msb@sq.UUCP (09/06/87)
Henry Spencer (utzoo!henry) answered J.A. Durieux (biep@cs.vu.nl)'s query thus: > What I have been told is that the dollar sign is a scrunched form > of PS, with the loop of the P getting lost in the shuffle. Why PS? Because > the US took a long time to get its act together on a national currency, and > the Mexican peso saw considerable use meanwhile. Despite his use of "What I have been told is", Henry is, as usual, correct. My reference is the book "A History of Mathematical Notations, Volume II, Notations Mainly in Higher Mathematics", by Florian Cajori, 1929, reprinted 1952, Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago (but La Salle on the dust jacket), IL, USA. Cajori spends about 15 pages on the history of "$", and illustrates them with reproductions from old manuscripts. First, let's see what he says about the "$" originating from a superposed "U" and "S": # There are few mathematical symbols the origin of which has given rise # to more unrestrained speculation and less real scientific study than # has our dollar mark, "$". About a dozen different theories have been # advanced by men of imaginative minds, but not one of these would-be # historians permitted himself to be hampered by the underlying facts. # ... # ... [T]he "U.S. theory" ... is the more pleasing because it makes the # symbol a strictly American product, without foreign parentage, apparently # as much the rest of a conscious effort or act of invention as the sewing # machine or cotton gin. ... [In] fact, no one has ever advanced real # evidence in the form of old manuscripts, or connected the symbol with a # particular place or individual. Nor have our own extensive researches # yielded evidence in support of the "U.S. theory". # ... # However, knowing that traditional theories are dear to the heart of man, # an additional coup de grace will not be superfluous. The earliest high # official of the United States government to use the dollar mark was Robert # Morris, the great financier of the Revolution. Letters in his handwriting, # as well as those penned by his secretary, give the dollar mark with only # one downward stroke ... To assume that the symbol is made up of the # letters "U" and "S" is to assert that Robert Morris and his secretary # did not know what the real dollar symbol was ... I will not trouble to quote the discussion of the various theories involving an "8" for "pieces of eight", or the "||" from the "Pillars of Hercules" that appeared on some versions of that coin. Well, one quote: # To us the "P8 theory" seemed at one time the most promising working # hypothesis, but we were obliged to abandon it, because all evidence # pointed in a different direction. We sent inquiries ... but failed # to get the slightest evidence in its favor. But it is not that way when he comes to discuss what we might call the "Ps theory". First, recall that in pre-typewriter days it was common to write words with their suffixes abbreviated and written as superscripts. Thus, before typewriters, the word "typewriter" might have been written as "typewr" with a superscript "r", or something like that -- the degree of abbreviation was rather flexible, especially with commonly used words. Anything to save a few pen strokes! Now, # It was a remarkable coincidence that all three names by which the Spanish # dollar was best known, namely, the "peso", "piastre", and "piece of eight", # began with the letter "p" and all three were pluralized by the use of the # letter "s". Hence "p" and "ps" admirably answered as abbreviations of any of # these forms. ... The symbols in Figure 111 [30 examples from 1500 to 1799] # show that the usual abbreviation was "ps" or "p", the letter "p" taking # sometimes a florescent form and the "s" in "ps" being as a rule raised # above the "p". The "p" and the "s" are often connected, showing that they # were written in these instances by one uninterrupted motion of the pen. The forms vary widely, even within the same document where "p sup s" may be used in one place and "p sup ss" in another, but forms resembling "$" appear as early as 1778. Cajori continues: # The transition from the "ps" to our modern dollar mark ... was made by # the English-speaking people who came in contact with the Spaniards. # ... # The transition from the florescent "ps" to our dollar sign is ... # [a]pparently ... a change introduced unconsciously to simplify the # the complicated motion of the pen called for in the florescent "p sup s". # No manuscript of this period is so interesting and convincing as the two # contemporaneous copies, made by the same hand, of a letter written in 1778 # by Oliver Pollock, then "commercial agent of the United States at New # Orleans". Pollock ... [was] to the west what Robert Morris was to the east. # ... Both copies of that letter show the "$" in the body of the letter, while # in the summary of accounts, at the close, the "$" and the florescent # "p sup s" are both