Как пишется доллар значок

«$» redirects here. For the unit of currency, see Dollar. For other uses, see $ (disambiguation).

«Peso sign» redirects here. For the Philippine peso sign «₱», see Philippine peso sign.

$

Dollar sign

Other names Peso sign
In Unicode U+0024 $ DOLLAR SIGN ($)
Currency
Currency Many (see dollar, peso)
Graphical variants

Dollar sign fonts.svg

Category

The dollar sign, also known as peso sign, is a symbol consisting of a capital «S» crossed with one or two vertical strokes ($ or {displaystyle {mathsf {S}}!!!{{big |}!{big |}}}), used to indicate the unit of various currencies around the world, including most currencies denominated «peso» and «dollar». The explicitly double-barred {displaystyle {mathsf {S}}!!!{{big |}!{big |}}} sign is called cifrão.

The sign is also used in several compound currency symbols, such as the Brazilian real (R$) and the Nicaraguan córdoba (C$).

The one- and two-stroke version are often considered mere stylistic (typeface) variants, although in some places and epochs one of them may have been specifically assigned, by law or custom, to a specific currency. The Unicode computer encoding standard defines a single code for both.

In most English-speaking countries that use that symbol, it is placed to the left of the amount specified, e.g. «$1», read as «one dollar».

History[edit]

Use for the Spanish American peso in the late 1700s[edit]

The symbol appears in business correspondence in the 1770s from Spanish America, the early independent U.S., British America and Britain, referring to the Spanish American peso,[1][2] also known as «Spanish dollar» or «piece of eight» in British America. Those coins provided the model for the currency that the United States adopted in 1792, and for the larger coins of the new Spanish American republics, such as the Mexican peso, Argentine peso, Peruvian real, and Bolivian sol coins.

With the Coinage Act of 1792, the United States Congress created the U.S. dollar, defining it to have «the value of a Spanish milled dollar as the same is now current»[3] but a variety of foreign coins were deemed to be legal tender until the Coinage Act of 1857 ended this status.[4][failed verification][5][failed verification]

The earliest U.S. dollar coins did not have any dollar symbol. The first occurrence in print is claimed to be from 1790s, by a Philadelphia printer Archibald Binny, creator of the Monticello typeface.[6] The $1 United States Note issued by the United States in 1869 included a large symbol consisting of a «U» with the right bar overlapping an «S» like a single-bar dollar sign, as well as a very small double-stroke dollar sign in the legal warning against forgery.[7]

Earlier history of the symbol[edit]

It is still uncertain, however, how the dollar sign came to represent the Spanish American peso. There are currently several competing hypotheses:

  • One theory holds that the sign grew out of the Spanish and Spanish American scribal abbreviation «ps» for pesos. A study of late 18th- and early 19th-century manuscripts shows that the s gradually came to be written over the p, developing into a close equivalent to the «$» mark.[8][9][10][11][12] However, there are documents showing the common use of the two-stroke version in Portugal already by 1775.[13]

A piece of eight from the Potosí mint, showing the Pillars of Hercules with «S» ribbons, and two «PTSI» monograms at about 4 and 8 o’clock around the edge.

  • Another hypothesis derives the sign from a depiction of the Pillars of Hercules, a classical symbol for two sides of the Strait of Gibraltar, with a ribbon wrapped around both each pillar (or both pillars) in the form of an «S». This device is common support element of the Spanish coat of arms, and appeared on the most common real de ocho coins circulating at the time in the Americas and Europe; namely, those minted at the Potosí mint in Bolivia, which operated from 1573 to 1825.[14][10] Indeed, one of the names used for Spanish dollars in Qing Dynasty China was 双柱; 雙柱; shuāngzhù; ‘double-pillar’.[15]
  • A variant of the above theory claims that the sign comes from the mark of the mint at Potosí, where a large portion of the Spanish Empire’s silver was mined, also featured on those coin, which consisted of the letters «P T S I» superimposed. The core of this monogram is a (single-stroked) «$» sign.[16]

Sample ledger with a sign for dollar from John Collins 1686.

  • Yet another hypothesis notes that the English word «dollar» for the Spanish piece of eight originally came (through Dutch daalder) from Joachimsthaler or thaler, a similar large German silver coin which was widely used in Europe. It is therefore conjectured that the dollar sign derived from a symbol consisting of a superimposing S and I or J that was used to denote the German silver coin. Such symbol appears in the 1686 edition of An Introduction to Merchants’ Accounts by John Collins.[17] Alternatively, the symbol could have come from a snake and cross emblem on the thaler coins.[6]

Less likely theories[edit]

The following theories seem to have been discredited or contradicted by documentary evidence:

  • Some historians have attributed the symbol to Oliver Pollock, a wealthy Irish trader and early supporter of the American Revolution, who used the abbreviation «ps», sometimes run together, in a letter dated 1778.[6][18]
  • In 1937, historian James Alton James claimed that the symbol with two strokes was an adapted design of patriot Robert Morris in 1778, in letters written to Pollock.[19][20][18]
  • In 1939, H. M. Larson suggested that the sign could derive from a combination of the Greek character «psi» (ψ) and «S».[21]
  • Writer Ayn Rand claimed in her 1957 book Atlas Shrugged that the sign started off as a monogram of «US», with a narrow «U» superimposed on the «S», which would have been used on money bags issued by the United States Mint. In her theory, the bottom part of the «U» would have been lost, producing the dollar sign with two vertical lines.[22][6]
  • Authors T. Seijas and J. Frederick noted that the captors of slaves in Spanish territories sometimes branded enslaved people with a symbol very similar to a one-barred dollar sign. Esclavo is Spanish for «slave,» and clavo means nail. A dollar sign is S + clavo.[14]
  • A theory often cited in Portuguese speaking countries is that the «S» part of the doubly-stroked sign is a schematic representation of the path followed by the Umayyad Caliphate general Tariq Ibn Ziyad in his conquest of the Visigoth kingdom in 711 CE, and the two strokes represent the Pillars of Hercules that he would have crossed along that path. That symbol would have been engraved in coins commemorating his victory, and then became symbolic of currency in general.[23]

Currencies that use the dollar sign[edit]

As symbol of the currency[edit]

The numerous currencies called «dollar» use the dollar sign to express money amounts. The sign is also generally used for the many currencies called «peso» (except the Philippine peso, which uses the symbol «₱»). Within a country the dollar/peso sign may be used alone. In other cases, and to avoid ambiguity in international usage, it is usually combined with other glyphs, e.g. CA$ or Can$ for Canadian dollar.

The dollar sign, alone or in combination with other glyphs, is or was used to denote several currencies with other names, including:

Prefix or suffix[edit]

In the United States, Mexico, Australia, Argentina, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Pacific Island nations, and English-speaking Canada, the sign is written before the number («$5»), even though the word is written or spoken after it («five dollars», «cinco pesos«). In French-speaking Canada, exceptionally, the dollar symbol usually appears after the number,[24] e.g., «5$». (The cent symbol is written after the number in most countries that use it, e.g., «5¢».)

Use in the Portuguese Empire[edit]

In Portugal, Brazil, and other parts of the Portuguese Empire, the two-stroke variant of the sign (with the name cifrão; (Portuguese pronunciation: [siˈfɾɐ̃w̃] (listen)) was used as the thousands separator of amounts in the national currency, the real (plural «réis», abbreviated «Rs.»): 123Cifrão symbol.svg500 meant «123500 réis«. This usage is attested in 1775, but may be older by a century or more.[13] It is always written with two vertical lines: Cifrão symbol.svg. It is the official sign of the Cape Verdean escudo (ISO 4217: CVE).

In 1911 Portugal redefined the national currency as the escudo, worth 1000 réis, and divided into 100 centavos; but the cifrão continued to be used as the decimal separator,[25] so that 123Cifrão symbol.svg50 meant 123.50 escudos or 123 escudos and 50 centavos. This usage ended in 2002 when the country switched to the euro. (A similar scheme to use a letter symbol instead of a decimal point is used by the RKM code in electrical engineering since 1952.)

Car for sale in Cape Verde, showing use of the cifrão as decimals separator.

Cape Verde, a republic and former Portuguese colony, similarly switched from the real to their local escudo and centavos in 1914, and retains the cifrão usage as decimals separator as of 2021. Local versions of the Portuguese escudo were for a time created also for other overseas colonies, including East Timor (1958–1975), Portuguese India (1958–1961), Angola (1914–1928 and 1958–1977), Mozambique (1914–1980), Portuguese Guinea (1914–1975), and São Tomé and Príncipe (1914–1977); presumably[clarification needed] all using the cifrão as decimals separator.[citation needed]

Brazil retained the real and the cifrão as thousands separator until 1942, when it switched to the Brazilian cruzeiro, with comma as the decimals separator. The dollar sign, officially with one stroke but often rendered with two, was retained as part of the currency symbol «Cr $», so one would write Cr$13,50 for 13 cruzeiros and 50 centavos.[26]

It was formerly used by the Portuguese escudo (ISO: PTE) before its replacement by the euro and by the Portuguese Timor escudo (ISO: TPE) before its replacement by the Indonesian rupiah and the US dollar.[27] In Portuguese and Cape Verdean usage, the cifrão is placed as a decimal point between the escudo and centavo values.[28] The name originates in the Arabic sifr (‏صِفْر‎), meaning ‘zero’.[29]

Fictional currencies[edit]

Some virtual world and gaming platforms have used the $ symbol to refer to their own virtual currencies, for example:

  • S$: Sansar dollars (Sansar)
  • L$: Linden dollars (Second Life)
  • M$: Minecoins (Minecraft)
  • D$: Dark dollars (Deltarune)

One stroke vs. two strokes[edit]

In some places and at some times, the one- and two-stroke variants have been used in the same contexts to distinguish between the U.S. dollar and other local currency, such as the former Portuguese escudo.[25]

However, such usage is not standardized, and furthermore the two versions are generally considered[citation needed] mere graphic variants of the same symbol—a typeface design choice. Computer and typewriter keyboards usually have a single key for that sign, and many character encodings (including ASCII and Unicode) reserve a single numeric code for it. Indeed, dollar signs in the same digital document may be rendered with one or two strokes, if different computer fonts are used. Should that ambiguity be significant, one may use explicit abbreviations (like «US$» or «$NZ»), or ISO 4217 three-letter currency codes (such as USD and MXN) to distinguish different currencies that use the symbol.

When a specific variant is not mandated by law or custom, the choice is usually a matter of expediency or aesthetic preference. Both versions were used in the US in the 18th century. (An 1861 Civil War-era advertisement depicts the two-stroked symbol as a snake.[18]) The two-stroke version seems to be generally less popular today, though used in some «old-style» fonts like Baskerville.

Use in computer software[edit]

Because of its use in early American computer applications such as business accounting, the dollar sign is almost universally present in computer character sets, and thus has been appropriated for many purposes unrelated to money in programming languages and command languages.

Encoding[edit]

The dollar sign «$» has Unicode code point U+0024 (inherited from ASCII via Latin-1).

  • U+0024 $ DOLLAR SIGN ($)[a]

There are no separate encodings for one- and two-line variants. The choice is typeface-dependent, they are allographs. However, there are three other code points that originate from other East Asian standards: the Taiwanese small form variant, the CJK fullwidth form, and the Japanese emoji. The glyphs for these code points are typically larger or smaller than the primary code point, but the difference is mostly aesthetic or typographic, and the meanings of the symbols are the same.

  • U+FE69 SMALL DOLLAR SIGN
  • U+FF04 FULLWIDTH DOLLAR SIGN
  • U+1F4B2 💲 HEAVY DOLLAR SIGN

However, for usage as the special character in various computing applications (see following sections), U+0024 is typically the only code that is recognized.

Support for the two-line variant varies. As of 2019, the Unicode standard considers the distinction between one- and two-bar dollar signs a stylistic distinction between fonts, and has no separate code point for the cifrão. The symbol is not in the October 2019 ‘pipeline’,[32] but appears to be under active consideration.[33]

The following fonts display a double-bar dollar sign for code point 0024:[citation needed] regular-weight Baskerville, Big Caslon, Bodoni MT, Bradley Hand ITC, Brush Script MT, Garamond, STFangsong, STKaiti, and STSong ($).

In LaTeX, with the textcomp package installed, the cifrão ({mathrm  {S}}!!!Vert ) can be input using the command textdollaroldstyle.

However, because of font substitution and the lack of a dedicated code point, the author of an electronic document who uses one of these fonts intending to represent a cifrão cannot be sure that every reader will see a double-bar glyph rather than the single barred version.

Because of the continued lack of support in Unicode, a single bar dollar sign is frequently employed in its place even for official purposes.[28][34] Where there is any risk of misunderstanding, the ISO 4217 three letter acronym is used.

Programming languages[edit]

  • $ was used for defining string variables in older versions of the BASIC language, e.g. CHR$ ($ was often pronounced «string» instead of «dollar» in this use).
  • $ is prefixed to names to define variables in the PHP language and the AutoIt automation script language, scalar variables in the Perl language (see sigil (computer programming)), and global variables in the Ruby language. In Perl programming this includes scalar elements of arrays $array[7] and hashes $hash{foo}.
  • In most shell scripting languages, $ is used to indicate the insertion into strings of environment variables, special variables, input data fields, previous commands, arithmetic computations, and special characters, and for performing translation of localised strings. In the shell script languages of CP/M, DOS, and several Unix-like systems, it is used to insert variable information (such as the current working directory, user name, or sequential command number) in the command prompt.
  • $ is used for defining hexadecimal constants in Pascal-like languages such as Delphi, and in some variants of assembly language.
  • $ is used in the ALGOL 68 language to delimit transput format regions.
  • $ is used in the TeX typesetting language to delimit mathematical regions.
  • In many versions of FORTRAN 66, $ could be used as an alternative to a quotation mark for delimiting strings.
  • In PL/M, $ can be used to put a visible separation between words in compound identifiers. For example, Some$Name refers to the same thing as ‘SomeName’.
  • In Haskell, $ is used as a function application operator.
  • In an AutoHotkey script, a hotkey declared with $ is not triggered by a ‘Send’ command elsewhere in the script.
  • In several JavaScript frameworks such as Prototype.js and jQuery, $ is a common utility class, and is often referred to as the buck.[citation needed] Otherwise, it’s a character allowed in identifiers.
  • In JavaScript from ES6 onward it is used inside template literals to insert the value of a variable. For example, if var word = "such" then `as ${word}` would equal 'as such'
  • In C#, $ marks a string literal as an interpolated string.
  • In ASP.NET, the dollar sign used in a tag in the web page indicates an expression will follow it. The expression that follows is .NET language-agnostic, as it will work with C#, VB.NET, or any CLR supported language.
  • In Erlang, the dollar sign precedes character literals. The dollar sign as a character can be written $$.
  • In COBOL the $ sign is used in the Picture clause to depict a floating currency symbol as the left most character. The default symbol is $; however, if the CURRENCY= or CURRENCY SIGN clause is specified, many other symbols can be used.
  • In some assembly languages, such as MIPS, the $ sign is used to represent registers.
  • In Honeywell 6000 series assembler, the $ sign, when used as an address, meant the address of the instruction in which it appeared.
  • In CMS-2, the $ sign is used as a statement terminator.
  • In R, the $ sign is used as a subsetting operator.
  • In Q (programming language from Kx Systems), the $ sign is used as a casting/padding/enumeration/conditional operator.
  • In Sass, the $ sign is prefixed to define a variable.

