Talk:Dollar sign

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[edit] redirect

This page was a redirect to Talk:Dollar, and there didn't seem to be a reason. So, I removed the redirect, and duplicated the text. I hope that was the right thing to do. Ingrid 03:20, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Number of strokes

Whatsup with one and two strokes thru S? So the $ symbol in for non-US dollar and double stroked S is for US dollar? Can someone explain? -pedro


There are better explanations based in medieval Iberian manuscripts about the origin of the dollar sign. I will look into this and get back here. But everything here is folk-etymology. Evertype 18:05, 2005 Mar 15 (UTC)


[edit] Yen

From yen:

The yen was originally written as the same way as the Chinese Yuan (圓 pinyin yuan2). Modern Japanese writings use a character (円) which is different from the one used in simplified Chinese (元). The Latinized symbol for the Yen however, is identical to the one for the Yuan, although the PRC tends to use one crossbar instead of two.
Yen literally means a "round object" in Japanese, as the Yuan in Chinese.

In the article:

In China, base unit of the official currency Renminbi is called "Yuan" (元 or 圆 , with a symbol ¥). The "yuan" is, in fact, a colloquial form of the word "dollar". Spanish dollars were widely circulated in China in the late 19th century. When China adopted its the first national currency in 1914, the base unit was called "Yuan" , which means "dollar". A "yuan" at that time was a coin containing exactly the same amount of silver as a Spanish dollar.

--Error 23:56, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The word 元 or 圆 literally means "round" does not mean it is the origin of the name. Coins minted by the Chinese were round, but they were not called 圆 , they were 錢 。 圓 , or its proper name 銀圓, refers to Spanish silver dollars which were counted, in contrary to 銀兩 (silver tales) which were weighted. In 1866 the silver coins minted in Hong Kong were called in Chinese 壹圓 , in English "One Dollar". The "Yuan" 元 or 圆 is just another translation of the "Dollar" . Not sure about Japanese Yen but it is possible that the word has the same heritage. 24.205.90.226 17:32, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] created a new page for the dollar sign languages

created a new page for the dollar sign languages, like the other languages. There are many uses for the sign that don't have anything to do with the dollar.

[edit] Yuan/元

In China, base unit of the official currency Renminbi is called "Yuan" (元 or 圆 , with a symbol ¥). The "yuan" is, in fact, a colloquial form of the word "dollar". Spanish dollars were widely circulated in China in the late 19th century. When China adopted its the first national currency in 1914, the base unit was called "Yuan" , which means "dollar". A "yuan" at that time was a coin containing exactly the same amount of silver as a Spanish dollar.

Who the hell comes up with this crap? The word "yuan" (元) predates any Spanish influence by several hundred years. Like, say, the Yuan Dynasty? Hell, the use of coins in China is BC-era by itself. You expect me to believe the Chinese waited a couple of thousand years to name them?

Yuan/元 is a measure word for small round things among a host of other meanings. Coins, being small round things, invariably got enumerated with yuan/元. Further, claiming that this is the colloquialism is utter nonsense. The colloquialism for money's measure word (the primary unit, not the "dime" or "penny" equivalents) is kuai/块. So the article has managed to get everything--absolutely everything--wrong on this point.

Needless to say it's getting deleted. --MTR (严加华) 05:20, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Not really. The word "yuan", like any Chinese word, has multiple meanings. The word "元" was not created for the meaning of dollar, it was just adopted for that purpose. Although it is true that the word "圓" means round object, that is not origin or the reason why it is used to called the currency now being used.
After the Ming Dynasty, the Chinese have been using a dual currency system. For large amounts, the unit was silver tales (銀兩). The Chinese did not have the habit of minting gold or silver into coins like the Europeans. The silver was rather minted into bars and measured by weight. 兩 means "tale" is a weight unit. While the currency for smaller trades was copper coins minted by the royal government, and the unit was by enumeration rather than weight. But one single coin is counted as one "chin" "錢"。 Coins stringed together (that's the purpose of the hole in Chinese coins) is called a 吊 or string. "圓" was NOT the unit for counting the indigenous coins minted locally by the Chinese. At the same time, trades with the foreign nations were carried out using Spanish dollars, silver coins which were called 銀圓 , (probably because they are round) and they were enumerated, counted as "銀圓" 。
The use of 元 or 圓 as a unit of currency in China did not happen until 1866, when the Hong Kong government at that time started minted silver coins carrying the same amount of silver as the Spanish dollars and called them "Hong Kong One Dollar" 香港壹圓. It was also the first time when the word "圓" or "元" was used as unit of currency, that took the meaning of the word "yuan" or 圓 out from its original meaning of the Spanish dollar. But the character "yuan" "圓" or "元" still means, exactly, "dollar".
In China, the first basic national currency adopted in 1914 was a silver coin equivalent to a Spanish dollar, that was also called "壹圓" or "one yuan". Nicknamed "袁大頭" , this unit was supposed to be the national unit for currency, but it never totally replaced silver tales for book-keeping purposes. It was 1934 when the Nationalist government passed laws to abandon use of "tales" as the unit of currency, and all accounting must be done with yuan.


