories showing as conclusively as possible that it's a peso sign composed of a superimposed P/S. It's an old book, and not on a web site, but you could probably find a copy at a library.
- acqq 12y agoHere's the link to the book you refer to (two volumes in one, the second volume starts at p. 469). I can't see where it writes about the dollar sign, can you help me? http://monoskop.org/images/2/21/Cajori_Florian_A_History_of_Mathematical_Notations_2_Vols.pdf http://monoskop.org/images/2/21/Cajori_Florian_A_History_of_... Edit: thanks Nemo!
- nemo 12y agoIt starts on p. 15 of volume II, around 2/3s of the way into the pdf.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- dethstar 12y ago" There's a good story behind it, but here's a big hint: the dollar sign isn't a dollar sign. It's a peso sign." So, no.
- JimmyM 12y agoThe pound in particular is very old, and the practice of using a crossbar on the ascender of a letter to mark an abbreviation dates back to medieval times (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scribal_abbreviation#Suspension http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scribal_abbreviation#Suspension). In fact, given the proximity of the British pound's creation and the period during which these abbreviations were at their peak, it seems to me to be possible that the British pound was the first still-extant currency symbol that was a letter with a dash through it, nearly a thousand years earlier. I don't know if that would have formed a convention though. The dollar is entirely different, and is essentially just a peso sign.
- johnzim 12y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_sign http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_sign
- unknownian 12y agoGawker Media turning wikipedia entries into articles. Well I do it sometimes as well.
- urda 12y agoSeriously, why are Gawker links even allowed on here? Embarrassing.
- pron 12y agoThere's often much more embarrassing stuff written right here, on HN, than in any of the Gawker sites.
- forgotpasswd3x 12y agoNot on behalf of Y Combinator there isn't.
- gweinberg 12y agoThen wikipedia article is better. Personally, I find the US answer more plausible. because of the existence of the two bar version. It's much more likely for people to simplify the two bar version by dropping a bar than to pointlessly complicate the symbol by adding an extra bar for no reason, so I suspect the two bar version was the original.
- masswerk 12y agoThere are some alternative theories on this, too. The one I learned was the sign being derived from the Pillars of Hercules (two vertical bars) with a banner (the "S") wrapped around it, reading "[non] plus ultra", as adopted by Charles V for the Spanish coat of arms and later stamped on the reverse of Spanish dollar coins. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Columnas_Plus_Ultra.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Columnas_Plus_Ultra.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_dollar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_dollar [Edit:] There's actually a bit of irony in this, considering the Pillars of Hercules were marking the end of the world (as lined out by the banner "non plus ultra") and the minted silver coming from the New World beyond ...
- blumkvist 12y agoFrom the article's comment section: It is not the case, I'm sorry to say, although that is certainly a commonly-repeated story. (There's a similar urban legend in Brazil involving the Pillars of Heracles and the meandering route used by Tariq ibn Ziyad.) But the textual evidence (years and years of preserved handwritten merchant communications from multiple nations and colonies on both sides of the Atlantic showing a clear progression from PS to a $) is very much in favor of the superimposed PS.
- masswerk 12y agoPersonally, I would think there's some kind of inheritance from the older Lira (later pound) sign "£". Remarkably, this one is also coming in two variants, both with a single and a (probably older) double stroke. (Unicode U+00A3 and U+00A4 respectively.) A letter with a horizontal or vertical stroke became somewhat of a universal signature of a currency symbol (think of cents, Yen, &c). The stroke-signature actually goes back in history as far as to the antique Roman symbols for As and Denarius. (A nice overview of currency symbols may be found at http://www.signographie.de/cms/upload/pdf/SIGNA_GewWaehrZch_1.2.pdf http://www.signographie.de/cms/upload/pdf/SIGNA_GewWaehrZch_... [German].) [Edit:] Also, consider the former predominance of the version featuring two distinctive vertical strokes, as lined out in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9018366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9018366 . A "P" with a doubled vertical stroke would just make a (mirrored) paragraph sign. But I confess not to know, what the original version would have been (single or double stroke). [Edit:] Another hint on "$" not being derived from the letter "S" might be the significant smaller vertical extent of the "S"-like part than the ones of capital letters, both raised from the baseline and smaller than the X-height.