Operating systems[edit]

  • In CP/M and subsequently in all versions of DOS (86-DOS, MS-DOS, PC DOS, more) and derivatives, $ is used as a string terminator (Int 21h with AH=09h).
  • In Microsoft Windows, $ is appended to the share name to hide a shared folder or resource. For example, \servershare will be visible to other computers on a network, while \servershare$ will be accessible only by explicit reference. Hiding a shared folder or resource will not alter its access permissions but may render it inaccessible to programs or other functions which rely on its visibility. Most administrative shares are hidden in this way.
  • In the LDAP directory access protocol, $ is used as a line separator in various standard entry attributes such as postalAddress.
  • In the UNIVAC EXEC 8 operating system, $ means «system». It is appended to entities such as the names of system files, the «sender» name in messages sent by the operator, and the default names of system-created files (like compiler output) when no specific name is specified (e.g., TPF$, NAME$, etc.)
  • In RISC OS, $ is used in system variables to separate the application name from the variables specific to that application. For example Draw$Dir specifies the directory where the !Draw application is located. It is also used to refer to the root directory of a file system.

Applications[edit]

  • Microsoft Excel[35] and other spreadsheet software use the dollar sign ($) to denote a fixed row, fixed column reference, or an absolute cell reference.
  • The dollar sign introduces a subfield delimiter in computer coding of library catalog records.
  • $ matches the end of a line or string in sed, grep, and POSIX and Perl regular expressions, as well as the end of a line or the file in text editors ed, ex, vi, pico, and derivatives.

Other uses[edit]

The symbol is sometimes used derisively, in place of the letter S, to indicate greed or excess money such as in «Micro$oft», «Di$ney», «Chel$ea» and «GW$»; or supposed overt Americanisation as in «$ky». The dollar sign is also used intentionally to stylize names such as A$AP Rocky, Ke$ha, and Ty Dolla $ign or words such as ¥€$. In 1872, Ambrose Bierce referred to California governor Leland Stanford as $tealand Landford.[36]

In Scrabble notation, a dollar sign is placed after a word to indicate that it is valid according to the North American word lists, but not according to the British word lists.[37]

A dollar symbol is used as unit of reactivity for a nuclear reactor, 0 $ being the threshold of slow criticality, meaning a steady reaction rate, while 1 $ is the threshold of prompt criticality, which means a nuclear excursion or explosion.[38][39]

The dollar sign was used as a letter in the Turkmen alphabet from 1993 to 1999.[citation needed]

The dollar sign plays an important role in the plot of Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, with the book’s radical Free Market activists adopting it as their insignia.[citation needed]

See also[edit]

  • Cifrão
  • Euro sign
  • Indian rupee sign
  • Pound sign
  • Ruble sign
  • Rupee sign
  • Spanish dollar
  • Turkish lira sign
  • Yen sign
  • Yuan sign
  • Won sign

Explanatory notes[edit]

  1. ^ As of April 2022, HTML5 is the only version of HTML that has a named entity for the dollar sign.[30][31]

References[edit]

Citations[edit]

  1. ^ Kinnaird, Lawrence (July 1976). «The Western Fringe of Revolution». The Western Historical Quarterly. 7 (3): 259. doi:10.2307/967081. JSTOR 967081.
  2. ^ Popular Science (February 1930). «Origin of Dollar Sign is Traced to Mexico». Popular Science: 59. ISSN 0161-7370.
  3. ^ «Section 9 of the Coinage Act of 1792». Memory.loc.gov. Retrieved 24 August 2010.
  4. ^ «Massachusetts Copyright Statute,(1783), p. 370».
  5. ^ «Maryland Copyright Statute (1783)».
  6. ^ a b c d Hephzibah Anderson (2019): «The curious origins of the dollar symbol». Online article at the BBC website, dated 29 May 2019. Accessed on 2021-08-12.
  7. ^ Reverse of $1 United States Note (Greenback), series of 1869
  8. ^ Cajori, Florian (1993) [1929]. A History of Mathematical Notations. Vol. 2. pp. 15–29. ISBN 9780486677668.
  9. ^ Aiton, Arthur S.; Wheeler, Benjamin W. (May 1931). «The First American Mint». The Hispanic American Historical Review. 11 (2): 198. doi:10.1215/00182168-11.2.198. JSTOR 2506275.
  10. ^ a b Nussbaum, Arthur (1957). A History of the Dollar. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 56. The foreign coins remained in circulation [in the United States], and the more important among them, especially the Spanish (including the Mexican) dollars, were declared by Congress on February 9, 1793, to be legal tender. The dollar sign, $, is connected with the peso, contrary to popular belief, which considers it to be an abbreviation of ‘U.S.’ The two parallel lines represented one of the many abbreviations of ‘P,’ and the ‘S’ indicated the plural. The abbreviation ‘$.’ was also used for the peso, and is still used in Argentina.
  11. ^ Riesco Terrero, Ángel (1983). Diccionario de abreviaturas hispanas de los siglos XIII al XVIII: Con un apendice de expresiones y formulas juridico-diplomaticas de uso corriente. Salamanca: Imprenta Varona. p. 350. ISBN 84-300-9090-8.
  12. ^ Bureau of Engraving and Printing. «What is the origin of the $ sign?». Resources: FAQs. Retrieved 8 April 2016.
  13. ^ a b João Joseph Du Beux (1775): Receipt of 270Cifrão symbol.svg000 Rs. for purchase by of 50 volumes of the Acta Santorum by the College of the Carmo of Coimbra. Quote: «Recebemos […] a quantia de Duzentos Settenta mil reis[…] por Clareza passamos este Coimbra 15 de Março de 1775. São 270Cifrão symbol.svg000 Rs». Cartório do Colégio do Carmo, Maço 35, n.o 17. apud ALMEIDA, Manuel Lopes in «Livro, livreiros, impressores em documentos da Universidade», Arquivo de Bibliografia Portuguesa, ano X-XII, Atlântida, Coimbra, 1964-66, n o 37-48.
  14. ^ a b Seijas, Tatiana and Jake Frederick (2017). Spanish Dollars and Sister Republics: The Money That Made Mexico and the United States. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 3–4. ISBN 9781538100462.
  15. ^ Ulrich Theobald (2016): «Qing Period Money: Foreign Silver ‘Dollars'». Online article in the website ChinaKnowledge.de — An Encyclopaedia on Chinese History, Literature and Art, dated Apr 13, 2016. Accessed on 2021-08-14.
  16. ^ Sandra Choron and Harry Choron (2011): Money Everything You Never Knew About Your Favorite Thing to Find, Save, Spend & Covet. Chronicle Books LLC 336 pages. ISBN 9781452105598
  17. ^ Florence Edler de Roover. Concerning the Ancestry of the Dollar Sign. — Bulletin of the Business Historical Society. Vol. 19, No. 2 (Apr., 1945), pp. 63-64
  18. ^ a b c Joshua D. Rothman (2018): «The Curious Origins of the Dollar Sign» Online article on the We’re History website, dated 2018-04-01. Accessed on 2021-08-12.
  19. ^ James, James Alton (1970) [1937]. Robert Morris: The Life and Times of an Unknown Patriot. Freeport: Books for Libraries Press. p. 356. ISBN 978-0-8369-5527-9.
  20. ^ James, James Alton (1929). «‘Robert Morris, Financier of the Revolution in the West’«. The Mississippi Valley Historical Review.
  21. ^ Larson, Henrietta M. (October 1939). «Note on Our Dollar Sign». Bulletin of the Business Historical Society. 13 (4): 57–58. doi:10.2307/3111350. JSTOR 3111350.
  22. ^ (2018): «Where did the dollar sign come from?» Online article of the History channel website, dated 2018-08-22. Accessed on 2021-08-12.
  23. ^ (2015): «Origem do Cifrão». Note on the website of the Casa da Moeda do Brasil (Brazilian Mint). Accessed on 2021-08-12.
  24. ^ «Banque de dépannage linguistique — Somme d’argent». Office québécois de la langue française. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
  25. ^ a b Eduardo Marín Silva (22 July 2019). «Currency signs missing in Unicode» (PDF). Unicode Consortium.
  26. ^ (1960): Price «Cr$ 15,00» on the front cover of the 1960-05-07 issue of O Cruzeiro magazine, reproduced on the Muzeez website on 2016-12-105. Accessed on 2021-08-14.
  27. ^ Lisbon-tourist-guide.com. «Portuguese Escudo.» 2008.
  28. ^ a b Banco de Cabo Verde. «Moedas Archived 2011-01-22 at the Wayback Machine.» Accessed 25 Feb 2011.
  29. ^ Casa da Moeda. «Origem do Cifrão». Casadamoeda.gov.br. Retrieved 11 March 2018.
  30. ^ «24 Character entity references in HTML 4». www.w3.org. The following sections present the complete lists of character entity references
  31. ^ «8.5 Named character references». dollar;   U+00024   $
  32. ^ «Proposed New Characters: The Pipeline». Unicode Consortium. 11 October 2019. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
  33. ^ Eduardo Marín Silva (22 July 2019). «Currency signs missing in Unicode» (PDF). Unicode Consortium. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
  34. ^ Banco Central do Brasil. «Currency table.» Accessed 24 Feb 2011.
  35. ^ «Relative & Absolute Cell References in Excel».
  36. ^ Roy Morris (1995). Ambrose Bierce: Alone in Bad Company. Oxford University Press. p. 176. ISBN 9780195126280.
  37. ^ «Scrabble Glossary». Tucson Scrabble Club. Archived from the original on 30 August 2011. Retrieved 6 February 2012.
  38. ^ Weinberg, Alvin M.; Wigner, Eugene P. (1958). The Physical Theory of Neutron Chain Reactors. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 595.
  39. ^ «DOE Fundamentals: Nuclear Physics and Reactor Theory: Module 4: Reactor Theory (Reactor Operations)» (PDF). U. S. Department of Energy. n.d. p. 16. Retrieved 25 July 2022.

General and cited sources[edit]

  • Cajori, Florian (1993). A History of Mathematical Notations (Reprint ed.). New York: Dover. ISBN 0-486-67766-4. Contains section on the history of the dollar sign, with much documentary evidence supporting the «pesos» hypothesis.
  • Cuhaj, George (2009). Standard Catalog of United States Paper Money (28th ed.). Krause Publications. ISBN 978-0-89689-939-1.
  • Ovason, David (30 November 2004). The Secret Symbols of the Dollar Bill (Reprint ed.). Harper Paperbacks. ISBN 0-06-053045-6.

External links[edit]

  • Media related to Dollar sign at Wikimedia Commons

«$» redirects here. For the unit of currency, see Dollar. For other uses, see $ (disambiguation).

«Peso sign» redirects here. For the Philippine peso sign «₱», see Philippine peso sign.

$

Dollar sign

Other names Peso sign
In Unicode U+0024 $ DOLLAR SIGN ($)
Currency
Currency Many (see dollar, peso)
Graphical variants

Dollar sign fonts.svg

Category

The dollar sign, also known as peso sign, is a symbol consisting of a capital «S» crossed with one or two vertical strokes ($ or {displaystyle {mathsf {S}}!!!{{big |}!{big |}}}), used to indicate the unit of various currencies around the world, including most currencies denominated «peso» and «dollar». The explicitly double-barred {displaystyle {mathsf {S}}!!!{{big |}!{big |}}} sign is called cifrão.

The sign is also used in several compound currency symbols, such as the Brazilian real (R$) and the Nicaraguan córdoba (C$).

The one- and two-stroke version are often considered mere stylistic (typeface) variants, although in some places and epochs one of them may have been specifically assigned, by law or custom, to a specific currency. The Unicode computer encoding standard defines a single code for both.

In most English-speaking countries that use that symbol, it is placed to the left of the amount specified, e.g. «$1», read as «one dollar».

History[edit]

Use for the Spanish American peso in the late 1700s[edit]

The symbol appears in business correspondence in the 1770s from Spanish America, the early independent U.S., British America and Britain, referring to the Spanish American peso,[1][2] also known as «Spanish dollar» or «piece of eight» in British America. Those coins provided the model for the currency that the United States adopted in 1792, and for the larger coins of the new Spanish American republics, such as the Mexican peso, Argentine peso, Peruvian real, and Bolivian sol coins.

With the Coinage Act of 1792, the United States Congress created the U.S. dollar, defining it to have «the value of a Spanish milled dollar as the same is now current»[3] but a variety of foreign coins were deemed to be legal tender until the Coinage Act of 1857 ended this status.[4][failed verification][5][failed verification]

The earliest U.S. dollar coins did not have any dollar symbol. The first occurrence in print is claimed to be from 1790s, by a Philadelphia printer Archibald Binny, creator of the Monticello typeface.[6] The $1 United States Note issued by the United States in 1869 included a large symbol consisting of a «U» with the right bar overlapping an «S» like a single-bar dollar sign, as well as a very small double-stroke dollar sign in the legal warning against forgery.[7]

Earlier history of the symbol[edit]

It is still uncertain, however, how the dollar sign came to represent the Spanish American peso. There are currently several competing hypotheses:

  • One theory holds that the sign grew out of the Spanish and Spanish American scribal abbreviation «ps» for pesos. A study of late 18th- and early 19th-century manuscripts shows that the s gradually came to be written over the p, developing into a close equivalent to the «$» mark.[8][9][10][11][12] However, there are documents showing the common use of the two-stroke version in Portugal already by 1775.[13]

A piece of eight from the Potosí mint, showing the Pillars of Hercules with «S» ribbons, and two «PTSI» monograms at about 4 and 8 o’clock around the edge.