used. These documents show indeed "the modern dollar # sign in the making". In the copy from which our photograph is taken, # Figure 112, the 8613 dollars is indicated by the regular "$", while in # the other copy it is represented by the fancy "p sup s". The variant forms with one and two vertical strokes in the "$" competed from the beginning; Morris used one and Pollock the other, and some writers used both. It seems to be merely a question of how much the symbol and the pen motions were to be simplified. The "$" gradually began to appear in print about 1800, showing that it was generally accepted. Cajori remarks: # It is interesting to observe that Spanish-Americans placed the "ps" after # the numerals, thus "65ps", while the English colonists, begin accustomed # to write [a pound sign] before the number of pounds, usually wrote the "$" # to the left of the numerals, thus "$65". ... The dollar mark "$" is # usually written after the number ... in many Latin-American arithmetics ... And it is in French Canada too, I may add. Cajori concludes: # ... that the "$" is the lineal descendant of the Spanish abbreviation # "p sup s" for pesos, that the change ... to "$" was made about 1775 by # English-Americans who came into business relations with Spanish-Americans, # and that the earliest printed "$" dates back to the opening of the # nineteenth century. Mark Brader "The singular of 'data' is not 'anecdote.'" utzoo!sq!msb -- Jeff Goldberg
hrs@homxb.UUCP (09/08/87)
Apart from the origin of the "$" sign, the name dollar comes from the germanic thaler, a coin used in central Europe for a long time. The coin was widespread, and aoften had specific designations, such as Maria Theresiathaler. In Dutch it was called the daalder, and a later one the rijksdaalder, which was worth Fl. 2.50, or two and 1/2 guilders. In pre-war times, when currencies were more stable, the value of the rijksdaalder was exactly one dollar! Also note the abbreviation Fl. for the guilder. It stands for Florin, buit means guilder (gulden). Herman Silbiger ...!ihnp4!homxb!hrs
firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth) (09/10/87)
In article <985@homxb.UUCP> hrs@homxb.UUCP (H.SILBIGER) writes: > >Apart from the origin of the "$" sign, the name dollar comes from the >germanic thaler, a coin used in central Europe for a long time. >The coin was widespread, and aoften had specific designations, such >as Maria Theresiathaler. In Dutch it was called the daalder, and a >later one the rijksdaalder, which was worth Fl. 2.50, or two and 1/2 >guilders. In pre-war times, when currencies were more stable, the value >of the rijksdaalder was exactly one dollar! Also note the abbreviation >Fl. for the guilder. It stands for Florin, buit means guilder (gulden). > >Herman Silbiger ...!ihnp4!homxb!hrs The full name of the coin was 'Joachimsthaler', because the early examples were minted from silver found in the Joachimsthal ('Thal' - now 'Tal' - is the German for valley, compare Neanderthal). True currencies are no less stable now than they were in pre-war times; since all sane countries used one form or another of precious-metal standard, coins were interchangeable on the basis of their gold or silver content, so naturally two silver coins of the same weight would have almost the same value. A point evidently lost on the bureaucrats who are advertising the latest issue of US gold coins as "backed by the faith and credit of the US government", since the rationale of true coinage is its value in intrinsic. (Well, maybe they do have a point - the smaller US gold coins are short weight) In addition, 'Reichsthaler/ryksdaalder' means 'kingdoms-dollar', implying it was minted under royal patent; compare the British 'sovereign' and Saxon 'crown'. The word 'florin' comes from Florentia (English Florence), in Renaissance times the home of one of the more trustworthy mints. Compare 'bezant', from Byzantium, and of course 'franc'.
sjaak@vuecho.psy.vu.nl (Sjaak Schuurman) (09/15/87)
In article <2436@aw.sei.cmu.edu> firth@bd.sei.cmu.edu.UUCP writes: >In article <985@homxb.UUCP> hrs@homxb.UUCP (H.SILBIGER) writes: >> >> (....) Also note the abbreviation >>Fl. for the guilder. It stands for Florin, but means guilder (gulden). >> > > >The word 'florin' comes from Florentia (English Florence), in >Renaissance times the home of one of the more trustworthy mints. >Compare 'bezant', from Byzantium, and of course 'franc'. H. Silbiger is correct here, although it can be stated more precisely. A Dutch linguist told me: "Hfl, Fl or just f. stands for [Hollandse] florijn, and it means 'gulden' in such a way, that the name for the currency used in the Low Countries was fully 'gulden florijn'. Gulden is medieval Dutch for gouden (golden), and florijn comes from the name 'Floris', a prince whose image was on one side of those (golden) coins." BTW: Nowadays a special sign is used in the Netherlands for the guilder as well, namely a curly lowercase 'f'. Sjaak Schuurman.