steiny@idsvax.UUCP (Don Steiny) (06/24/85)
> > By the way, does anybody know the origin of the word 'dollar'? I've never met > anyone who does. The nearest word to it is the Spanish (Latin?) 'dolore', > which, I'm told, means 'pain'. > -- > Bill Swan {ihnp4,decvax,allegra,...}!uw-beaver!tikal!persci!bill *** It is not from romance languages! According to the American Heritage Dictionary: Low German: "daler", from German "Taler", "taler," short for "Joachimsthal," Jachymov, town in the Erzgebrige Mountians, Czecoslovakia.
grass@uiucdcsb.Uiuc.ARPA (06/28/85)
/* Written 11:23 am Jun 24, 1985 by steiny@idsvax.UUCP in uiucdcsb:net.nlang */ > > By the way, does anybody know the origin of the word 'dollar'? I've never met *** It is not from romance languages! According to the American Heritage Dictionary: Low German: "daler", from German "Taler", "taler," short for "Joachimsthal," Jachymov, town in the Erzgebrige Mountians, Czecoslovakia. /* End of text from uiucdcsb:net.nlang */ Joachimsthal (Jachymov) was (maybe still is?) a major silver mining town. The Thaler (Taler) was a unit of money used up until the 19th century in parts of Germany. Probably some were minted in Jaochimsthal. - Judy Grass, University of Illinois - Urbana {ihnp4,pur-ee,convex}!uiucdcs!grass grass%uiuc.arpa
zben@umd5.UUCP (06/29/85)
In article <196@persci.UUCP> bill@persci.UUCP writes: >By the way, does anybody know the origin of the word 'dollar'? I've never met >anyone who does. The nearest word to it is the Spanish (Latin?) 'dolore', >which, I'm told, means 'pain'. >Bill Swan {ihnp4,decvax,allegra,...}!uw-beaver!tikal!persci!bill I thought it was taken from "thaler", a unit of money used by the ancient Greeks or Romans? Part of the fetish with the ancient democracies that seemed to afflict our founding fathers (pyramids with eyes and such). I think whatever root "dolore" came from survives in English in the term "dolorous", "full of, expressing, or causing pain or sorrow; distressed; grievous; mournful"... -- Ben Cranston ...{seismo!umcp-cs,ihnp4!rlgvax}!cvl!umd5!zben zben@umd2.ARPA