  • Another hypothesis derives the sign from a depiction of the Pillars of Hercules, a classical symbol for two sides of the Strait of Gibraltar, with a ribbon wrapped around both each pillar (or both pillars) in the form of an «S». This device is common support element of the Spanish coat of arms, and appeared on the most common real de ocho coins circulating at the time in the Americas and Europe; namely, those minted at the Potosí mint in Bolivia, which operated from 1573 to 1825.[14][10] Indeed, one of the names used for Spanish dollars in Qing Dynasty China was 双柱; 雙柱; shuāngzhù; ‘double-pillar’.[15]
  • A variant of the above theory claims that the sign comes from the mark of the mint at Potosí, where a large portion of the Spanish Empire’s silver was mined, also featured on those coin, which consisted of the letters «P T S I» superimposed. The core of this monogram is a (single-stroked) «$» sign.[16]

Sample ledger with a sign for dollar from John Collins 1686.

  • Yet another hypothesis notes that the English word «dollar» for the Spanish piece of eight originally came (through Dutch daalder) from Joachimsthaler or thaler, a similar large German silver coin which was widely used in Europe. It is therefore conjectured that the dollar sign derived from a symbol consisting of a superimposing S and I or J that was used to denote the German silver coin. Such symbol appears in the 1686 edition of An Introduction to Merchants’ Accounts by John Collins.[17] Alternatively, the symbol could have come from a snake and cross emblem on the thaler coins.[6]

Less likely theories[edit]

The following theories seem to have been discredited or contradicted by documentary evidence:

  • Some historians have attributed the symbol to Oliver Pollock, a wealthy Irish trader and early supporter of the American Revolution, who used the abbreviation «ps», sometimes run together, in a letter dated 1778.[6][18]
  • In 1937, historian James Alton James claimed that the symbol with two strokes was an adapted design of patriot Robert Morris in 1778, in letters written to Pollock.[19][20][18]
  • In 1939, H. M. Larson suggested that the sign could derive from a combination of the Greek character «psi» (ψ) and «S».[21]
  • Writer Ayn Rand claimed in her 1957 book Atlas Shrugged that the sign started off as a monogram of «US», with a narrow «U» superimposed on the «S», which would have been used on money bags issued by the United States Mint. In her theory, the bottom part of the «U» would have been lost, producing the dollar sign with two vertical lines.[22][6]
  • Authors T. Seijas and J. Frederick noted that the captors of slaves in Spanish territories sometimes branded enslaved people with a symbol very similar to a one-barred dollar sign. Esclavo is Spanish for «slave,» and clavo means nail. A dollar sign is S + clavo.[14]
  • A theory often cited in Portuguese speaking countries is that the «S» part of the doubly-stroked sign is a schematic representation of the path followed by the Umayyad Caliphate general Tariq Ibn Ziyad in his conquest of the Visigoth kingdom in 711 CE, and the two strokes represent the Pillars of Hercules that he would have crossed along that path. That symbol would have been engraved in coins commemorating his victory, and then became symbolic of currency in general.[23]

Currencies that use the dollar sign[edit]

As symbol of the currency[edit]

The numerous currencies called «dollar» use the dollar sign to express money amounts. The sign is also generally used for the many currencies called «peso» (except the Philippine peso, which uses the symbol «₱»). Within a country the dollar/peso sign may be used alone. In other cases, and to avoid ambiguity in international usage, it is usually combined with other glyphs, e.g. CA$ or Can$ for Canadian dollar.

The dollar sign, alone or in combination with other glyphs, is or was used to denote several currencies with other names, including:

Prefix or suffix[edit]

In the United States, Mexico, Australia, Argentina, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Pacific Island nations, and English-speaking Canada, the sign is written before the number («$5»), even though the word is written or spoken after it («five dollars», «cinco pesos«). In French-speaking Canada, exceptionally, the dollar symbol usually appears after the number,[24] e.g., «5$». (The cent symbol is written after the number in most countries that use it, e.g., «5¢».)

Use in the Portuguese Empire[edit]

In Portugal, Brazil, and other parts of the Portuguese Empire, the two-stroke variant of the sign (with the name cifrão; (Portuguese pronunciation: [siˈfɾɐ̃w̃] (listen)) was used as the thousands separator of amounts in the national currency, the real (plural «réis», abbreviated «Rs.»): 123Cifrão symbol.svg500 meant «123500 réis«. This usage is attested in 1775, but may be older by a century or more.[13] It is always written with two vertical lines: Cifrão symbol.svg. It is the official sign of the Cape Verdean escudo (ISO 4217: CVE).

In 1911 Portugal redefined the national currency as the escudo, worth 1000 réis, and divided into 100 centavos; but the cifrão continued to be used as the decimal separator,[25] so that 123Cifrão symbol.svg50 meant 123.50 escudos or 123 escudos and 50 centavos. This usage ended in 2002 when the country switched to the euro. (A similar scheme to use a letter symbol instead of a decimal point is used by the RKM code in electrical engineering since 1952.)

Car for sale in Cape Verde, showing use of the cifrão as decimals separator.

Cape Verde, a republic and former Portuguese colony, similarly switched from the real to their local escudo and centavos in 1914, and retains the cifrão usage as decimals separator as of 2021. Local versions of the Portuguese escudo were for a time created also for other overseas colonies, including East Timor (1958–1975), Portuguese India (1958–1961), Angola (1914–1928 and 1958–1977), Mozambique (1914–1980), Portuguese Guinea (1914–1975), and São Tomé and Príncipe (1914–1977); presumably[clarification needed] all using the cifrão as decimals separator.[citation needed]

Brazil retained the real and the cifrão as thousands separator until 1942, when it switched to the Brazilian cruzeiro, with comma as the decimals separator. The dollar sign, officially with one stroke but often rendered with two, was retained as part of the currency symbol «Cr $», so one would write Cr$13,50 for 13 cruzeiros and 50 centavos.[26]

It was formerly used by the Portuguese escudo (ISO: PTE) before its replacement by the euro and by the Portuguese Timor escudo (ISO: TPE) before its replacement by the Indonesian rupiah and the US dollar.[27] In Portuguese and Cape Verdean usage, the cifrão is placed as a decimal point between the escudo and centavo values.[28] The name originates in the Arabic sifr (‏صِفْر‎), meaning ‘zero’.[29]

Fictional currencies[edit]

Some virtual world and gaming platforms have used the $ symbol to refer to their own virtual currencies, for example:

  • S$: Sansar dollars (Sansar)
  • L$: Linden dollars (Second Life)
  • M$: Minecoins (Minecraft)
  • D$: Dark dollars (Deltarune)

One stroke vs. two strokes[edit]

In some places and at some times, the one- and two-stroke variants have been used in the same contexts to distinguish between the U.S. dollar and other local currency, such as the former Portuguese escudo.[25]

However, such usage is not standardized, and furthermore the two versions are generally considered[citation needed] mere graphic variants of the same symbol—a typeface design choice. Computer and typewriter keyboards usually have a single key for that sign, and many character encodings (including ASCII and Unicode) reserve a single numeric code for it. Indeed, dollar signs in the same digital document may be rendered with one or two strokes, if different computer fonts are used. Should that ambiguity be significant, one may use explicit abbreviations (like «US$» or «$NZ»), or ISO 4217 three-letter currency codes (such as USD and MXN) to distinguish different currencies that use the symbol.

When a specific variant is not mandated by law or custom, the choice is usually a matter of expediency or aesthetic preference. Both versions were used in the US in the 18th century. (An 1861 Civil War-era advertisement depicts the two-stroked symbol as a snake.[18]) The two-stroke version seems to be generally less popular today, though used in some «old-style» fonts like Baskerville.

Use in computer software[edit]

Because of its use in early American computer applications such as business accounting, the dollar sign is almost universally present in computer character sets, and thus has been appropriated for many purposes unrelated to money in programming languages and command languages.

Encoding[edit]

The dollar sign «$» has Unicode code point U+0024 (inherited from ASCII via Latin-1).

  • U+0024 $ DOLLAR SIGN ($)[a]

There are no separate encodings for one- and two-line variants. The choice is typeface-dependent, they are allographs. However, there are three other code points that originate from other East Asian standards: the Taiwanese small form variant, the CJK fullwidth form, and the Japanese emoji. The glyphs for these code points are typically larger or smaller than the primary code point, but the difference is mostly aesthetic or typographic, and the meanings of the symbols are the same.

  • U+FE69 SMALL DOLLAR SIGN
  • U+FF04 FULLWIDTH DOLLAR SIGN
  • U+1F4B2 💲 HEAVY DOLLAR SIGN

However, for usage as the special character in various computing applications (see following sections), U+0024 is typically the only code that is recognized.

Support for the two-line variant varies. As of 2019, the Unicode standard considers the distinction between one- and two-bar dollar signs a stylistic distinction between fonts, and has no separate code point for the cifrão. The symbol is not in the October 2019 ‘pipeline’,[32] but appears to be under active consideration.[33]

The following fonts display a double-bar dollar sign for code point 0024:[citation needed] regular-weight Baskerville, Big Caslon, Bodoni MT, Bradley Hand ITC, Brush Script MT, Garamond, STFangsong, STKaiti, and STSong ($).

In LaTeX, with the textcomp package installed, the cifrão ({mathrm  {S}}!!!Vert ) can be input using the command textdollaroldstyle.

However, because of font substitution and the lack of a dedicated code point, the author of an electronic document who uses one of these fonts intending to represent a cifrão cannot be sure that every reader will see a double-bar glyph rather than the single barred version.

Because of the continued lack of support in Unicode, a single bar dollar sign is frequently employed in its place even for official purposes.[28][34] Where there is any risk of misunderstanding, the ISO 4217 three letter acronym is used.

Programming languages[edit]

  • $ was used for defining string variables in older versions of the BASIC language, e.g. CHR$ ($ was often pronounced «string» instead of «dollar» in this use).
  • $ is prefixed to names to define variables in the PHP language and the AutoIt automation script language, scalar variables in the Perl language (see sigil (computer programming)), and global variables in the Ruby language. In Perl programming this includes scalar elements of arrays $array[7] and hashes $hash{foo}.
  • In most shell scripting languages, $ is used to indicate the insertion into strings of environment variables, special variables, input data fields, previous commands, arithmetic computations, and special characters, and for performing translation of localised strings. In the shell script languages of CP/M, DOS, and several Unix-like systems, it is used to insert variable information (such as the current working directory, user name, or sequential command number) in the command prompt.
  • $ is used for defining hexadecimal constants in Pascal-like languages such as Delphi, and in some variants of assembly language.
  • $ is used in the ALGOL 68 language to delimit transput format regions.
  • $ is used in the TeX typesetting language to delimit mathematical regions.
  • In many versions of FORTRAN 66, $ could be used as an alternative to a quotation mark for delimiting strings.
  • In PL/M, $ can be used to put a visible separation between words in compound identifiers. For example, Some$Name refers to the same thing as ‘SomeName’.
  • In Haskell, $ is used as a function application operator.
  • In an AutoHotkey script, a hotkey declared with $ is not triggered by a ‘Send’ command elsewhere in the script.
  • In several JavaScript frameworks such as Prototype.js and jQuery, $ is a common utility class, and is often referred to as the buck.[citation needed] Otherwise, it’s a character allowed in identifiers.
  • In JavaScript from ES6 onward it is used inside template literals to insert the value of a variable. For example, if var word = "such" then `as ${word}` would equal 'as such'
  • In C#, $ marks a string literal as an interpolated string.
  • In ASP.NET, the dollar sign used in a tag in the web page indicates an expression will follow it. The expression that follows is .NET language-agnostic, as it will work with C#, VB.NET, or any CLR supported language.
  • In Erlang, the dollar sign precedes character literals. The dollar sign as a character can be written $$.
  • In COBOL the $ sign is used in the Picture clause to depict a floating currency symbol as the left most character. The default symbol is $; however, if the CURRENCY= or CURRENCY SIGN clause is specified, many other symbols can be used.
  • In some assembly languages, such as MIPS, the $ sign is used to represent registers.
  • In Honeywell 6000 series assembler, the $ sign, when used as an address, meant the address of the instruction in which it appeared.
  • In CMS-2, the $ sign is used as a statement terminator.
  • In R, the $ sign is used as a subsetting operator.
  • In Q (programming language from Kx Systems), the $ sign is used as a casting/padding/enumeration/conditional operator.
  • In Sass, the $ sign is prefixed to define a variable.

Operating systems[edit]

  • In CP/M and subsequently in all versions of DOS (86-DOS, MS-DOS, PC DOS, more) and derivatives, $ is used as a string terminator (Int 21h with AH=09h).
  • In Microsoft Windows, $ is appended to the share name to hide a shared folder or resource. For example, \servershare will be visible to other computers on a network, while \servershare$ will be accessible only by explicit reference. Hiding a shared folder or resource will not alter its access permissions but may render it inaccessible to programs or other functions which rely on its visibility. Most administrative shares are hidden in this way.
  • In the LDAP directory access protocol, $ is used as a line separator in various standard entry attributes such as postalAddress.
  • In the UNIVAC EXEC 8 operating system, $ means «system». It is appended to entities such as the names of system files, the «sender» name in messages sent by the operator, and the default names of system-created files (like compiler output) when no specific name is specified (e.g., TPF$, NAME$, etc.)
  • In RISC OS, $ is used in system variables to separate the application name from the variables specific to that application. For example Draw$Dir specifies the directory where the !Draw application is located. It is also used to refer to the root directory of a file system.

