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The dollar symbol is one of the most powerful symbols in the world, emblematic of much more than the American currency.
It is a shortcut for the American dream and for all the consumerism and commodification that goes with it, meaning at once sunny aspiration, greed and rampant capitalism. He was co-opted by pop culture (think Ke $ ha when it started, or with the help of many fast fashion t-shirts) and borrowed by artists (Salvador Dali made a mustache, Andy Warhol the returned to acrylic and silkscreen, creating an iconic body of work that now sells for $$$).
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It is widely used in computer coding and provides silver emoji to the mouth with its stunned eyes and low tongue. Yet, despite its polyglot omnipresence, the origins of the dollar sign still remain unclear, the competing theories of Bohemian coins, pillars of Hercules and harassed merchants.
The little brother of the dollar, the worthless cent, is logically represented by a tiny "c" crossed out with a line, but there is no "D" in the dollar symbol. If you must find hidden letters in its shape, you can spy on an "S" covered with a "U" pinch, without folds, which gives its vertical lines. In fact, this explains one of the most common misconceptions about the origins of the sign: it's for the United States, right?
This is what renowned writer, philosopher and libertarian Ayn Rand believed. In a chapter of his 1957 novel, Atlas raised, one character asks another what the dollar sign represents. The answer includes these lines: "For success, for success, for capacity, for the creative power of man – and precisely for these reasons, it is used as a mark of infamy. It represents the initials of the United States.
It seems that Rand was mistaken, especially because until 1776, the United States was known as the United States Colonies and it would appear that the dollar sign was used before the birth of the United States. United.
The sign of the pound has a history dating back to 1200 years, when it was first used by the Romans as an abbreviation for "libra pondo", the basic unit of empire weight. As any amateur astrologer will tell you, balance means in Latin scales and libra pondo translates literally as "a pound in weight".
In Anglo-Saxon England, the pound sterling became a monetary unit, equivalent to – surprise, surprise – a pound of money. Huge wealth, in other words. But with the Roman name, the Anglo-Saxons borrowed the sign, an ornate letter "L". The crossbar appeared later, indicating that it was an abbreviation. A check at the Bank of England Museum in London shows that the sign of the pound had resumed its current form in 1661, although it took a little longer to adopt it universally.
Logically so unimaginable, the piece was nicknamed the joachimsthaler, which was then shortened to thaler, the word that was later broadcast around the world
The dollar, meanwhile, has a much shorter history. In 1520, the Kingdom of Bohemia began to mint coins using silver from a Joachimsthal mine – which translates roughly from German into English by the Joachim Valley. Logically, though unimaginable, the piece was nicknamed the Joachimsthaler, which was then shortened to Thaler, the word that was later broadcast around the world. It is the Dutch variant, the daler, which crossed the Atlantic in the pockets and language of the first immigrants, and the English-American pronunciation of the word dollar retains its echoes.
Despite the relative youth of the currency, there is no simple answer to the question of the origin of the dollar sign. Nobody seems to be sitting to design it, and its shape always fluctuates – sometimes it has two lines, more and more one. Not that there are not many competing hypotheses. For example, returning to the idea that there is a U and a S concealed in its form, it has been suggested that they represent "units of money".
One of the most esoteric origin stories connects it to the Bohemian thaler, which featured a snake on a Christian cross. This is an allusion to the story of Moses squeezing a bronze serpent around a pole to heal the bitten people. The dollar, it is said, derives from this sign.
Another version focuses on the pillars of Hercules, a phrase invented by the ancient Greeks to describe the promontories flanking the entrance to the Straits of Gibraltar. The pillars appear in the national coat of arms of Spain and, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, on the Spanish dollar, which was also known as a coin of eight, or peso. The streamers are surrounded by S-shaped streamers and it is not very difficult to squint to see a resemblance to the dollar sign.
The most widely accepted theory implies the Spanish currency, and it goes as follows: in the colonies, trade between Spanish Americans and English Americans was alive, and the peso, or peso de ocho reales, was legal tender in the United States. United until 1857. Historians tell us that it has often been shortened by starting with the "P" with an "S" next to it by exponent. Little by little, thanks to the scribbling of merchants and time-pressed scribes, this "P" merged with the "S" and lost its curve, leaving the vertical line like a stake in the center of the "S". A Spanish dollar was worth more or less a US dollar. It is therefore easy to see how the sign could have been transferred.
As with all things American at the moment, the debate on the descent of the dollar sign has a partisan dimension: for political reasons, a faction is favorable to the idea that it is native to us, a other than it has been imported.
The debate on the ascendancy of the dollar sign has a partisan dimension: for political reasons in a duel, one faction is favorable to the idea that it originates from us, another that it has been imported.
It is certainly ironic – although not surprisingly – that a symbol as intrinsic to the national character of America can have its roots in another country. Be that as it may, it is indeed an American invention: it may not be the only creator, but the correspondence of Irish-born Irishman Oliver Pollock, a wealthy merchant and supporter of American revolution, led him to be often cited by historians as its author.
As for the first printed dollar sign, made in a Philadelphia print shop in the 1790s, it was the work of a fervent American patriot – or at least one fiercely anti-English Scottish – named Archibald Binny, who is remembered today as a creator. Font Monticello.
Of course, if you really want to collapse into a mysterious bunny burrow terrier, try to look into the origins of the design of the US dollar bill. Eye of Providence, whoever?
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