Talk:Dollar sign

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[edit] abbreviation of pesos

The dollar sign is most likely an abbreviation of "PesoS", not "PeSo", as the article indicates. In Spanish, words are commonly abbreviated by using the first and the last letter(s). There is a definite study on the subject by Alvaro Moreno: El signo de pesos, cuál es su origen y qué representa?, published in Mexico City in 1965, which shows many sources for some forms of the dollar sign being used to denote the Mexican peso in the British colonies in North America. One or two strokes are used indiscriminantly. -Ralf

[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

As far as the dollar sign goes, it is merely a stylistic choice or popular fashion that decides what symbol one may write. With computers, most but not all fonts will produce a single-stroked sign. I did find a few fonts that do give a double-stroked symbol for the same key (Shift+4). 207.189.230.42 (talk) 04:51, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

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)

There are images about from a source that i think may be entitled 'Key of Solomon the King (Clavicula Salomonis)', that features a symbol very similar to the dollar sign($), this book is from the middle ages, this could be a link it http://www.luckymojo.com/kingsolomonwisdom.html, i either saw this symbol here or some other book, but i rememebr it being called different. Not mentioned in article but should be if confirmed.Book M 10:18, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Jpmo22 19:19, 27 August 2007 (UTC) Pedro, the Dollar Sign ($) and Cifrão are differents simbols, US Dollar uses Dollar Sign and Brazilian currency use Cifrão. Please don't get confused about that, many people think they are the same but they are not.

[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.

You’re completely right, but we’re talking about English, not Spanish. I know there are English speakers in Central America as well expats in Mexico and Argentina, but I doubt whether even someone from England, or another non-dollar-using country would look at that and say “that's a peso sign.” While I know $ is used for almost every peso currency, I understand peso sign to mean ₱. —Wiki Wikardo 19:50, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Peso sign redirects here. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 01:34, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

As maybe it should, unless it redirects to Philippine peso, but should the article treat peso sign as a phrase that’s often/ever used to describe that symbol in the English-speaking world? —Wiki Wikardo 18:34, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[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)

As a kid in the UK I remeber the 'half-a-crown' piece being called in slang 'half a dollar'. Post WW11 a pound was worth 4 US dollars, thus a dollar was worth 5 shillings and the 2s6d piece ('half-a-crown') was 'half- a - dollar'

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.SoothingR 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)

[edit] I think someone should mention those burlap sacks with dollar signs on them

Yep. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.73.48.43 (talk) 01:13, 2 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Two vertical lines

This article mentions reasons for why the dollar sign might have two vertical lines without even mentioning anywhere in the article that it is even sometimes written with two vertical lines. Never mind, it's already mentioned. --Brandon Dilbeck 00:46, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] First use of "$" sign on U.S. money?

Does anyone know if the U.S. Presidential $1 coin in 2007 is the first ever use of the dollar sign on United States money, coins or paper? This question is also on the Presidential $1 coin page, so if you know, please resolve this question there also. 209.26.38.244 14:40, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

UPDATE - I found a Coin World article from April 20, 2004 that says it has appeared on a U.S. coin. Quote below. 209.26.38.244 14:29, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Another UPDATE - Apparently, the 2007 U.S. Presidential dollar coins use is the first appearance on a circulating U.S. coin issued by the federal government. See the second article excerpt below this first one. Any editors out there can use this article as a reference to revise the article if they want to. The second article was all about the history of the dollar sign, U.S. and internationally. 209.26.38.244 18:08, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History again

Someone went back and changed the History section so that it misrepresents the source-- the BEP page cited specifically refers to the PesoS theory, but the text currently says the page advocates the US theory. I changed this once, and I'm not going to get into an edit war, but this is just wrong. The From 'US' section also gained an unjustified "This is the most likely theory" comment, which should probably also be removed. 72.18.225.169 01:41, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] origin of the symbol

The theory that has always attracted me is that the symbol is merely a cancelled "S" for "solidus", just as the pound is a cancelled "L" for "libra", the penny is a cancelled "c" for "centum", etc. Cancellation of the initial letter as a means of abbreviation has been around since the days of the scriptoria. If anyone could find a cancelled S predating the Pillars of Hercules, we could at least put that bit of folk-etymology to rest. 201.160.132.141 17:50, 4 June 2007 (UTC)(Robert Biddle, unregistered user)

[edit] Proper syntactical usage of the sign?

Shouldn't there be something in the article about proper syntactical usage of the dollar sign? (eg. before the numerical dollar value, etc.)

That is not universal. --Asterion^talk 21:31, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References

I have worked my way down the article and tried to reference it as much as I could. I added the tag unreferencedsection for the alternative theories section, some of which deserve more historic credit than other. Ideally it would benefit from a complete overhaul and removal of unverifiable entries. Regards, --Asterion^talk 21:30, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merger with Cifrão?

I think the Cifrão article could and should be adapted into the Dollar sign article. The only thing that separates the cifrão from the dollar sign is that the cifrão always had a double stroke. Which the dollar sign has in many of its variations. Furthermore, the cifrão article isn't very long and can easily be a paragraph in the dollar sign one.

The difference is confusing and only vaguely elaborated upon. Thoughts? SergioGeorgini 11:25, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I understand what you mean. However, as the Cifrão is only one of the multiple theories on the origin of the dollar sign, I doubt it would be widely accepted by other wikipedians. I have nothing at all against the "Cifrão theory" (I even provided a valid reference to back it up, as I believe that any verifiable theory should be listed). Simply, I just do not think that merging Dollar sign to Cifrão would give a balanced picture. And viceversa, I believe Cifrão deserves its own article. The reason why I originally removed the merge-to tag was because the request was badly formed, in the sense that there was no explanation about it on any of the talk pages. Could you please clarify now if you want to merge Cifrão into Dollar sign or Dollar sign into Cifrão? The latter is definitely not going to happen. The former, I personally think is a bad idea, as Cifrão deserves a separate article. Regards, --Asterion^talk 17:20, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the cifrão article should be merged into the dollar sign article. There isn't a separate article for the peso sign, is there? No, because it's the same symbol. I think that "the cifrão always has a double stroke whereas the dollar sign only has it in certain typefaces" isn't enough to make it a whole new symbol. SergioGeorgini 12:52, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Jpmo22 21:38, 22 August 2007 (UTC) I really don't know how to discuss here, but I want to say that Cifrão and Dollar Sign are different symbols (or signs). Brazilian Real use Cifrão () and American Dollar use $ (the Dollar Sign). So I cant see a good reason to merge this articles.

But they're not different. The dollar sign has a double stroke in many typefaces and for decades, the double stroke variation was by far the standard in the United States as well. It's like saying there's a difference between the "a" of Times New Roman and the "a" of Futura and that both should get a separate article. SergioGeorgini 12:48, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Whether they look like eachother and can be confused, is not relevant here. If the signs are created at different times for different purposes they should not be confused on WikiPedia. It would be much better to add a very small section about confusable sign: cifrão (some such) and insert a {{main|Cifrão}} at the start of it. That way the confusion is not propagated. Said: Rursus ☻ 09:08, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

They weren't created at different times and they don't simply "look like one another". It's the same sign. Again, the dollar sign can either have one or two strokes, it doesn't become a Cifrao when that second one is added. SergioGeorgini (talk) 18:02, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Oppose: the article doesn't need to be merged, it is fine in present state.

67.99.103.78 (talk) 11:32, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Because...?SergioGeorgini (talk) 18:02, 30 April 2008 (UTC)