Applications[edit]

  • Microsoft Excel[35] and other spreadsheet software use the dollar sign ($) to denote a fixed row, fixed column reference, or an absolute cell reference.
  • The dollar sign introduces a subfield delimiter in computer coding of library catalog records.
  • $ matches the end of a line or string in sed, grep, and POSIX and Perl regular expressions, as well as the end of a line or the file in text editors ed, ex, vi, pico, and derivatives.

Other uses[edit]

The symbol is sometimes used derisively, in place of the letter S, to indicate greed or excess money such as in «Micro$oft», «Di$ney», «Chel$ea» and «GW$»; or supposed overt Americanisation as in «$ky». The dollar sign is also used intentionally to stylize names such as A$AP Rocky, Ke$ha, and Ty Dolla $ign or words such as ¥€$. In 1872, Ambrose Bierce referred to California governor Leland Stanford as $tealand Landford.[36]

In Scrabble notation, a dollar sign is placed after a word to indicate that it is valid according to the North American word lists, but not according to the British word lists.[37]

A dollar symbol is used as unit of reactivity for a nuclear reactor, 0 $ being the threshold of slow criticality, meaning a steady reaction rate, while 1 $ is the threshold of prompt criticality, which means a nuclear excursion or explosion.[38][39]

The dollar sign was used as a letter in the Turkmen alphabet from 1993 to 1999.[citation needed]

The dollar sign plays an important role in the plot of Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, with the book’s radical Free Market activists adopting it as their insignia.[citation needed]

See also[edit]

  • Cifrão
  • Euro sign
  • Indian rupee sign
  • Pound sign
  • Ruble sign
  • Rupee sign
  • Spanish dollar
  • Turkish lira sign
  • Yen sign
  • Yuan sign
  • Won sign

Explanatory notes[edit]

  1. ^ As of April 2022, HTML5 is the only version of HTML that has a named entity for the dollar sign.[30][31]

References[edit]

Citations[edit]

  1. ^ Kinnaird, Lawrence (July 1976). «The Western Fringe of Revolution». The Western Historical Quarterly. 7 (3): 259. doi:10.2307/967081. JSTOR 967081.
  2. ^ Popular Science (February 1930). «Origin of Dollar Sign is Traced to Mexico». Popular Science: 59. ISSN 0161-7370.
  3. ^ «Section 9 of the Coinage Act of 1792». Memory.loc.gov. Retrieved 24 August 2010.
  4. ^ «Massachusetts Copyright Statute,(1783), p. 370».
  5. ^ «Maryland Copyright Statute (1783)».
  6. ^ a b c d Hephzibah Anderson (2019): «The curious origins of the dollar symbol». Online article at the BBC website, dated 29 May 2019. Accessed on 2021-08-12.
  7. ^ Reverse of $1 United States Note (Greenback), series of 1869
  8. ^ Cajori, Florian (1993) [1929]. A History of Mathematical Notations. Vol. 2. pp. 15–29. ISBN 9780486677668.
  9. ^ Aiton, Arthur S.; Wheeler, Benjamin W. (May 1931). «The First American Mint». The Hispanic American Historical Review. 11 (2): 198. doi:10.1215/00182168-11.2.198. JSTOR 2506275.
  10. ^ a b Nussbaum, Arthur (1957). A History of the Dollar. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 56. The foreign coins remained in circulation [in the United States], and the more important among them, especially the Spanish (including the Mexican) dollars, were declared by Congress on February 9, 1793, to be legal tender. The dollar sign, $, is connected with the peso, contrary to popular belief, which considers it to be an abbreviation of ‘U.S.’ The two parallel lines represented one of the many abbreviations of ‘P,’ and the ‘S’ indicated the plural. The abbreviation ‘$.’ was also used for the peso, and is still used in Argentina.
  11. ^ Riesco Terrero, Ángel (1983). Diccionario de abreviaturas hispanas de los siglos XIII al XVIII: Con un apendice de expresiones y formulas juridico-diplomaticas de uso corriente. Salamanca: Imprenta Varona. p. 350. ISBN 84-300-9090-8.
  12. ^ Bureau of Engraving and Printing. «What is the origin of the $ sign?». Resources: FAQs. Retrieved 8 April 2016.
  13. ^ a b João Joseph Du Beux (1775): Receipt of 270Cifrão symbol.svg000 Rs. for purchase by of 50 volumes of the Acta Santorum by the College of the Carmo of Coimbra. Quote: «Recebemos […] a quantia de Duzentos Settenta mil reis[…] por Clareza passamos este Coimbra 15 de Março de 1775. São 270Cifrão symbol.svg000 Rs». Cartório do Colégio do Carmo, Maço 35, n.o 17. apud ALMEIDA, Manuel Lopes in «Livro, livreiros, impressores em documentos da Universidade», Arquivo de Bibliografia Portuguesa, ano X-XII, Atlântida, Coimbra, 1964-66, n o 37-48.
  14. ^ a b Seijas, Tatiana and Jake Frederick (2017). Spanish Dollars and Sister Republics: The Money That Made Mexico and the United States. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 3–4. ISBN 9781538100462.
  15. ^ Ulrich Theobald (2016): «Qing Period Money: Foreign Silver ‘Dollars'». Online article in the website ChinaKnowledge.de — An Encyclopaedia on Chinese History, Literature and Art, dated Apr 13, 2016. Accessed on 2021-08-14.
  16. ^ Sandra Choron and Harry Choron (2011): Money Everything You Never Knew About Your Favorite Thing to Find, Save, Spend & Covet. Chronicle Books LLC 336 pages. ISBN 9781452105598
  17. ^ Florence Edler de Roover. Concerning the Ancestry of the Dollar Sign. — Bulletin of the Business Historical Society. Vol. 19, No. 2 (Apr., 1945), pp. 63-64
  18. ^ a b c Joshua D. Rothman (2018): «The Curious Origins of the Dollar Sign» Online article on the We’re History website, dated 2018-04-01. Accessed on 2021-08-12.
  19. ^ James, James Alton (1970) [1937]. Robert Morris: The Life and Times of an Unknown Patriot. Freeport: Books for Libraries Press. p. 356. ISBN 978-0-8369-5527-9.
  20. ^ James, James Alton (1929). «‘Robert Morris, Financier of the Revolution in the West’«. The Mississippi Valley Historical Review.
  21. ^ Larson, Henrietta M. (October 1939). «Note on Our Dollar Sign». Bulletin of the Business Historical Society. 13 (4): 57–58. doi:10.2307/3111350. JSTOR 3111350.
  22. ^ (2018): «Where did the dollar sign come from?» Online article of the History channel website, dated 2018-08-22. Accessed on 2021-08-12.
  23. ^ (2015): «Origem do Cifrão». Note on the website of the Casa da Moeda do Brasil (Brazilian Mint). Accessed on 2021-08-12.
  24. ^ «Banque de dépannage linguistique — Somme d’argent». Office québécois de la langue française. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
  25. ^ a b Eduardo Marín Silva (22 July 2019). «Currency signs missing in Unicode» (PDF). Unicode Consortium.
  26. ^ (1960): Price «Cr$ 15,00» on the front cover of the 1960-05-07 issue of O Cruzeiro magazine, reproduced on the Muzeez website on 2016-12-105. Accessed on 2021-08-14.
  27. ^ Lisbon-tourist-guide.com. «Portuguese Escudo.» 2008.
  28. ^ a b Banco de Cabo Verde. «Moedas Archived 2011-01-22 at the Wayback Machine.» Accessed 25 Feb 2011.
  29. ^ Casa da Moeda. «Origem do Cifrão». Casadamoeda.gov.br. Retrieved 11 March 2018.
  30. ^ «24 Character entity references in HTML 4». www.w3.org. The following sections present the complete lists of character entity references
  31. ^ «8.5 Named character references». dollar;   U+00024   $
  32. ^ «Proposed New Characters: The Pipeline». Unicode Consortium. 11 October 2019. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
  33. ^ Eduardo Marín Silva (22 July 2019). «Currency signs missing in Unicode» (PDF). Unicode Consortium. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
  34. ^ Banco Central do Brasil. «Currency table.» Accessed 24 Feb 2011.
  35. ^ «Relative & Absolute Cell References in Excel».
  36. ^ Roy Morris (1995). Ambrose Bierce: Alone in Bad Company. Oxford University Press. p. 176. ISBN 9780195126280.
  37. ^ «Scrabble Glossary». Tucson Scrabble Club. Archived from the original on 30 August 2011. Retrieved 6 February 2012.
  38. ^ Weinberg, Alvin M.; Wigner, Eugene P. (1958). The Physical Theory of Neutron Chain Reactors. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 595.
  39. ^ «DOE Fundamentals: Nuclear Physics and Reactor Theory: Module 4: Reactor Theory (Reactor Operations)» (PDF). U. S. Department of Energy. n.d. p. 16. Retrieved 25 July 2022.

General and cited sources[edit]

  • Cajori, Florian (1993). A History of Mathematical Notations (Reprint ed.). New York: Dover. ISBN 0-486-67766-4. Contains section on the history of the dollar sign, with much documentary evidence supporting the «pesos» hypothesis.
  • Cuhaj, George (2009). Standard Catalog of United States Paper Money (28th ed.). Krause Publications. ISBN 978-0-89689-939-1.
  • Ovason, David (30 November 2004). The Secret Symbols of the Dollar Bill (Reprint ed.). Harper Paperbacks. ISBN 0-06-053045-6.

External links[edit]

  • Media related to Dollar sign at Wikimedia Commons

$ Доллар

Нажмите, чтобы скопировать и вставить символ

Значение символа

Доллар. Основная латиница.

Символ «Доллар» был утвержден как часть Юникода версии 1.1 в 1993 г.

Свойства

Версия 1.1
Блок Основная латиница
Тип парной зеркальной скобки (bidi) Нет
Композиционное исключение Нет
Изменение регистра 0024
Простое изменение регистра 0024

Похожие символы

  • Полноширинный знак доллара

  • ¤

    Знак валюты

  • Монгольский тугрик

  • Вулонг

  • Полноширинный знак вулонга (воны)

  • ¥

    Знак иены

  • Полноширинный знак иены

  • Знак гривны

  • Казахстанский тенге

  • Аргентинский аустраль

  • Знак песо

  • Знак нового шекеля

  • Греческая драхма

  • Знак ЭКЮ

  • Испанская песета

Кодировка

Кодировка hex dec (bytes) dec binary
UTF-8 24 36 36 00100100
UTF-16BE 00 24 0 36 36 00000000 00100100
UTF-16LE 24 00 36 0 9216 00100100 00000000
UTF-32BE 00 00 00 24 0 0 0 36 36 00000000 00000000 00000000 00100100
UTF-32LE 24 00 00 00 36 0 0 0 603979776 00100100 00000000 00000000 00000000

$

Символ (знак) доллара ($) — символ, обозначающий доллар, песо, эскудо и некоторые другие валюты различных стран, из которых наиболее известной является доллар США. В испаноязычных странах также называется цифрао или знаком песо. Написание знака доллара в русской типографике может варьировать в зависимости от контекста: в финансовых документах, деловой прессе и биржевых сводках он обычно пишется перед цифрами и без пробела ($100), в текстах более свободного стиля может использоваться после числа и отделяться пробелом (100 $).[1][2]

Содержание

  • 1 История происхождения
    • 1.1 Герб испанской короны Non plus ultra, 1492
    • 1.2 Монеты Потоси
    • 1.3 Испанский доллар
    • 1.4 Римский сестерций
    • 1.5 Аббревиатура «песо»
  • 2 Область применения и способы использования
    • 2.1 Использование одного и двух вертикальных штрихов
    • 2.2 Цифрао (цифрано)
    • 2.3 Альтернативные варианты использования символа
  • 3 Валюты, обозначаемые символом $
  • 4 Комментарии
  • 5 Примечания
  • 6 Ссылки

История происхождения

Изображение $

Обвитые лентой Геркулесовы столбы (муниципалитет Севильи, Испания, XVI век)

Есть несколько версий происхождения символа доллара, но доказанной не существует.

Герб испанской короны Non plus ultra, 1492

В 1492 году король Арагона Фердинанд II в качестве символа выбрал Геркулесовы столпы с вьющейся лентой с девизом Non plus ultra, что значит «не дальше» (пределов мира). Но после открытия Колумбом новых земель за Гибралтаром, появился девиз «Plus ultra» — «ещё дальше», ставший девизом императора Карла V, а с обнаружением крупнейших серебряных рудников в Мексике и Перу, этот символ стали чеканить на новых монетах Нового Света, имевших широкое хождение и в Европе.

Монеты Потоси

Знак, несомненно схожий со знаком доллара, размещался на монетах, чеканившихся с 1573 года по 1825 год в Потоси — крупнейшем мировом промышленном центре XVI—XVII веков[3]. Эти монеты были хорошо известны в североамериканских колониях Великобритании.

Испанский доллар

Одной из распространённых является версия происхождения от испанского герба на мексиканских пиастрах, широко обращавшихся на территории США до начала чеканки собственной монеты в 1794 году. В США эти монеты назывались «испанский доллар». Впервые символ засвидетельствован в деловой корреспонденции между Британской Северной Америкой и Мексикой в 1770-х годах.

Римский сестерций

Нельзя исключить также версию происхождения знака от обозначения древнеримской денежной единицы сестерций — sestertius от semis+tertius (полтрети, два с половиной), серебряная монета достоинством в два с половиной фунта меди. Сестерций обозначался буквами «LLS» или «IIS», иногда «HS». Эта аббревиатура расшифровывается так: «Libra-Libra-Semis», — то есть: «Фунт-Фунт-Половина». При сокращённом написании две буквы «L» с усечённой нижней поперечной чёрточкой накладывались на букву «S» и получался как бы знак доллара. Именно так обозначалась на письме денежная единица сестерций в Древнем Риме. Древнеримская тема была очень модной в эпоху Просвещения. Так, например, место расположения Конгресса США называется Капитолием (главный холм в Риме), а верхняя палата Конгресса США называется Сенатом — так же, как в Древнем Риме.

Аббревиатура «песо»

Существует также версия, что «$» — это ошибочная аббревиатура слова песо — «peso», ps или ps. В конце XVIII века это сокращение пишется слитно и при этом «p» сокращается до вертикальной линии[4][5][6][7].

