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From: alan@mucs.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.std.internat,sci.lang
Subject: Currency symbols
Message-ID: <1261@mucs.UX.CS.MAN.AC.UK>
Date: Sun, 6-Sep-87 09:53:01 EDT
Article-I.D.: mucs.1261
Posted: Sun Sep  6 09:53:01 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 9-Sep-87 01:48:41 EDT
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, University of Manchester, UK.
Lines: 26
Xref: utgpu comp.std.internat:214 sci.lang:1240
In-reply-to: dant@tekla.TEK.COM's message of 23 Aug 87 13:52:40 GMT

Many currency symbols, especially those with a long history, are composed
of an alphabetic with some decoration, which in many cases has degenerated
into a stroke or two (rather like mathematicians' symbols for The Natural
Numbers, The Reals, etc).

For example, the English pound is written as an L (usually a curly one)
with a stroke through it.  "L" because the old Norman word for it was
"livre", derived from the same Latin root (librus?) as the Italian "lire".

"$" is used in other countries which call their currency units "dollars"; I
believe the Spanish conquistadores were responsible for spreading this
convention.  I would conjecture that the "S" which forms the basis of it
comes from the Latin "solidus"; like the pound/livre, the name changed at
some point but the symbol remained the same.

Why do I guess 'solidus'? In my earlier years, Britain had a peculiar
multiple-radix system of reckoning money in which the units were pounds,
shillings and pence, of which an instance is L1/12s/3d: L for libri, s for
solidi, and d for denarii, the old Latin names which were adopted for the
units in the middle ages.

Alan Wills
University of Manchester
-- 
Alan Wills
+44-61-273 7121 x5699