- mkagenius 12y agoHow interesting. 'Paisa' used in India as currency also sounds like peso, however, seems to have different origin: """The word paisa is from Hindi & Urdu paisā, a quarter-anna coin, ultimately from Sanskrit term padāṁśa meaning 'quarter part', from pada "foot or quarter" and aṁśa "part".""" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paisa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paisa
- burrox 12y agoIt's also how we denote the people of a certain region in Colombia. I don't think it's related though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paisa_Region http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paisa_Region
- dmsinger 12y agoUntil keyboards were everywhere (which was a while ago, yes), I wasn't used to seeing the $ with a single vertical line in a money context. Myth or not, it made the interlocking U S very believable. It just makes me wonder which came first, and how the double line came about, if it wasn't there originally.
- JimboOmega 12y agoWhat I'd like to know more is why it goes before the quantity and not after. Nobody writes "it weighs lb. 10" or "it's m 20 long". Or even "I had %20 of it". Subconsciously I always read "$10" as "dollar ten". It drives me a little crazy.
- dorfsmay 12y agoI came to the comment section exactly for this. I've fought with my kids and showed them unit algebra (5$/day for 3 days:(53)($day/day) = 15$) to explain why all units need to be behind the numbers. They got it, but then got in trouble in school (in Canada). Dollar sign HAS to be in front - Why? Because that's how it's done.
- blackobelisk 12y agosometimes I actually format it "10$" and it weirds people out. makes sense to me though.
- acadien 12y agoIt really makes no sense, every other unit follows the number but with money it goes before. The temperature outside is F10, that package weights lbs14, the football is at psi1.8.
- yitchelle 12y agoIn Europe, it is acceptable to put the € symbol after the digits as in 10,67€. Just putting in a contrast here..
- CanadaKaz 12y agoThere are many different explanations floating around. The one I like the most is that it is actually US and that U is placed on top of the S. That's why there are often two vertical lines.
- lamuerteflaca 12y agoIsn't it better to prefer the one with the most evidence supporting it?
- pluma 12y agoThat sounds far too reasonable. My preferred explanation is that the dollar sign looks like that because the dollar sign creating pixies created it that way. (all hail the dollar sign creating pixies)
- iamwil 12y agoHrm. At one point on the internets, I read that it was just the letters 'U' and 'S' (for United States) overlaid on top of each other. And over time, we lost the round pipe at the bottom, and one of the lines. It seemed like a plausible story, and because I wasn't doing hardcore research, I didn't look into it further. Now, I always wonder if some fun fact I have in my head is actually true or not. Reminds me of that quote about Abe Lincoln and the internet.
- lotsofmangos 12y agoFrom following the links through to the FAQ of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in the U.S. Department of the Treasury (the URL is cute) : http://www.moneyfactory.gov/faqlibrary.html http://www.moneyfactory.gov/faqlibrary.html "What is the origin of the $ sign?" "The origin of the "$" sign has been variously accounted for, however, the most widely accepted explanation is that the symbol is the result of evolution, independently in different places, of the Mexican or Spanish "P's" for pesos, or piastres, or pieces of eight. The theory, derived from a study of old manuscripts, is that the "S" gradually came to be written over the "P," developing a close equivalent of the "$" mark. It was widely used before the adoption of the United States dollar in 1785." Unless someone shows me good evidence to the contrary, I think I'm going to assume they have a good idea of what they are on about on this topic.
- arvinjoar 12y agoThis is what I believed as well, and the theory is actually included on the Wikipedia page, but only for the double-stroke dollar sign[1]. I read Atlas Shrugged as a teenager and that's where I got it from. [1] = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_sign#From_.22U.S..22 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_sign#From_.22U.S..22
- javert 12y agoThis theory is a "fact" in the fictional world of Atlas Shrugged, but the author (Rand) ackowledged that in the real world, it is not known to be true.
- gshrikant 12y agoThe evolution of the £ (pound) symbol has a similar, fascinating history behind it too. It was recently discussed on a 99% Invisible podcast [1]. [1] http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/octothorpe/ http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/octothorpe/
- _ak 12y agoWhenever I think about it, I find it quite fascinating that a pound literally used to be a pound of silver. Another aspect is the age of the Lsd system, and how long it was held onto.
- lucio 12y agoThe S and the pillars story seems simpler, and also accounts for the $ with two vertical bars. Here in Argentina, we still call money: "silver", as in "Do you have silver to pay for that?" It was called "peso"(weight) because you used to WEIGH your money instead of "counting" it. It is funny that we still call it "silver" and "weight" nowadays when fiat-money is everywhere.
- ascotan 12y agoEven thought wikipedia clearly calls the spanish dollar a 'piece of eight', it's pretty clear that peso means 'weight' and the dollar has about 8x the weight in silver of a spanish real. It's probably better to call it a 'weight of eight'. http://www.coins.nd.edu/ColCoin/ColCoinText/Sp-milled.2.html http://www.coins.nd.edu/ColCoin/ColCoinText/Sp-milled.2.html
- mjklin 12y agoNB: In all Spanish-speaking countries that I know of, you can call the currency "peso" even if that's not its official name. In Costa Rica, for example, they will often say "cien pesos" rather than "cien colones" if they're in an informal situation or mood.