Область применения и способы использования

Использование одного и двух вертикальных штрихов

Традиционно символ доллара ($) пишется с двумя вертикальными чёрточками, однако в современных компьютерных шрифтах все чаще используется начертание с одной чертой. Но и тот, и другой вариант — это одна графема. В частности, в стандарте Unicode различие между символом доллара с одной и двумя чертами не делается, и обоим вариантам соответствует единый код — U+0024, всё зависит от конкретного шрифта. Немногие исключения, где символ доллара по-прежнему выводится с двумя штрихами,— это такие шрифты, как Bodoni MT, Bradley Hand ITC, Brush Script MT, Chiller, Engravers MT, Forte, Garamond, Gigi, Harrington, Jokerman, Kunstler Script, Magneto, Modern No. 20, Palace Script MT и Rage Italic.

Иллюстрации с примерами

2010NativeAmerican Rev.jpg

5000f.jpg

Знак доллара США с одной чертой Знак доллара США с двумя чертами
Примеры вывода символа $ в различных шрифтах
Blackadder ITC $ Bodoni MT $ Bradley Hand ITC $ Brush Script MT $
Chiller $ Curlz MT $ Engravers MT $ Forte $
Garamond $ Georgia $ Gigi $ Goudy Stout $
Harrington $ High Tower Text $ Jokerman $ Juice ITC $
Kristen ITC $ Kunstler Script $ Magneto $ Modern No. 20 $
MS Reference
Sans Serif
$ OCR A Extended $ Old English Text MT $ Palace Script MT $
Rage Italic $ Snap ITC talic $ Tahoma $ Tempus Sans ITC $

Цифрао (цифрано)

Есть более полная статья

Цифрао на португальском эскудо

Цифрао или цифрано (Cifrão, Cifrao или cifrano) — особое название для разновидности знака доллара с двумя вертикальными чертами (в печатных источниках может встречаться и с одной чертой, поскольку основные стандарты не делают разницы между символом доллара с одной и двумя чертами), которое используется для обозначения таких валют, как португальский эскудо, эскудо Кабо-Верде, эскудо Восточного (Португальского) Тимора, а также бразильский реал. Символ характеризуется тем, что при записи разделяет основную валюту (эскудо или реал) и разменную монету (сентаво) — 2mathrm{S}!!!Vert50 (или для варианта с одной чертой — 2$50), что означает «Два реала (эскудо) и 50 сентаво».

Альтернативные варианты использования символа

Знак доллара ($) также применяется для других целей:

  • в языке программирования Бейсик ставится в конце имени строковой переменной или имени функции, возвращающей значение строкового типа;
  • в Паскале применяется для записи чисел в 16-ричной системе;
  • в PHP, Perl и многих других языках с символа $ начинается имя переменной;
  • в языке TCL обозначает значение переменной;
  • в табличных процессорах, например, OpenOffice.org Calc и Microsoft Excel используется для указания неизменяемой ячейки в формуле;
  • в регулярных выражениях обозначает конец строки;
  • в языке ассемблера (AT&T-синтаксис) указывает на числовое значение константы;
  • в некоторых других случаях используется как указатель на служебные переменные.

Валюты, обозначаемые символом $

Основная статья: Знаки валют (список)

Символом $ (с одной или двумя вертикальными черточками) могут обозначаться такие валюты, как доллар, песо (кроме филиппинского, имеющего собственный символ), эскудо (их символ имеет специальное название — цифрао или цифрано), реал, кордоба и некоторые другие. При этом выбор числа чёрточек для каждой конкретной валюты чаще продиктован не столько традицией использования символа в данной стране, сколько подручными или наиболее распространенными шрифтами, где всё чаще символ доллара изображён с одной вертикальной чертой.

Список валют, обозначаемых символом $

Комментарии

  1. Официальная страница стандарта ISO 4217. См. также Общероссийский классификатор валют ОК (МК (ИСО 4217) 003-97) 014—2000 (утв. Постановлением Госстандарта РФ от 25.12.2000 № 405-ст) (ред. от 01.11.2009) (с изм. и доп., вступающими в силу с 01.01.2010). Для существующих валют код приводится по текущей версии стандарта ISO 4217, для исторических — код, указанный в предыдущих версиях стандарта
  2. Знаки валют в данной колонке приводятся в соответствии с источниками, указанными в статье Знаки валют (список), а именно: данными Конвертера валют Yahoo! (Currency Converter Yahoo!Finance), настройками по умолчанию денежного формата ячейки в электронных таблицах Microsoft Excel (версия 14.0.4536.1000), Google Docs (на 01.06.2010 г.), Lotus Symphony (Beta 3, Release 3.0.0), изображениями на монетах, банкнотах, почтовых марках, а также в документах на сайтах центральных банков стран-эмитентов соответствующих валют
  3. Flag of Anguilla.svg АнгильяFlag of Antigua and Barbuda.svg Антигуа и БарбудаFlag of Grenada.svg ГренадаFlag of Dominica.svg ДоминикаFlag of Montserrat.svg МонтсерратFlag of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.svg Сент-Винсент и ГренадиныFlag of Saint Kitts and Nevis.svg Сент-Китс и НевисFlag of Saint Lucia.svg Сент-Люсия

Примечания

  1. ГРАМОТА.РУ — справочно-информационный интернет-портал «Русский язык» | Справка | Справочное бюро
  2. § 74. Доллар куда будем ставить? «Ководство. Параграфы о дизайне».
  3. http://www.carlclegg.com/pillars/potosi.html
  4. Cajori, Florian ([1929]1993). A History of Mathematical Notations (Vol. 2). Nueva York: Dover, pp. 15-29.
  5. Moreno, Alvaro J. (1965). El signo de pesos: cuál es su origen y qué representa? México: Alvaro J. Moreno.
  6. Riesco Terrero, Ángel (1983). Diccionario de abreviaturas hispanas de los siglos XIII al XVIII: Con un apendice de expresiones y formulas juridico-diplomaticas de uso corriente. Salamanca: Imprenta Varona, p. 350. ISBN 84-300-9090-8
  7. «Origin of the $ Sign» Agencia de Grabado e Imprenta del Departamento del Tesoro de Estados Unidos.
  8. Unicode, версия 5.2, раздел «Символы валют» (20A0—20CF)

Ссылки

  • 230 лет назад появился знак доллара
  • Доллар куда будем ставить?
 Просмотр этого шаблона Знаки валют (¤)
Статьи о символах Знак валюты · Символ денария · Символ доллара · Символ драма · Символ драхмы · Символ евро · Символ иены (юаня) · Символ риала · Символ рубля · Символ рупии · Символ франка · Символ фунта (лиры)
Существующие валюты ฿ · Armenian dram sign.svg · Br · ₵ · ₡ · B/. · ден. · ₫ · € · Ft  · ₸  · ₲ · Kč · ₭ · · £ (₤) ·  · ₱ · · · RM · ₨ · ლ  · Re (Rs) · р. · S/. · ৳ (Tk, ৲) · R$ · $ · ₮ · ₩ · Ұ · ¥ · zł · ₴ · · ₪ · 元 · ﷼ · Turkish lira symbol 8x10px.png ·
Исторические валюты ₳ · ₢ · · ₯ ·  ·  · ₠ · ƒ · ₣ · L (₤) · Lm · ₧ · I/. · Kčs · Sk
Разменные денежные единицы ¢ · ₥ · ₰ · р (d) · a · де · ко
Античные денежные единицы

Древний Рим:

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2010.

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  • Символ Кронекера (значения)
  • Символ рубля

Полезное

Смотреть что такое «Символ доллара» в других словарях:

  • Символ фунта — Символ (знак) фунта (лиры, ливра) краткое обозначение британского фунта стерлингов в виде символов £ или ₤. Кроме Великобритании, он используется и в других странах, валютой которых является фунт (например, в Египте) или лира (например, в Турции) …   Википедия

  • Символ иены — Символ (знак) иены (юаня) традиционные иероглифы или современная графема на основе латиницы (¥), используемые для краткого обозначения японской иены и китайского юаня. Содержание …   Википедия

  • Символ гривны — представляет собой рукописный вариант кириллической буквы «г» с двумя горизонтальными чертами ₴ (знак может отображаться не во всех браузерах). Официально принятое сокращение национальной валюты Украины как для русского, так и для украинского… …   Википедия

  • Символ риала — Символ (знак) риала (﷼) арабское и персидское слово ريال (читается в разных странах как риал, реал, риял или риель), являющееся названием нескольких …   Википедия

  • Символ франка — Символ (знак) франка (₣) краткое обозначение национальной валюты Франции (в 2002 году заменена на евро), а также других современных и исторических валют, носящих название «франк». Особенность символа состоит в том, что в различных шрифтах он… …   Википедия

  • Символ армянского драма — Первое использование символа драма: запись 07.09.1995 года, обмен денег по курсу 516 драмов за доллар …   Википедия

  • Символ драма — Первое использование символа драма: запись 07.09.1995 года, обмен денег по курсу 516 драмов за доллар …   Википедия

  • Символ рубля — Сочетание букв «р» и «у» в скорописи по книге «Русская палеография»[1] Си …   Википедия

  • Символ индийской рупии — Символ (знак) индийской рупии графическое обозначение национальной валюты Индии, утвержденное правительством страны 15 июля 2010 года. Представляет собой перечеркнутую в верхней части букву र (ра, ra, ṛa или rha) деванагари, одной из… …   Википедия

  • Символ рупии — Символ (знак) рупии графическое обозначение ряда валют, носящих название рупия: национальной валюты Индии, утвержденное правительством страны 15 июля 2010 года; представляет собой перечеркнутую в верхней части букву र (ра, ra, ṛa или rha) …   Википедия

«$» redirects here. For the unit of currency, see Dollar. For other uses, see $ (disambiguation).

«Peso sign» redirects here. For the Philippine peso sign «₱», see Philippine peso sign.

$

Dollar sign

Other names Peso sign
In Unicode U+0024 $ DOLLAR SIGN ($)
Currency
Currency Many (see dollar, peso)
Graphical variants

Dollar sign fonts.svg

Category

The dollar sign, also known as peso sign, is a symbol consisting of a capital «S» crossed with one or two vertical strokes ($ or {displaystyle {mathsf {S}}!!!{{big |}!{big |}}}), used to indicate the unit of various currencies around the world, including most currencies denominated «peso» and «dollar». The explicitly double-barred {displaystyle {mathsf {S}}!!!{{big |}!{big |}}} sign is called cifrão.

The sign is also used in several compound currency symbols, such as the Brazilian real (R$) and the Nicaraguan córdoba (C$).

The one- and two-stroke version are often considered mere stylistic (typeface) variants, although in some places and epochs one of them may have been specifically assigned, by law or custom, to a specific currency. The Unicode computer encoding standard defines a single code for both.

In most English-speaking countries that use that symbol, it is placed to the left of the amount specified, e.g. «$1», read as «one dollar».

History[edit]

Use for the Spanish American peso in the late 1700s[edit]

The symbol appears in business correspondence in the 1770s from Spanish America, the early independent U.S., British America and Britain, referring to the Spanish American peso,[1][2] also known as «Spanish dollar» or «piece of eight» in British America. Those coins provided the model for the currency that the United States adopted in 1792, and for the larger coins of the new Spanish American republics, such as the Mexican peso, Argentine peso, Peruvian real, and Bolivian sol coins.

With the Coinage Act of 1792, the United States Congress created the U.S. dollar, defining it to have «the value of a Spanish milled dollar as the same is now current»[3] but a variety of foreign coins were deemed to be legal tender until the Coinage Act of 1857 ended this status.[4][failed verification][5][failed verification]

The earliest U.S. dollar coins did not have any dollar symbol. The first occurrence in print is claimed to be from 1790s, by a Philadelphia printer Archibald Binny, creator of the Monticello typeface.[6] The $1 United States Note issued by the United States in 1869 included a large symbol consisting of a «U» with the right bar overlapping an «S» like a single-bar dollar sign, as well as a very small double-stroke dollar sign in the legal warning against forgery.[7]

Earlier history of the symbol[edit]

It is still uncertain, however, how the dollar sign came to represent the Spanish American peso. There are currently several competing hypotheses:

  • One theory holds that the sign grew out of the Spanish and Spanish American scribal abbreviation «ps» for pesos. A study of late 18th- and early 19th-century manuscripts shows that the s gradually came to be written over the p, developing into a close equivalent to the «$» mark.[8][9][10][11][12] However, there are documents showing the common use of the two-stroke version in Portugal already by 1775.[13]

A piece of eight from the Potosí mint, showing the Pillars of Hercules with «S» ribbons, and two «PTSI» monograms at about 4 and 8 o’clock around the edge.

  • Another hypothesis derives the sign from a depiction of the Pillars of Hercules, a classical symbol for two sides of the Strait of Gibraltar, with a ribbon wrapped around both each pillar (or both pillars) in the form of an «S». This device is common support element of the Spanish coat of arms, and appeared on the most common real de ocho coins circulating at the time in the Americas and Europe; namely, those minted at the Potosí mint in Bolivia, which operated from 1573 to 1825.[14][10] Indeed, one of the names used for Spanish dollars in Qing Dynasty China was 双柱; 雙柱; shuāngzhù; ‘double-pillar’.[15]
  • A variant of the above theory claims that the sign comes from the mark of the mint at Potosí, where a large portion of the Spanish Empire’s silver was mined, also featured on those coin, which consisted of the letters «P T S I» superimposed. The core of this monogram is a (single-stroked) «$» sign.[16]

Sample ledger with a sign for dollar from John Collins 1686.

