4 ms·

From 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

From 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 ago
Personally, 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.
- lamuerteflaca 12y ago
  Nope, you are wrong. Is a peso sign. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_sign http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_sign
  - acqq 12y ago
    Specifically, the US dollar exists only since 1785 and the sign $ was already used before for Peso according to Prof. Cajori who examined the West Indian manuscripts dated 1760 to 1778 http://books.google.at/books?id=4ykDAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.at/books?id=4ykDAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontc...
    - wyck 12y ago
      Here 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.
      - acqq 12y ago
        And here's the sample of what Prof Cajori presented, a letter from 1778 (that is 7 years before the US dollar was introduced by The Grand Committee of the Continental Congress: http://www.usmint.gov/education/historianscorner/?action=timeline http://www.usmint.gov/education/historianscorner/?action=tim...). http://s23.postimg.org/p1tie5297/peso_as_dollar.png http://s23.postimg.org/p1tie5297/peso_as_dollar.png Thanks to nemo: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9019062 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9019062
  - masswerk 12y ago
    I wouldn't contest this (a pesos being a piece of eight or a Spanish dollar). I would muse, given a 1700 years history of currency symbols denoted by a letter with an extra stroke (or, in some rare cases, as a letter with a hook, like the Florin), it would be a bit strange that the sign for the pesos/dollar would have originated in a totally independent evolution of its own. (The octopus eye of currency symbols?) It seems more likely that a proper sign with a stroke was sought for and the reverse of the coin would have been of some assistance. The "Ps" would have been a different usage, like the concurrent use of "ƒ" and "Fl" for Florin/G(o)ulden, non-withstanding mixed interpretations. (But this is just my opinion.)

masswerk 12y ago

Personally, 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.

lamuerteflaca 12y ago
Nope, you are wrong. Is a peso sign. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_sign http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_sign
- acqq 12y ago
  Specifically, the US dollar exists only since 1785 and the sign $ was already used before for Peso according to Prof. Cajori who examined the West Indian manuscripts dated 1760 to 1778 http://books.google.at/books?id=4ykDAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.at/books?id=4ykDAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontc...
  - wyck 12y ago
    Here 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.
    - acqq 12y ago
      And here's the sample of what Prof Cajori presented, a letter from 1778 (that is 7 years before the US dollar was introduced by The Grand Committee of the Continental Congress: http://www.usmint.gov/education/historianscorner/?action=timeline http://www.usmint.gov/education/historianscorner/?action=tim...). http://s23.postimg.org/p1tie5297/peso_as_dollar.png http://s23.postimg.org/p1tie5297/peso_as_dollar.png Thanks to nemo: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9019062 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9019062
- masswerk 12y ago
  I wouldn't contest this (a pesos being a piece of eight or a Spanish dollar). I would muse, given a 1700 years history of currency symbols denoted by a letter with an extra stroke (or, in some rare cases, as a letter with a hook, like the Florin), it would be a bit strange that the sign for the pesos/dollar would have originated in a totally independent evolution of its own. (The octopus eye of currency symbols?) It seems more likely that a proper sign with a stroke was sought for and the reverse of the coin would have been of some assistance. The "Ps" would have been a different usage, like the concurrent use of "ƒ" and "Fl" for Florin/G(o)ulden, non-withstanding mixed interpretations. (But this is just my opinion.)