- jstalin 12y agoIt's fascinating to understand that originally there was no "official" US currency, only that the Spanish dollar was circulating as a sort of international currency. The US dollar was then defined a unit of weight of either gold or silver and not some floating, independent notion of value. Anyone could bring a quantity of gold or silver into the mint and have it turned into a dollar coin. Of course, that original notion has been inflated away and the dollar has lost some 99% of its value. One of my favorite sites for seeing the effect of debasement is http://www.coinflation.com/ http://www.coinflation.com/.
- ajross 12y agoI've read this post over several times and for the life of me it seems that you believe the existence of a fiat currency is... a bad thing?
- jstalin 12y agoYes, I've become fairly certain that fiat currency is indeed a bad thing.
- sjwright 12y agoWhereas I've become fairly certain that fiat currency is the only viable option.
- Qwertious 12y agoWell, you could exchange it for gold, although gold isn't necessarily useful. Ask Spain what happened when they focused on getting precious metals at the expense of real non-monetary wealth in the economy (like cork trees). Answer: Inflation, economic collapse. (If someone could either provide a citation or call me out on my BS, that would be nice; I could be full of shit here.)
- Turing_Machine 12y ago"It's fascinating to understand that originally there was no "official" US currency, only that the Spanish dollar was circulating as a sort of international currency." This still happens to some degree. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Theresa_thaler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Theresa_thaler Still minted and still used in trade, though they stopped changing the date on them in 1780. Still made of real silver, too.
- chucksmart 12y agoi thought $ was a snake on a stick.
- chucksmart 12y ago"Another theory is that the dollar sign may have also originated from Hermes, the Greek god of bankers, thieves, messengers, and tricksters. One of his symbols was the caduceus, a staff from which ribbons or snakes dangled in a sinuous curve." Thanks for the downvotes.
- d13 12y ago"Alternatively, the $ symbol derives from the scroll on the pillar, on the reverse of the "pillar dollar" variety of pieces of eight [Spanish Dollars]." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_dollar#mediaviewer/File:Philip_V_Coin.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_dollar#mediaviewer/File... Which you can clearly see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_dollar#mediaviewer/File:Philip_V_Coin.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_dollar#mediaviewer/File...
- smegel 12y ago> And because the US dollar was named after the Spanish peso de ocho "dollar" coin I am still not sure where the word "dollar" comes from though. If we are using the sign for pesos, who not use the word "pesos" instead of "dollar"?
- ddebernardy 12y agoDollar comes from daler/taler: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=dollar http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=dollar No idea why the pesos sign became the dollar sign, but I'd image it may have something to do with the Spaniards being around long before the English in the Americas.
- elpachuco 12y ago>>No idea why the pesos sign became the dollar sign, but I'd image it may have something to do with the Spaniards being around long before the English in the Americas That is the whole point of this article . It tells you where the sign came from.
- wyck 12y agoHere is a $ sign from pre 1700 Spanish coin http://www.ancientresource.com/lots/shipwreck-pirate-coins.html http://www.ancientresource.com/lots/shipwreck-pirate-coins.h... ( #CS20730 ). There are more of these that pre date that, so this article is fairly opinionated.
- elpachuco 12y agoAlthough it looks like the Peso sign I'm not sure it really is. Why would you put the Peso sign in a coin. It probably is something else and du to wear and tear now it looks like a Peso sign. Look at this other coin for example: http://www.ancientresource.com/images/pirate-shipwreck-treasure/spanish-copper-coins/spanish-copper-cs2074.jpg http://www.ancientresource.com/images/pirate-shipwreck-treas... ps: The link to the image you are talking about is: http://www.ancientresource.com/images/pirate-shipwreck-treasure/spanish-copper-coins/spanish-copper-cs2067.jpg http://www.ancientresource.com/images/pirate-shipwreck-treas... And its correct id is:#CS2073
- ilaksh 12y agoThat's just the nice version that goes around. It actually represents devices like manacles. Used for counting slaves. Our civilization is still based on a type of wage-based slavery. The euro symbol is another example.