  • Yet another hypothesis notes that the English word «dollar» for the Spanish piece of eight originally came (through Dutch daalder) from Joachimsthaler or thaler, a similar large German silver coin which was widely used in Europe. It is therefore conjectured that the dollar sign derived from a symbol consisting of a superimposing S and I or J that was used to denote the German silver coin. Such symbol appears in the 1686 edition of An Introduction to Merchants’ Accounts by John Collins.[17] Alternatively, the symbol could have come from a snake and cross emblem on the thaler coins.[6]

Less likely theories[edit]

The following theories seem to have been discredited or contradicted by documentary evidence:

  • Some historians have attributed the symbol to Oliver Pollock, a wealthy Irish trader and early supporter of the American Revolution, who used the abbreviation «ps», sometimes run together, in a letter dated 1778.[6][18]
  • In 1937, historian James Alton James claimed that the symbol with two strokes was an adapted design of patriot Robert Morris in 1778, in letters written to Pollock.[19][20][18]
  • In 1939, H. M. Larson suggested that the sign could derive from a combination of the Greek character «psi» (ψ) and «S».[21]
  • Writer Ayn Rand claimed in her 1957 book Atlas Shrugged that the sign started off as a monogram of «US», with a narrow «U» superimposed on the «S», which would have been used on money bags issued by the United States Mint. In her theory, the bottom part of the «U» would have been lost, producing the dollar sign with two vertical lines.[22][6]
  • Authors T. Seijas and J. Frederick noted that the captors of slaves in Spanish territories sometimes branded enslaved people with a symbol very similar to a one-barred dollar sign. Esclavo is Spanish for «slave,» and clavo means nail. A dollar sign is S + clavo.[14]
  • A theory often cited in Portuguese speaking countries is that the «S» part of the doubly-stroked sign is a schematic representation of the path followed by the Umayyad Caliphate general Tariq Ibn Ziyad in his conquest of the Visigoth kingdom in 711 CE, and the two strokes represent the Pillars of Hercules that he would have crossed along that path. That symbol would have been engraved in coins commemorating his victory, and then became symbolic of currency in general.[23]

Currencies that use the dollar sign[edit]

As symbol of the currency[edit]

The numerous currencies called «dollar» use the dollar sign to express money amounts. The sign is also generally used for the many currencies called «peso» (except the Philippine peso, which uses the symbol «₱»). Within a country the dollar/peso sign may be used alone. In other cases, and to avoid ambiguity in international usage, it is usually combined with other glyphs, e.g. CA$ or Can$ for Canadian dollar.

The dollar sign, alone or in combination with other glyphs, is or was used to denote several currencies with other names, including:

Prefix or suffix[edit]

In the United States, Mexico, Australia, Argentina, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Pacific Island nations, and English-speaking Canada, the sign is written before the number («$5»), even though the word is written or spoken after it («five dollars», «cinco pesos«). In French-speaking Canada, exceptionally, the dollar symbol usually appears after the number,[24] e.g., «5$». (The cent symbol is written after the number in most countries that use it, e.g., «5¢».)

Use in the Portuguese Empire[edit]

In Portugal, Brazil, and other parts of the Portuguese Empire, the two-stroke variant of the sign (with the name cifrão; (Portuguese pronunciation: [siˈfɾɐ̃w̃] (listen)) was used as the thousands separator of amounts in the national currency, the real (plural «réis», abbreviated «Rs.»): 123Cifrão symbol.svg500 meant «123500 réis«. This usage is attested in 1775, but may be older by a century or more.[13] It is always written with two vertical lines: Cifrão symbol.svg. It is the official sign of the Cape Verdean escudo (ISO 4217: CVE).

In 1911 Portugal redefined the national currency as the escudo, worth 1000 réis, and divided into 100 centavos; but the cifrão continued to be used as the decimal separator,[25] so that 123Cifrão symbol.svg50 meant 123.50 escudos or 123 escudos and 50 centavos. This usage ended in 2002 when the country switched to the euro. (A similar scheme to use a letter symbol instead of a decimal point is used by the RKM code in electrical engineering since 1952.)

Car for sale in Cape Verde, showing use of the cifrão as decimals separator.

Cape Verde, a republic and former Portuguese colony, similarly switched from the real to their local escudo and centavos in 1914, and retains the cifrão usage as decimals separator as of 2021. Local versions of the Portuguese escudo were for a time created also for other overseas colonies, including East Timor (1958–1975), Portuguese India (1958–1961), Angola (1914–1928 and 1958–1977), Mozambique (1914–1980), Portuguese Guinea (1914–1975), and São Tomé and Príncipe (1914–1977); presumably[clarification needed] all using the cifrão as decimals separator.[citation needed]

Brazil retained the real and the cifrão as thousands separator until 1942, when it switched to the Brazilian cruzeiro, with comma as the decimals separator. The dollar sign, officially with one stroke but often rendered with two, was retained as part of the currency symbol «Cr $», so one would write Cr$13,50 for 13 cruzeiros and 50 centavos.[26]

It was formerly used by the Portuguese escudo (ISO: PTE) before its replacement by the euro and by the Portuguese Timor escudo (ISO: TPE) before its replacement by the Indonesian rupiah and the US dollar.[27] In Portuguese and Cape Verdean usage, the cifrão is placed as a decimal point between the escudo and centavo values.[28] The name originates in the Arabic sifr (‏صِفْر‎), meaning ‘zero’.[29]

Fictional currencies[edit]

Some virtual world and gaming platforms have used the $ symbol to refer to their own virtual currencies, for example:

  • S$: Sansar dollars (Sansar)
  • L$: Linden dollars (Second Life)
  • M$: Minecoins (Minecraft)
  • D$: Dark dollars (Deltarune)

One stroke vs. two strokes[edit]

In some places and at some times, the one- and two-stroke variants have been used in the same contexts to distinguish between the U.S. dollar and other local currency, such as the former Portuguese escudo.[25]

However, such usage is not standardized, and furthermore the two versions are generally considered[citation needed] mere graphic variants of the same symbol—a typeface design choice. Computer and typewriter keyboards usually have a single key for that sign, and many character encodings (including ASCII and Unicode) reserve a single numeric code for it. Indeed, dollar signs in the same digital document may be rendered with one or two strokes, if different computer fonts are used. Should that ambiguity be significant, one may use explicit abbreviations (like «US$» or «$NZ»), or ISO 4217 three-letter currency codes (such as USD and MXN) to distinguish different currencies that use the symbol.

When a specific variant is not mandated by law or custom, the choice is usually a matter of expediency or aesthetic preference. Both versions were used in the US in the 18th century. (An 1861 Civil War-era advertisement depicts the two-stroked symbol as a snake.[18]) The two-stroke version seems to be generally less popular today, though used in some «old-style» fonts like Baskerville.

Use in computer software[edit]

Because of its use in early American computer applications such as business accounting, the dollar sign is almost universally present in computer character sets, and thus has been appropriated for many purposes unrelated to money in programming languages and command languages.

Encoding[edit]

The dollar sign «$» has Unicode code point U+0024 (inherited from ASCII via Latin-1).

  • U+0024 $ DOLLAR SIGN ($)[a]

There are no separate encodings for one- and two-line variants. The choice is typeface-dependent, they are allographs. However, there are three other code points that originate from other East Asian standards: the Taiwanese small form variant, the CJK fullwidth form, and the Japanese emoji. The glyphs for these code points are typically larger or smaller than the primary code point, but the difference is mostly aesthetic or typographic, and the meanings of the symbols are the same.

  • U+FE69 SMALL DOLLAR SIGN
  • U+FF04 FULLWIDTH DOLLAR SIGN
  • U+1F4B2 💲 HEAVY DOLLAR SIGN

However, for usage as the special character in various computing applications (see following sections), U+0024 is typically the only code that is recognized.

Support for the two-line variant varies. As of 2019, the Unicode standard considers the distinction between one- and two-bar dollar signs a stylistic distinction between fonts, and has no separate code point for the cifrão. The symbol is not in the October 2019 ‘pipeline’,[32] but appears to be under active consideration.[33]

The following fonts display a double-bar dollar sign for code point 0024:[citation needed] regular-weight Baskerville, Big Caslon, Bodoni MT, Bradley Hand ITC, Brush Script MT, Garamond, STFangsong, STKaiti, and STSong ($).

In LaTeX, with the textcomp package installed, the cifrão ({mathrm  {S}}!!!Vert ) can be input using the command textdollaroldstyle.

However, because of font substitution and the lack of a dedicated code point, the author of an electronic document who uses one of these fonts intending to represent a cifrão cannot be sure that every reader will see a double-bar glyph rather than the single barred version.

Because of the continued lack of support in Unicode, a single bar dollar sign is frequently employed in its place even for official purposes.[28][34] Where there is any risk of misunderstanding, the ISO 4217 three letter acronym is used.

Programming languages[edit]

  • $ was used for defining string variables in older versions of the BASIC language, e.g. CHR$ ($ was often pronounced «string» instead of «dollar» in this use).
  • $ is prefixed to names to define variables in the PHP language and the AutoIt automation script language, scalar variables in the Perl language (see sigil (computer programming)), and global variables in the Ruby language. In Perl programming this includes scalar elements of arrays $array[7] and hashes $hash{foo}.
  • In most shell scripting languages, $ is used to indicate the insertion into strings of environment variables, special variables, input data fields, previous commands, arithmetic computations, and special characters, and for performing translation of localised strings. In the shell script languages of CP/M, DOS, and several Unix-like systems, it is used to insert variable information (such as the current working directory, user name, or sequential command number) in the command prompt.
  • $ is used for defining hexadecimal constants in Pascal-like languages such as Delphi, and in some variants of assembly language.
  • $ is used in the ALGOL 68 language to delimit transput format regions.
  • $ is used in the TeX typesetting language to delimit mathematical regions.
  • In many versions of FORTRAN 66, $ could be used as an alternative to a quotation mark for delimiting strings.
  • In PL/M, $ can be used to put a visible separation between words in compound identifiers. For example, Some$Name refers to the same thing as ‘SomeName’.
  • In Haskell, $ is used as a function application operator.
  • In an AutoHotkey script, a hotkey declared with $ is not triggered by a ‘Send’ command elsewhere in the script.
  • In several JavaScript frameworks such as Prototype.js and jQuery, $ is a common utility class, and is often referred to as the buck.[citation needed] Otherwise, it’s a character allowed in identifiers.
  • In JavaScript from ES6 onward it is used inside template literals to insert the value of a variable. For example, if var word = "such" then `as ${word}` would equal 'as such'
  • In C#, $ marks a string literal as an interpolated string.
  • In ASP.NET, the dollar sign used in a tag in the web page indicates an expression will follow it. The expression that follows is .NET language-agnostic, as it will work with C#, VB.NET, or any CLR supported language.
  • In Erlang, the dollar sign precedes character literals. The dollar sign as a character can be written $$.
  • In COBOL the $ sign is used in the Picture clause to depict a floating currency symbol as the left most character. The default symbol is $; however, if the CURRENCY= or CURRENCY SIGN clause is specified, many other symbols can be used.
  • In some assembly languages, such as MIPS, the $ sign is used to represent registers.
  • In Honeywell 6000 series assembler, the $ sign, when used as an address, meant the address of the instruction in which it appeared.
  • In CMS-2, the $ sign is used as a statement terminator.
  • In R, the $ sign is used as a subsetting operator.
  • In Q (programming language from Kx Systems), the $ sign is used as a casting/padding/enumeration/conditional operator.
  • In Sass, the $ sign is prefixed to define a variable.

Operating systems[edit]

  • In CP/M and subsequently in all versions of DOS (86-DOS, MS-DOS, PC DOS, more) and derivatives, $ is used as a string terminator (Int 21h with AH=09h).
  • In Microsoft Windows, $ is appended to the share name to hide a shared folder or resource. For example, \servershare will be visible to other computers on a network, while \servershare$ will be accessible only by explicit reference. Hiding a shared folder or resource will not alter its access permissions but may render it inaccessible to programs or other functions which rely on its visibility. Most administrative shares are hidden in this way.
  • In the LDAP directory access protocol, $ is used as a line separator in various standard entry attributes such as postalAddress.
  • In the UNIVAC EXEC 8 operating system, $ means «system». It is appended to entities such as the names of system files, the «sender» name in messages sent by the operator, and the default names of system-created files (like compiler output) when no specific name is specified (e.g., TPF$, NAME$, etc.)
  • In RISC OS, $ is used in system variables to separate the application name from the variables specific to that application. For example Draw$Dir specifies the directory where the !Draw application is located. It is also used to refer to the root directory of a file system.

Applications[edit]

  • Microsoft Excel[35] and other spreadsheet software use the dollar sign ($) to denote a fixed row, fixed column reference, or an absolute cell reference.
  • The dollar sign introduces a subfield delimiter in computer coding of library catalog records.
  • $ matches the end of a line or string in sed, grep, and POSIX and Perl regular expressions, as well as the end of a line or the file in text editors ed, ex, vi, pico, and derivatives.

