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Nov 28, 2012 · According to Rand, the dollar sign (written with two downward slashes instead of one) came from the initials of the United States: A capital U superimposed over a capital S, minus the lower part ...
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- Origin and history
symbol
Also known as: $
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Outside of currency, the dollar sign is used as a common sigil (symbol for a variable) in many computer programming languages, including Beginner’s All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code (BASIC) and several scripting languages such as Perl. In BASIC, the symbol is suffixed to a variable representing an array, or collection, of strings; in scripting ...
The origin of the dollar sign is a matter of debate. The most widely circulated theory asserts that it originated as a symbol representing the Spanish milled dollar (also called peso). After the United States gained independence in the late 18th century, it created a new currency based on Spanish coinage, the most common coin in circulation in the colonies. The United States’ first dollar coins, minted in silver in 1794, not only took their name from the Spanish dollar but also borrowed the Spanish dollar’s weight and value. Because of the close connection between the two currencies, it is likely that if a symbol existed for the Spanish dollar before 1794, it would have been used for the U.S. dollar. The earliest known occurrence of a dollar sign in print, however, was in 1797.
According to a related theory, the symbol stems from an abbreviation of peso as Ps. The strongest support for this theory comes from a 1778 invoice handwritten by Oliver Pollock, a financier of the American Revolution, in which the P in the Ps abbreviation appears to be superimposed on the s, thereby bisecting it. Despite the resemblance between Oliver Pollock’s handwriting and the dollar sign, however, there remains little evidence to suggest such a symbol was in contemporary usage or that Pollock’s possible slip caught on.
Another theory relates to the origin of the Spanish dollar itself. When Spain underwent a coinage reform in 1497, the dollar was introduced as Spain’s unit of currency. Its full name was peso de ocho reales (or “piece of 8 reales”), and, as its name suggests, it was worth 8 units of the real, the former standard. Some have therefore speculated that the $ symbol arose as a stylistic variation on the Arabic numeral 8, although no documents have surfaced that demonstrate 8 being used to symbolize the Spanish dollar.
The peso originated during the reign of Ferdinand II of Aragon (1479–1516), and some see a resemblance between one of his royal symbols, which was cast on the bill, and the dollar sign. After Ferdinand’s forces gained control over the Strait of Gibraltar, he added to his coat of arms two columns representing the Pillars of Heracles, wrapped with a ribbon. Many people suggest that the bar in the dollar sign resembles one of the pillars, while the S looks like the ribbon. There is little evidence, however, to indicate that the dollar sign came from the $-like representation of the pillars on the Spanish dollar.
May 30, 2019 · Best of Worklife 2019. Money. Despite its ubiquity, the origins of the dollar sign remain far from clear, with competing theories touching on Bohemian coins, the Pillars of Hercules and harried...
History. Use for the Spanish American peso in the late 1700s. The symbol appears in business correspondence in the 1770s from Spanish America, the early independent U.S., British America and Britain, referring to the Spanish American peso, [1] [2] also known as "Spanish dollar" or "piece of eight" in British America.
Oct 1, 2018 · The English American colonists were the first to use the symbol. Since it was (in a way) already a dollar sign (for the “Spanish dollar”), and since one American dollar originally had the same...
The modern dollar and peso symbols originated from the mark employed to denote the Spanish dollar, whereas the pound and lira symbols evolved from the letter L (written until the seventeenth century in blackletter type as ) standing for libra, a Roman pound of silver.
Jul 25, 2022 · Hans Daniel Jasperson. Ever wonder how our currencies got the specific symbols that they have? While you may have never questioned where these signs come from, their origins are a fascinating...