I think the original article had it correct. It is just there're more history on the word 圓 and currencies in China than you are aware of.

24.205.90.226 23:25, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] the table

I changed around the table. Really, only the code of it. I couldn't get the padding thing to work correctly. Could someone correct it? I hope whoever it may concern enjoys the reworking. It's easier to deal with now. -- D. F. Schmidt (talk) 07:58, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] the town of Dollar?

Is there any relationship between the town of Dollar, Scotland and the currency?

The town of Dollar nestles at the foot of the Ochil Hills is central Scotland and is famous for its school "Dollar Academy" which was inagruated in 1818AD by a wealthy merchant (John McNabb).

The town is also known for 15th century Castle Campbell that sits at the top of the Dollar glen between two 'burns': the burn of care and the burn of sorrow which are known for waterfalls and huge slab like rock vennels. The castle was known as the "castle of gloom" before an act of parliment in 1489, approved by James IV.

Nope, as a proud Scot I am very sorry to report that that is unlikely. As a (kind-of) Swedish-speaker, it has become my understanding that "dollar" came from "riksdaler", but I have just looked at the Eng Wiki article, and I see that there is a more plausible explanation: Swedish riksdaler: "The daler, like the dollar, was named after the German thaler."
I have no idea of the etymology of Dollar, Scotland, but I would hazard a guess that it is from either Pictish or Scottish Gaelic.--Mais oui! 19:16, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Signo pesos

In most Spanish-speaking countries, the symbol is known as signo pesos o signo peso (Peso sign), and not as signo dólar (Dollar sign). Considering also that the sign is in fact the Peso sign and was copied for the US Dollar, I don't think that the article should treat countries like Argentina, Cuba, México or Uruguay as countries that use the Dollar sign.


[edit] British Dollars

In pre-decimal coinage, 10 shillings was known as a 'dollar' in slang and 5 shillings was sometimes known as 'half a dollar'. It should be noted that Australian, New Zealand, Jamacan and possible other commonwealth dollars were created from their local 10 shilling denomination. All they did was than create a 'cent' as one hundreth of ten shillings (dollar). Britain decimalised making twenty shillings (sovereign) the main unit instead of ten shillings (dollar) and creating 'new pence' as a hundreth of twenty shillings (pound)

There were coins actually officially named dollars.

I quote from http://www.ex.ac.uk/~RDavies/arian/dollar.html

'In 1797, owing to a desperate shortage of silver coins, the Bank of England issues altered foreign coins from its reserves. Half a million pounds worth of Spanish dollars issued by King Charles IV were over-stamped with a small engraving of George III. The re-issued coins, with a value of 4 shillings and 9 pence, attracted ridicule. "Two Kings' heads and not worth a crown" was one witticism. (A 'crown' in this context meant 5 shillings, "half-a-crown", sometimes colloquially known as "half-a-dollar", being a common coin before decimalisation in 1971). A cruder, description was "the head of a fool stamped on the neck of an ass". The issue failed because over-stamping was also applied unofficially to the plentiful supplies of light or base Spanish dollars.

A few years later a more successful issue of dollars was made by the Bank of England. In 1804 Matthew Boulton, the business partner of the steam engine pioneer James Watt, was employed to erase completely the existing design on full-weight Spanish coins and stamp them as Bank of England Five Shilling Dollars. '

These may be worth incorporating in some way.

[edit] Dollar Slang

Have added "cheese" and "cheddar" to the list of slang words for dollar. "Cheese" is used in Jay-Z's "Big Pimpin," "Cheddar" can be found at http://www.thesource4ym.com/teenlingo/

Alright, fair enough. I have added this to the list of sources in the article.Image:Weather rain.pngSoothingR 07:21, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Jay-Z does not say "spending cheese." http://www.amiright.com/misheard/song/bigpimpin.shtml Additionaly, most internet lyric data bases (searched through Google) show "spendin' G's" -GLewis, March 31

[edit] merge

I completely agree with the merging of that section into this page. I'ts like having two articles for the same thing. 63.231.145.101 21:35, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

  • Merge I agree. --Macrowiz 20:22, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Yep, merge. Uh-huh. Yep. --SausMeester 22:57, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
  • I disagree as other countries exist that use the dollar sign.
  • The section in "US Dollar" has more (or at least some) information that isn't in this page; it should all be merged into the "Dollar sign" page. Appropriate info could be left on the former page. And if it is such a big deal, rename this page to "US Dollar Sign." -GLewis, March 31
  • I would disagree with this being merged into the dollar article. The reason for this is because the dollar symbol is used for more than just money. One example would be that the $ serves as the command prompt in several different computer operating systems.
JesseG 20:52, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
I think some commenters misunderstood the proposal. I do not want to move this article into the U.S. Dollar article. I want to move some information from the U.S. Dollar article to here, and then have the U.S. Dollar article refer readers to this article for more information about the dollar symbol.

[edit] cleanup

the article seemed to contain a fair amount of original research, and it didn't distinguish accepted origin theories from kookery. The image even combined the most likely origin (PS) with a clear "urban legend" aitiology (US). dab (ᛏ) 09:38, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

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