Other uses[edit]

The symbol is sometimes used derisively, in place of the letter S, to indicate greed or excess money such as in «Micro$oft», «Di$ney», «Chel$ea» and «GW$»; or supposed overt Americanisation as in «$ky». The dollar sign is also used intentionally to stylize names such as A$AP Rocky, Ke$ha, and Ty Dolla $ign or words such as ¥€$. In 1872, Ambrose Bierce referred to California governor Leland Stanford as $tealand Landford.[36]

In Scrabble notation, a dollar sign is placed after a word to indicate that it is valid according to the North American word lists, but not according to the British word lists.[37]

A dollar symbol is used as unit of reactivity for a nuclear reactor, 0 $ being the threshold of slow criticality, meaning a steady reaction rate, while 1 $ is the threshold of prompt criticality, which means a nuclear excursion or explosion.[38][39]

The dollar sign was used as a letter in the Turkmen alphabet from 1993 to 1999.[citation needed]

The dollar sign plays an important role in the plot of Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, with the book’s radical Free Market activists adopting it as their insignia.[citation needed]

See also[edit]

  • Cifrão
  • Euro sign
  • Indian rupee sign
  • Pound sign
  • Ruble sign
  • Rupee sign
  • Spanish dollar
  • Turkish lira sign
  • Yen sign
  • Yuan sign
  • Won sign

Explanatory notes[edit]

  1. ^ As of April 2022, HTML5 is the only version of HTML that has a named entity for the dollar sign.[30][31]

References[edit]

Citations[edit]

  1. ^ Kinnaird, Lawrence (July 1976). «The Western Fringe of Revolution». The Western Historical Quarterly. 7 (3): 259. doi:10.2307/967081. JSTOR 967081.
  2. ^ Popular Science (February 1930). «Origin of Dollar Sign is Traced to Mexico». Popular Science: 59. ISSN 0161-7370.
  3. ^ «Section 9 of the Coinage Act of 1792». Memory.loc.gov. Retrieved 24 August 2010.
  4. ^ «Massachusetts Copyright Statute,(1783), p. 370».
  5. ^ «Maryland Copyright Statute (1783)».
  6. ^ a b c d Hephzibah Anderson (2019): «The curious origins of the dollar symbol». Online article at the BBC website, dated 29 May 2019. Accessed on 2021-08-12.
  7. ^ Reverse of $1 United States Note (Greenback), series of 1869
  8. ^ Cajori, Florian (1993) [1929]. A History of Mathematical Notations. Vol. 2. pp. 15–29. ISBN 9780486677668.
  9. ^ Aiton, Arthur S.; Wheeler, Benjamin W. (May 1931). «The First American Mint». The Hispanic American Historical Review. 11 (2): 198. doi:10.1215/00182168-11.2.198. JSTOR 2506275.
  10. ^ a b Nussbaum, Arthur (1957). A History of the Dollar. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 56. The foreign coins remained in circulation [in the United States], and the more important among them, especially the Spanish (including the Mexican) dollars, were declared by Congress on February 9, 1793, to be legal tender. The dollar sign, $, is connected with the peso, contrary to popular belief, which considers it to be an abbreviation of ‘U.S.’ The two parallel lines represented one of the many abbreviations of ‘P,’ and the ‘S’ indicated the plural. The abbreviation ‘$.’ was also used for the peso, and is still used in Argentina.
  11. ^ Riesco Terrero, Ángel (1983). Diccionario de abreviaturas hispanas de los siglos XIII al XVIII: Con un apendice de expresiones y formulas juridico-diplomaticas de uso corriente. Salamanca: Imprenta Varona. p. 350. ISBN 84-300-9090-8.
  12. ^ Bureau of Engraving and Printing. «What is the origin of the $ sign?». Resources: FAQs. Retrieved 8 April 2016.
  13. ^ a b João Joseph Du Beux (1775): Receipt of 270Cifrão symbol.svg000 Rs. for purchase by of 50 volumes of the Acta Santorum by the College of the Carmo of Coimbra. Quote: «Recebemos […] a quantia de Duzentos Settenta mil reis[…] por Clareza passamos este Coimbra 15 de Março de 1775. São 270Cifrão symbol.svg000 Rs». Cartório do Colégio do Carmo, Maço 35, n.o 17. apud ALMEIDA, Manuel Lopes in «Livro, livreiros, impressores em documentos da Universidade», Arquivo de Bibliografia Portuguesa, ano X-XII, Atlântida, Coimbra, 1964-66, n o 37-48.
  14. ^ a b Seijas, Tatiana and Jake Frederick (2017). Spanish Dollars and Sister Republics: The Money That Made Mexico and the United States. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 3–4. ISBN 9781538100462.
  15. ^ Ulrich Theobald (2016): «Qing Period Money: Foreign Silver ‘Dollars'». Online article in the website ChinaKnowledge.de — An Encyclopaedia on Chinese History, Literature and Art, dated Apr 13, 2016. Accessed on 2021-08-14.
  16. ^ Sandra Choron and Harry Choron (2011): Money Everything You Never Knew About Your Favorite Thing to Find, Save, Spend & Covet. Chronicle Books LLC 336 pages. ISBN 9781452105598
  17. ^ Florence Edler de Roover. Concerning the Ancestry of the Dollar Sign. — Bulletin of the Business Historical Society. Vol. 19, No. 2 (Apr., 1945), pp. 63-64
  18. ^ a b c Joshua D. Rothman (2018): «The Curious Origins of the Dollar Sign» Online article on the We’re History website, dated 2018-04-01. Accessed on 2021-08-12.
  19. ^ James, James Alton (1970) [1937]. Robert Morris: The Life and Times of an Unknown Patriot. Freeport: Books for Libraries Press. p. 356. ISBN 978-0-8369-5527-9.
  20. ^ James, James Alton (1929). «‘Robert Morris, Financier of the Revolution in the West’«. The Mississippi Valley Historical Review.
  21. ^ Larson, Henrietta M. (October 1939). «Note on Our Dollar Sign». Bulletin of the Business Historical Society. 13 (4): 57–58. doi:10.2307/3111350. JSTOR 3111350.
  22. ^ (2018): «Where did the dollar sign come from?» Online article of the History channel website, dated 2018-08-22. Accessed on 2021-08-12.
  23. ^ (2015): «Origem do Cifrão». Note on the website of the Casa da Moeda do Brasil (Brazilian Mint). Accessed on 2021-08-12.
  24. ^ «Banque de dépannage linguistique — Somme d’argent». Office québécois de la langue française. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
  25. ^ a b Eduardo Marín Silva (22 July 2019). «Currency signs missing in Unicode» (PDF). Unicode Consortium.
  26. ^ (1960): Price «Cr$ 15,00» on the front cover of the 1960-05-07 issue of O Cruzeiro magazine, reproduced on the Muzeez website on 2016-12-105. Accessed on 2021-08-14.
  27. ^ Lisbon-tourist-guide.com. «Portuguese Escudo.» 2008.
  28. ^ a b Banco de Cabo Verde. «Moedas Archived 2011-01-22 at the Wayback Machine.» Accessed 25 Feb 2011.
  29. ^ Casa da Moeda. «Origem do Cifrão». Casadamoeda.gov.br. Retrieved 11 March 2018.
  30. ^ «24 Character entity references in HTML 4». www.w3.org. The following sections present the complete lists of character entity references
  31. ^ «8.5 Named character references». dollar;   U+00024   $
  32. ^ «Proposed New Characters: The Pipeline». Unicode Consortium. 11 October 2019. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
  33. ^ Eduardo Marín Silva (22 July 2019). «Currency signs missing in Unicode» (PDF). Unicode Consortium. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
  34. ^ Banco Central do Brasil. «Currency table.» Accessed 24 Feb 2011.
  35. ^ «Relative & Absolute Cell References in Excel».
  36. ^ Roy Morris (1995). Ambrose Bierce: Alone in Bad Company. Oxford University Press. p. 176. ISBN 9780195126280.
  37. ^ «Scrabble Glossary». Tucson Scrabble Club. Archived from the original on 30 August 2011. Retrieved 6 February 2012.
  38. ^ Weinberg, Alvin M.; Wigner, Eugene P. (1958). The Physical Theory of Neutron Chain Reactors. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 595.
  39. ^ «DOE Fundamentals: Nuclear Physics and Reactor Theory: Module 4: Reactor Theory (Reactor Operations)» (PDF). U. S. Department of Energy. n.d. p. 16. Retrieved 25 July 2022.

General and cited sources[edit]

  • Cajori, Florian (1993). A History of Mathematical Notations (Reprint ed.). New York: Dover. ISBN 0-486-67766-4. Contains section on the history of the dollar sign, with much documentary evidence supporting the «pesos» hypothesis.
  • Cuhaj, George (2009). Standard Catalog of United States Paper Money (28th ed.). Krause Publications. ISBN 978-0-89689-939-1.
  • Ovason, David (30 November 2004). The Secret Symbols of the Dollar Bill (Reprint ed.). Harper Paperbacks. ISBN 0-06-053045-6.

External links[edit]

  • Media related to Dollar sign at Wikimedia Commons

«$» redirects here. For the unit of currency, see Dollar. For other uses, see $ (disambiguation).

«Peso sign» redirects here. For the Philippine peso sign «₱», see Philippine peso sign.

$

Dollar sign

Other names Peso sign
In Unicode U+0024 $ DOLLAR SIGN ($)
Currency
Currency Many (see dollar, peso)
Graphical variants

Dollar sign fonts.svg

Category

The dollar sign, also known as peso sign, is a symbol consisting of a capital «S» crossed with one or two vertical strokes ($ or {displaystyle {mathsf {S}}!!!{{big |}!{big |}}}), used to indicate the unit of various currencies around the world, including most currencies denominated «peso» and «dollar». The explicitly double-barred {displaystyle {mathsf {S}}!!!{{big |}!{big |}}} sign is called cifrão.

The sign is also used in several compound currency symbols, such as the Brazilian real (R$) and the Nicaraguan córdoba (C$).

The one- and two-stroke version are often considered mere stylistic (typeface) variants, although in some places and epochs one of them may have been specifically assigned, by law or custom, to a specific currency. The Unicode computer encoding standard defines a single code for both.

In most English-speaking countries that use that symbol, it is placed to the left of the amount specified, e.g. «$1», read as «one dollar».

History[edit]

Use for the Spanish American peso in the late 1700s[edit]

The symbol appears in business correspondence in the 1770s from Spanish America, the early independent U.S., British America and Britain, referring to the Spanish American peso,[1][2] also known as «Spanish dollar» or «piece of eight» in British America. Those coins provided the model for the currency that the United States adopted in 1792, and for the larger coins of the new Spanish American republics, such as the Mexican peso, Argentine peso, Peruvian real, and Bolivian sol coins.

With the Coinage Act of 1792, the United States Congress created the U.S. dollar, defining it to have «the value of a Spanish milled dollar as the same is now current»[3] but a variety of foreign coins were deemed to be legal tender until the Coinage Act of 1857 ended this status.[4][failed verification][5][failed verification]

The earliest U.S. dollar coins did not have any dollar symbol. The first occurrence in print is claimed to be from 1790s, by a Philadelphia printer Archibald Binny, creator of the Monticello typeface.[6] The $1 United States Note issued by the United States in 1869 included a large symbol consisting of a «U» with the right bar overlapping an «S» like a single-bar dollar sign, as well as a very small double-stroke dollar sign in the legal warning against forgery.[7]

Earlier history of the symbol[edit]

It is still uncertain, however, how the dollar sign came to represent the Spanish American peso. There are currently several competing hypotheses:

  • One theory holds that the sign grew out of the Spanish and Spanish American scribal abbreviation «ps» for pesos. A study of late 18th- and early 19th-century manuscripts shows that the s gradually came to be written over the p, developing into a close equivalent to the «$» mark.[8][9][10][11][12] However, there are documents showing the common use of the two-stroke version in Portugal already by 1775.[13]

A piece of eight from the Potosí mint, showing the Pillars of Hercules with «S» ribbons, and two «PTSI» monograms at about 4 and 8 o’clock around the edge.

  • Another hypothesis derives the sign from a depiction of the Pillars of Hercules, a classical symbol for two sides of the Strait of Gibraltar, with a ribbon wrapped around both each pillar (or both pillars) in the form of an «S». This device is common support element of the Spanish coat of arms, and appeared on the most common real de ocho coins circulating at the time in the Americas and Europe; namely, those minted at the Potosí mint in Bolivia, which operated from 1573 to 1825.[14][10] Indeed, one of the names used for Spanish dollars in Qing Dynasty China was 双柱; 雙柱; shuāngzhù; ‘double-pillar’.[15]
  • A variant of the above theory claims that the sign comes from the mark of the mint at Potosí, where a large portion of the Spanish Empire’s silver was mined, also featured on those coin, which consisted of the letters «P T S I» superimposed. The core of this monogram is a (single-stroked) «$» sign.[16]

Sample ledger with a sign for dollar from John Collins 1686.

  • Yet another hypothesis notes that the English word «dollar» for the Spanish piece of eight originally came (through Dutch daalder) from Joachimsthaler or thaler, a similar large German silver coin which was widely used in Europe. It is therefore conjectured that the dollar sign derived from a symbol consisting of a superimposing S and I or J that was used to denote the German silver coin. Such symbol appears in the 1686 edition of An Introduction to Merchants’ Accounts by John Collins.[17] Alternatively, the symbol could have come from a snake and cross emblem on the thaler coins.[6]

Less likely theories[edit]

The following theories seem to have been discredited or contradicted by documentary evidence:

  • Some historians have attributed the symbol to Oliver Pollock, a wealthy Irish trader and early supporter of the American Revolution, who used the abbreviation «ps», sometimes run together, in a letter dated 1778.[6][18]
  • In 1937, historian James Alton James claimed that the symbol with two strokes was an adapted design of patriot Robert Morris in 1778, in letters written to Pollock.[19][20][18]
  • In 1939, H. M. Larson suggested that the sign could derive from a combination of the Greek character «psi» (ψ) and «S».[21]
  • Writer Ayn Rand claimed in her 1957 book Atlas Shrugged that the sign started off as a monogram of «US», with a narrow «U» superimposed on the «S», which would have been used on money bags issued by the United States Mint. In her theory, the bottom part of the «U» would have been lost, producing the dollar sign with two vertical lines.[22][6]
  • Authors T. Seijas and J. Frederick noted that the captors of slaves in Spanish territories sometimes branded enslaved people with a symbol very similar to a one-barred dollar sign. Esclavo is Spanish for «slave,» and clavo means nail. A dollar sign is S + clavo.[14]
  • A theory often cited in Portuguese speaking countries is that the «S» part of the doubly-stroked sign is a schematic representation of the path followed by the Umayyad Caliphate general Tariq Ibn Ziyad in his conquest of the Visigoth kingdom in 711 CE, and the two strokes represent the Pillars of Hercules that he would have crossed along that path. That symbol would have been engraved in coins commemorating his victory, and then became symbolic of currency in general.[23]

Currencies that use the dollar sign[edit]

As symbol of the currency[edit]

The numerous currencies called «dollar» use the dollar sign to express money amounts. The sign is also generally used for the many currencies called «peso» (except the Philippine peso, which uses the symbol «₱»). Within a country the dollar/peso sign may be used alone. In other cases, and to avoid ambiguity in international usage, it is usually combined with other glyphs, e.g. CA$ or Can$ for Canadian dollar.

The dollar sign, alone or in combination with other glyphs, is or was used to denote several currencies with other names, including:

Prefix or suffix[edit]

In the United States, Mexico, Australia, Argentina, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Pacific Island nations, and English-speaking Canada, the sign is written before the number («$5»), even though the word is written or spoken after it («five dollars», «cinco pesos«). In French-speaking Canada, exceptionally, the dollar symbol usually appears after the number,[24] e.g., «5$». (The cent symbol is written after the number in most countries that use it, e.g., «5¢».)

