dollar sign ($)

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Dollar Sign ($) History The sign is attested in business correspondence between British North America and Mexico in the 1770s, as referring to the Spanish-Mexican peso. The piastre was known as "Spanish dollar" in British North America, and in 1785, it was adopted as U.S. currency, together with both the term "dollar" and the $ sign. Interestingly, the first instance of the symbol on U.S.A. currency is on the reverse of a $1 coin first issued in February 2007, under the Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005. The sign's ultimate origins are not certain, though it is widely accepted that it comes from the Spanish coat of arms, which carries the two Pillars of Hercules and the motto Non Plus Ultra in the shape of an "S". Spanish Coat of Arms The most widely accepted explanation is that the dollar sign derives from the Spanish coat of arms engraved on the Spanish colonial silver coins "Real de a Ocho" ("piece of eight") or Spanish dollar under circulation in the Spanish colonies of America and Asia, as well as in the English Thirteen Colonies and later the U.S. and Canada. The Spanish coat of arms has two columns (||), which represent the Pillars of Hercules and an "S"-shaped ribbon around each, with the motto "Non Plus Ultra" originally, and later "Plus Ultra". In 1492, King Ferdinand II of Aragon put Gibraltar under the new joined rule of the Spanish throne. He adopted the symbol of the Pillars of Hercules and

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Page 1: Dollar Sign ($)

Dollar Sign ($)

History

The sign is attested in business correspondence between British North

America and Mexico in the 1770s, as referring to the Spanish-Mexican

peso. The piastre was known as "Spanish dollar" in British North America,

and in 1785, it was adopted as U.S. currency, together with both the term

"dollar" and the $ sign. Interestingly, the first instance of the symbol on

U.S.A. currency is on the reverse of a $1 coin first issued in February 2007,

under the Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005.

The sign's ultimate origins are not certain, though it is widely accepted that

it comes from the Spanish coat of arms, which carries the two Pillars of

Hercules and the motto Non Plus Ultra in the shape of an "S".

Spanish Coat of Arms

The most widely accepted explanation is that the dollar sign derives from

the Spanish coat of arms engraved on the Spanish colonial silver coins

"Real de a Ocho" ("piece of eight") or Spanish dollar under circulation in the

Spanish colonies of America and Asia, as well as in the English Thirteen

Colonies and later the U.S. and Canada.

The Spanish coat of arms has two columns (||), which represent the Pillars

of Hercules and an "S"-shaped ribbon around each, with the motto "Non

Plus Ultra" originally, and later "Plus Ultra".

In 1492, King Ferdinand II of Aragon put Gibraltar under the new joined rule

of the Spanish throne. He adopted the symbol of the Pillars of Hercules and

Page 2: Dollar Sign ($)

added the Latin phrase Non plus ultra – meaning "and nothing further",

indicating "[this is] the end of the (known) world". But as Christopher

Columbus in 1492 travelled to the Americas, the saying was changed to

Plus Ultra – as there was more out there. This symbol was especially

adopted by Charles V and was a part of his coat of arms as a symbol of his

American possessions and riches. When the Spanish conquistadores found

gold and silver in the New World, Charles V's symbol was stamped on the

coins made from these metals. These coins with the Pillars of Hercules over

two hemispheres (columnarios) were spread around America and Europe,

and the symbol was ultimately adopted by the country that became the

United States and by many of the continent's other independent nations.

Later on, salesmen wrote signs that, instead of saying dollar, had this

handwritten symbol, and in turn this developed to the simple S with two

vertical bars.

There is also another explanation that makes the sign derive from where "$"

is a corruption of the letters "PS" or PSP , used as an abbreviation for . pesos

Alternative origin hypotheses

There are a number of alternative origin theories, with several degrees of

verifiability and academic acceptance.

From 'US'

That $ is a monogram of U and S, which was used as a mark on money

bags issued by the United States Mint. The letters U and S superimposed

resemble the historical double stroke "$" sign: the bottom of the 'U'

disappears into the bottom curve of the 'S', leaving two vertical lines. This

Page 3: Dollar Sign ($)

double-stroke dollar sign has been used to refer to the U.S. currency. Thus,

the one-stroke design may have been modified to the double-stroke design

to represent United States currency. This idea was largely popularized by

the novel Atlas Shrugged by philosopher Ayn Rand. It does not consider the

fact that the symbol was already in use in the time of the British Colonies,

when the term 'United States' did not exist yet.

From a symbol used on the Roman sestertius

That the dollar sign goes back to the most important Roman coin, the

Sestertius, which had the letters 'HS' as its currency sign. When

superimposed, these letters form a dollar sign with two vertical strokes (the

horizontal line of the 'H' merging into the 'S'). This explanation is widely

discarded, in spite of the tendency of neo-classic Roman Republic

influences in styles evident in other early US government designs, such as

the Capitol and Senate buildings.