- kijin 12y agoFun trivia: When Americans went to East Asia with their funny money, the Asians quickly replaced the $ sign with a similar-looking local character: 弗. Nowadays in Japan and Korea, you often see headlines like "1兆弗" (1 trillion U.S. dollars). But 弗 originally means "not". So American money is not real money ;)
- cheapsteak 12y agoI've never seen 弗 in use in Chinese newspapers to refer to dollars. Any sources on this? Baidu-ing "兆弗" is only turning up results for a Shanghai company called "兆弗"
- kijin 12y agoSorry, here's an errata: The letter 弗 is commonly used in Korea and Japan. In China, the U.S. dollar is usually written as 美元 ("American yuan", but since both the dollar and the yuan derive from the thaler as the article says, it can mean "American thaler" as well).
- msaravanan 12y agoThat's interesting. Where I live (India), we didn't have a currency symbol until recently. Our currency is the Indian Rupee and we used to prefix "Rs." and "Re." to the value. The govt. invited people from around the country to send in their designs and we finally chose one (20B9 on unicode). But it took us 2 years to start using the symbol on currency notes.
- elpachuco 12y agoIt is really annoying to hear so many opinions here choosing to believe an alternate version simply because it sounds better to them rather than because of any actual evidence. (Are we still in Hacker News or is it a Sunday thing?) It feels like I'm reading opinions by creationists. Even the us government agrees that the $ symbol is a peso sign. [1] Here is the relevant piece: >>What is the origin of the $ sign? The origin of the "$" sign has been variously accounted for, however, the most widely accepted explanation is that the symbol is the result of evolution, independently in different places, of the Mexican or Spanish "P's" for pesos, or piastres, or pieces of eight. The theory, derived from a study of old manuscripts, is that the "S" gradually came to be written over the "P," developing a close equivalent of the "$" mark. It was widely used before the adoption of the United States dollar in 1785.<< [1] http://www.moneyfactory.gov/faqlibrary.html http://www.moneyfactory.gov/faqlibrary.html
- palmer_eldritch 12y ago> It feels like I'm reading opinions by creationists. > the most widely accepted explanation is that the symbol is the result of evolution Well, maybe you are...
- muyuu 12y agoIt's basically a Spanish symbol by all accounts, with plenty of evidence of usage prior to the Independence of the US. The "real de a ocho" remained legal currency in the US for many decades. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_dollar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_dollar
- barrystaes 12y agoIsn't it "Dollar" because of the dutch "Daalder"?
- agumonkey 12y agoThe history of human communication is wonderfully absurd. So much cryptic conflation (vocal or scriptural).
- agumonkey 12y agoThe history of human communication is wonderfully absurd. So much cryptic conflation (vocal or scriptural).
- 205guy 12y agoUgh, pop-journalism. Did anyone even wonder where the word Joachimthal came from that gave the dollar it's name? From my rudimentary German, I would guess [Saint] Joachim valley, in other words the location of the silver mine.
- ajcarpy2005 12y agoIt may have evolved from the Kadusis symbol which is also used on medical stuff sometimes.
- federicowe 12y agoVery entretaining article! Any info on the other signs ? like pounds or Yen ? (Euro seems kind of intuitive)
- juiced 12y agoTurns out that the Dollar (0.88 Euro), derived from the Dutch word Daalder, today has the exact same value as this Daalder (2.50 guilders) before it became the Euro (2.20371 guilders), after calculating the inflation rate.
- bikamonki 12y ago@ has a well known meaning in Spanish, it is the symbol of "arroba" which is an old unit of weight, like a pound, ounce, etc. I still remember hearing on the local markets sellers pricing their goods for its arroba weight. In fact, when we read an email out load we do not say someone at somwhere dot com, we say someone arroba somewhere dot com.
- kragen 12y agoIt was commonly used in English in commercial correspondence, such as invoices, to separate a quantity from the unit price. I don't remember the exact notation, but it was something like 20#@$10 for "20 pounds at 10 dollars per pound." or "20@$10" for "20 items at 10 dollars each". Anybody who can dig up an English-language B2B invoice from the 1950s or earlier?
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoAnd I remember than 'ampersand' is 'and per se and' from the alphabet song, where the 'and' sign used to be included at the end. Its been corrupted to the 'ampersand'. Any idea if there's any history behind that?
- fnl 12y agoTyrol never was German (except when anexed by the Nazis, that is...). At most, it was part of the Ostrogothic kingdom (up to 550 or so); After, it was its own county, ruled by counts apointed by the Holy Roman Emperor, and then (1369, with the death of the last countess, Magarete Maultasch) it became part of the Kingdom of Austria that was being built by the house Habsburg. So by the time the silver mentioned in the article was found, Tyrol was firmly in Habsburg hands, and ever since has been part of Austria (particularly, the region with the silver). Disclaimer: I am Tyrolean... :)