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From: dant@tekla.TEK.COM (Dan Tilque;1893;92-789;LP=A;60HC)
Newsgroups: comp.std.internat,sci.lang
Subject: Currency symbols
Message-ID: <2276@zeus.TEK.COM>
Date: Sun, 23-Aug-87 09:52:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: zeus.2276
Posted: Sun Aug 23 09:52:40 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 24-Aug-87 00:05:49 EDT
References: <218@astra.necisa.oz> <8461@utzoo.UUCP>
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Reply-To: dant@tekla.UUCP (Dan Tilque)
Organization: First National Security Trust Bar and Grill
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Xref: mnetor comp.std.internat:159 sci.lang:1202

>> P.S.: About extra letters: is the "$"-sign really the writing in one space
>> of "U" and "S"? So: "U.S. dollar" --> "$ dollar"
>
Henry Spencer:
>Close.  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.


Hmm... I remember seeing a 19 century political cartoon which had an
S with two vertical bars across it.  I don't remember if these bars
were from a U or not.  The text of the book (it was a history book
I think) claimed that this was the origin of the dollar sign.

I have a feeling that the dollar sign has almost as many "origins"
as the word "ok" does.

---
Dan Tilque
dant@tekla.tek.com  or dant@tekla.UUCP

This got me to wondering: what do those countries who don't have a 
special currency symbol put in the ASCII currency location.  Please
e-mail responses, we don't need to flood the net with 600 messages
saying the same thing.  I'll summarize.