The two pillars in the temple of Solomon

That the two vertical lines represent the two cult pillars Boaz and Jachin in

the original Temple of Solomon at Jerusalem. This is based on the idea that

Masonic symbols, such as the All Seeing Eye of God, appear on U.S.

currency; however, they did not in 1785.

From a sign used on the German Thaler

That it derives from the symbol used on a German Thaler. According to

Ovason (2004), on one type of thaler, one side showed the crucified Christ,

and the other side showed a serpent hanging from a cross, and near the

Page 4: Dollar Sign ($)

serpent's head the letters NU, and on the other side of the cross the

number 21. This refers to the Bible, Numbers, chapter 21 (see Nehushtan).

Unit of Silver

The dollar symbol was in use in colonial times before the American

Revolution. Prices were often quoted in units of silver, as the Spanish

"piece of eight" was in common use for payment of goods and services.

When a price was quoted the capital 'S' was used to indicate silver with a

capital 'U' written on top to indicate units. Eventually, the capital 'U' was

replaced by double vertical hash marks.

Other theories

Another possibility is that it derives from the British notation 8/ for eight

shillings, referring to the Spanish 8 reales coin ("piece of eight"), which later

became the USA dollar. Others derive it from the Portuguese Cifrão sign #.

A common explanation is that the symbol is derived from the numeral eight

with a slash through it denoting "pieces of eight". The Oxford English

Dictionary prior to 1963 held that this was the most probable explanation,

though later editions have placed it in doubt.

Still another explanation holds that the dollar sign is derived from (or at

least inspired by) the mint mark on Spanish colonial silver coins ("real" or

"piece of eight") that were minted in Potosí (in present day Bolivia). The

mint mark was composed of the letters "PTSI" superimposed on one

another, and bears an undeniable resemblance to the single-stroke dollar

sign (see picture). The Potosí mine is generally accepted as having been

Page 5: Dollar Sign ($)

the largest single silver strike in history. Silver coins minted in Potosí would

have been in common use in colonial America, and its mint mark widely

recognized.

First cast dollar symbol

According to a plaque in the burgh of St Andrews in Scotland, the first dollar

symbol was cast in a type-foundry in Philadelphia in 1797 that belonged to

Scottish immigrant John Baine. John Baine had lodged in a house in South

Street in St Andrews with Alexander Wilson, the father of Scottish type-

founding.

Use in computer programming

As the dollar sign is one of the few symbols that is on the one hand almost

universally present in computer character sets, but on the other hand rarely

needed in its literal meaning within programming languages, the $ character

has been used on computers for many purposes not related to money,

including:

• $ was used as a string terminator in CP/M and subsequently also in

all versions of 86-DOS, PC-DOS, MS-DOS and derivatives (Int 21h

with AH=09h)

• $ signifies the end of a line or the file in text editors ed, ex, vi and

derivatives, and consequently:

• $ matches the end of a line or string in sed, grep, and POSIX and Perl

regular expressions.

Page 6: Dollar Sign ($)

• $ was used to define string variables in older versions of the BASIC

programming language ("$" was often pronounced "string" instead of

"dollar" in this use).

• $ is used to define hexadecimal constants in Pascal-like languages as

Delphi.

• $ is used to define variables in the PHP programming language and

scalar variables in the Perl programming language (see Sigil

(computer programming)).

• In the AutoIt automation script language, any variable is required to

have a $ at the beginning of its name.

• In most shell scripting languages, $ is used to interpolate environment

variables, special variables, arithmetic computations and special

characters, and to perform translation of localised strings.

• In UNIX-like systems the $ is often part of the command prompt,

depending on the user's shell and environment settings. For example,

the default environment settings for the bash shell specify $ as part of

the command prompt.

• $ is used in the TeX typesetting language to delimit mathematical

regions.

• $ is used by the prompt command in DOS to insert special sequences

into the DOS command prompt string.

• Formulas in Microsoft Excel and other spreadsheets use $ to indicate

an absolute cell reference.

Page 7: Dollar Sign ($)

Currencies that use the dollar or peso sign

In addition to those countries of the world that use dollars or pesos, a

number of other countries use the symbol $ to denote their currencies,

including, but not limited, to:

• Nicaraguan córdoba

• Tongan pa'anga

Except the Philippine peso, whose sign is written as #.

Some currencies use the cifrão #, similar to the dollar sign, but always with

two strokes:

• Brazilian real

• Cape Verde escudo

• Portuguese escudo (defunct)

The cifrão is also currently used to account for over 130,000,000 domestic

standard US Mint (1986+) bullion US silver dollars as one dollar per one

troy ounce fine (99.9%), thereby avoiding confusion with debased US trade

dollar-denominated tokens and Federal Reserve Notes.