Use in the Portuguese Empire[edit]

In Portugal, Brazil, and other parts of the Portuguese Empire, the two-stroke variant of the sign (with the name cifrão; (Portuguese pronunciation: [siˈfɾɐ̃w̃] (listen)) was used as the thousands separator of amounts in the national currency, the real (plural «réis», abbreviated «Rs.»): 123Cifrão symbol.svg500 meant «123500 réis«. This usage is attested in 1775, but may be older by a century or more.[13] It is always written with two vertical lines: Cifrão symbol.svg. It is the official sign of the Cape Verdean escudo (ISO 4217: CVE).

In 1911 Portugal redefined the national currency as the escudo, worth 1000 réis, and divided into 100 centavos; but the cifrão continued to be used as the decimal separator,[25] so that 123Cifrão symbol.svg50 meant 123.50 escudos or 123 escudos and 50 centavos. This usage ended in 2002 when the country switched to the euro. (A similar scheme to use a letter symbol instead of a decimal point is used by the RKM code in electrical engineering since 1952.)

Car for sale in Cape Verde, showing use of the cifrão as decimals separator.

Cape Verde, a republic and former Portuguese colony, similarly switched from the real to their local escudo and centavos in 1914, and retains the cifrão usage as decimals separator as of 2021. Local versions of the Portuguese escudo were for a time created also for other overseas colonies, including East Timor (1958–1975), Portuguese India (1958–1961), Angola (1914–1928 and 1958–1977), Mozambique (1914–1980), Portuguese Guinea (1914–1975), and São Tomé and Príncipe (1914–1977); presumably[clarification needed] all using the cifrão as decimals separator.[citation needed]

Brazil retained the real and the cifrão as thousands separator until 1942, when it switched to the Brazilian cruzeiro, with comma as the decimals separator. The dollar sign, officially with one stroke but often rendered with two, was retained as part of the currency symbol «Cr $», so one would write Cr$13,50 for 13 cruzeiros and 50 centavos.[26]

It was formerly used by the Portuguese escudo (ISO: PTE) before its replacement by the euro and by the Portuguese Timor escudo (ISO: TPE) before its replacement by the Indonesian rupiah and the US dollar.[27] In Portuguese and Cape Verdean usage, the cifrão is placed as a decimal point between the escudo and centavo values.[28] The name originates in the Arabic sifr (‏صِفْر‎), meaning ‘zero’.[29]

Fictional currencies[edit]

Some virtual world and gaming platforms have used the $ symbol to refer to their own virtual currencies, for example:

  • S$: Sansar dollars (Sansar)
  • L$: Linden dollars (Second Life)
  • M$: Minecoins (Minecraft)
  • D$: Dark dollars (Deltarune)

One stroke vs. two strokes[edit]

In some places and at some times, the one- and two-stroke variants have been used in the same contexts to distinguish between the U.S. dollar and other local currency, such as the former Portuguese escudo.[25]

However, such usage is not standardized, and furthermore the two versions are generally considered[citation needed] mere graphic variants of the same symbol—a typeface design choice. Computer and typewriter keyboards usually have a single key for that sign, and many character encodings (including ASCII and Unicode) reserve a single numeric code for it. Indeed, dollar signs in the same digital document may be rendered with one or two strokes, if different computer fonts are used. Should that ambiguity be significant, one may use explicit abbreviations (like «US$» or «$NZ»), or ISO 4217 three-letter currency codes (such as USD and MXN) to distinguish different currencies that use the symbol.

When a specific variant is not mandated by law or custom, the choice is usually a matter of expediency or aesthetic preference. Both versions were used in the US in the 18th century. (An 1861 Civil War-era advertisement depicts the two-stroked symbol as a snake.[18]) The two-stroke version seems to be generally less popular today, though used in some «old-style» fonts like Baskerville.

Use in computer software[edit]

Because of its use in early American computer applications such as business accounting, the dollar sign is almost universally present in computer character sets, and thus has been appropriated for many purposes unrelated to money in programming languages and command languages.

Encoding[edit]

The dollar sign «$» has Unicode code point U+0024 (inherited from ASCII via Latin-1).

  • U+0024 $ DOLLAR SIGN ($)[a]

There are no separate encodings for one- and two-line variants. The choice is typeface-dependent, they are allographs. However, there are three other code points that originate from other East Asian standards: the Taiwanese small form variant, the CJK fullwidth form, and the Japanese emoji. The glyphs for these code points are typically larger or smaller than the primary code point, but the difference is mostly aesthetic or typographic, and the meanings of the symbols are the same.

  • U+FE69 SMALL DOLLAR SIGN
  • U+FF04 FULLWIDTH DOLLAR SIGN
  • U+1F4B2 💲 HEAVY DOLLAR SIGN

However, for usage as the special character in various computing applications (see following sections), U+0024 is typically the only code that is recognized.

Support for the two-line variant varies. As of 2019, the Unicode standard considers the distinction between one- and two-bar dollar signs a stylistic distinction between fonts, and has no separate code point for the cifrão. The symbol is not in the October 2019 ‘pipeline’,[32] but appears to be under active consideration.[33]

The following fonts display a double-bar dollar sign for code point 0024:[citation needed] regular-weight Baskerville, Big Caslon, Bodoni MT, Bradley Hand ITC, Brush Script MT, Garamond, STFangsong, STKaiti, and STSong ($).

In LaTeX, with the textcomp package installed, the cifrão ({mathrm  {S}}!!!Vert ) can be input using the command textdollaroldstyle.

However, because of font substitution and the lack of a dedicated code point, the author of an electronic document who uses one of these fonts intending to represent a cifrão cannot be sure that every reader will see a double-bar glyph rather than the single barred version.

Because of the continued lack of support in Unicode, a single bar dollar sign is frequently employed in its place even for official purposes.[28][34] Where there is any risk of misunderstanding, the ISO 4217 three letter acronym is used.

Programming languages[edit]

  • $ was used for defining string variables in older versions of the BASIC language, e.g. CHR$ ($ was often pronounced «string» instead of «dollar» in this use).
  • $ is prefixed to names to define variables in the PHP language and the AutoIt automation script language, scalar variables in the Perl language (see sigil (computer programming)), and global variables in the Ruby language. In Perl programming this includes scalar elements of arrays $array[7] and hashes $hash{foo}.
  • In most shell scripting languages, $ is used to indicate the insertion into strings of environment variables, special variables, input data fields, previous commands, arithmetic computations, and special characters, and for performing translation of localised strings. In the shell script languages of CP/M, DOS, and several Unix-like systems, it is used to insert variable information (such as the current working directory, user name, or sequential command number) in the command prompt.
  • $ is used for defining hexadecimal constants in Pascal-like languages such as Delphi, and in some variants of assembly language.
  • $ is used in the ALGOL 68 language to delimit transput format regions.
  • $ is used in the TeX typesetting language to delimit mathematical regions.
  • In many versions of FORTRAN 66, $ could be used as an alternative to a quotation mark for delimiting strings.
  • In PL/M, $ can be used to put a visible separation between words in compound identifiers. For example, Some$Name refers to the same thing as ‘SomeName’.
  • In Haskell, $ is used as a function application operator.
  • In an AutoHotkey script, a hotkey declared with $ is not triggered by a ‘Send’ command elsewhere in the script.
  • In several JavaScript frameworks such as Prototype.js and jQuery, $ is a common utility class, and is often referred to as the buck.[citation needed] Otherwise, it’s a character allowed in identifiers.
  • In JavaScript from ES6 onward it is used inside template literals to insert the value of a variable. For example, if var word = "such" then `as ${word}` would equal 'as such'
  • In C#, $ marks a string literal as an interpolated string.
  • In ASP.NET, the dollar sign used in a tag in the web page indicates an expression will follow it. The expression that follows is .NET language-agnostic, as it will work with C#, VB.NET, or any CLR supported language.
  • In Erlang, the dollar sign precedes character literals. The dollar sign as a character can be written $$.
  • In COBOL the $ sign is used in the Picture clause to depict a floating currency symbol as the left most character. The default symbol is $; however, if the CURRENCY= or CURRENCY SIGN clause is specified, many other symbols can be used.
  • In some assembly languages, such as MIPS, the $ sign is used to represent registers.
  • In Honeywell 6000 series assembler, the $ sign, when used as an address, meant the address of the instruction in which it appeared.
  • In CMS-2, the $ sign is used as a statement terminator.
  • In R, the $ sign is used as a subsetting operator.
  • In Q (programming language from Kx Systems), the $ sign is used as a casting/padding/enumeration/conditional operator.
  • In Sass, the $ sign is prefixed to define a variable.

Operating systems[edit]

  • In CP/M and subsequently in all versions of DOS (86-DOS, MS-DOS, PC DOS, more) and derivatives, $ is used as a string terminator (Int 21h with AH=09h).
  • In Microsoft Windows, $ is appended to the share name to hide a shared folder or resource. For example, \servershare will be visible to other computers on a network, while \servershare$ will be accessible only by explicit reference. Hiding a shared folder or resource will not alter its access permissions but may render it inaccessible to programs or other functions which rely on its visibility. Most administrative shares are hidden in this way.
  • In the LDAP directory access protocol, $ is used as a line separator in various standard entry attributes such as postalAddress.
  • In the UNIVAC EXEC 8 operating system, $ means «system». It is appended to entities such as the names of system files, the «sender» name in messages sent by the operator, and the default names of system-created files (like compiler output) when no specific name is specified (e.g., TPF$, NAME$, etc.)
  • In RISC OS, $ is used in system variables to separate the application name from the variables specific to that application. For example Draw$Dir specifies the directory where the !Draw application is located. It is also used to refer to the root directory of a file system.

Applications[edit]

  • Microsoft Excel[35] and other spreadsheet software use the dollar sign ($) to denote a fixed row, fixed column reference, or an absolute cell reference.
  • The dollar sign introduces a subfield delimiter in computer coding of library catalog records.
  • $ matches the end of a line or string in sed, grep, and POSIX and Perl regular expressions, as well as the end of a line or the file in text editors ed, ex, vi, pico, and derivatives.

Other uses[edit]

The symbol is sometimes used derisively, in place of the letter S, to indicate greed or excess money such as in «Micro$oft», «Di$ney», «Chel$ea» and «GW$»; or supposed overt Americanisation as in «$ky». The dollar sign is also used intentionally to stylize names such as A$AP Rocky, Ke$ha, and Ty Dolla $ign or words such as ¥€$. In 1872, Ambrose Bierce referred to California governor Leland Stanford as $tealand Landford.[36]

In Scrabble notation, a dollar sign is placed after a word to indicate that it is valid according to the North American word lists, but not according to the British word lists.[37]

A dollar symbol is used as unit of reactivity for a nuclear reactor, 0 $ being the threshold of slow criticality, meaning a steady reaction rate, while 1 $ is the threshold of prompt criticality, which means a nuclear excursion or explosion.[38][39]

The dollar sign was used as a letter in the Turkmen alphabet from 1993 to 1999.[citation needed]

The dollar sign plays an important role in the plot of Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, with the book’s radical Free Market activists adopting it as their insignia.[citation needed]

See also[edit]

  • Cifrão
  • Euro sign
  • Indian rupee sign
  • Pound sign
  • Ruble sign
  • Rupee sign
  • Spanish dollar
  • Turkish lira sign
  • Yen sign
  • Yuan sign
  • Won sign

Explanatory notes[edit]

  1. ^ As of April 2022, HTML5 is the only version of HTML that has a named entity for the dollar sign.[30][31]

References[edit]

Citations[edit]

  1. ^ Kinnaird, Lawrence (July 1976). «The Western Fringe of Revolution». The Western Historical Quarterly. 7 (3): 259. doi:10.2307/967081. JSTOR 967081.
  2. ^ Popular Science (February 1930). «Origin of Dollar Sign is Traced to Mexico». Popular Science: 59. ISSN 0161-7370.
  3. ^ «Section 9 of the Coinage Act of 1792». Memory.loc.gov. Retrieved 24 August 2010.
  4. ^ «Massachusetts Copyright Statute,(1783), p. 370».
  5. ^ «Maryland Copyright Statute (1783)».
  6. ^ a b c d Hephzibah Anderson (2019): «The curious origins of the dollar symbol». Online article at the BBC website, dated 29 May 2019. Accessed on 2021-08-12.
  7. ^ Reverse of $1 United States Note (Greenback), series of 1869
  8. ^ Cajori, Florian (1993) [1929]. A History of Mathematical Notations. Vol. 2. pp. 15–29. ISBN 9780486677668.
  9. ^ Aiton, Arthur S.; Wheeler, Benjamin W. (May 1931). «The First American Mint». The Hispanic American Historical Review. 11 (2): 198. doi:10.1215/00182168-11.2.198. JSTOR 2506275.
  10. ^ a b Nussbaum, Arthur (1957). A History of the Dollar. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 56. The foreign coins remained in circulation [in the United States], and the more important among them, especially the Spanish (including the Mexican) dollars, were declared by Congress on February 9, 1793, to be legal tender. The dollar sign, $, is connected with the peso, contrary to popular belief, which considers it to be an abbreviation of ‘U.S.’ The two parallel lines represented one of the many abbreviations of ‘P,’ and the ‘S’ indicated the plural. The abbreviation ‘$.’ was also used for the peso, and is still used in Argentina.
  11. ^ Riesco Terrero, Ángel (1983). Diccionario de abreviaturas hispanas de los siglos XIII al XVIII: Con un apendice de expresiones y formulas juridico-diplomaticas de uso corriente. Salamanca: Imprenta Varona. p. 350. ISBN 84-300-9090-8.
  12. ^ Bureau of Engraving and Printing. «What is the origin of the $ sign?». Resources: FAQs. Retrieved 8 April 2016.
  13. ^ a b João Joseph Du Beux (1775): Receipt of 270Cifrão symbol.svg000 Rs. for purchase by of 50 volumes of the Acta Santorum by the College of the Carmo of Coimbra. Quote: «Recebemos […] a quantia de Duzentos Settenta mil reis[…] por Clareza passamos este Coimbra 15 de Março de 1775. São 270Cifrão symbol.svg000 Rs». Cartório do Colégio do Carmo, Maço 35, n.o 17. apud ALMEIDA, Manuel Lopes in «Livro, livreiros, impressores em documentos da Universidade», Arquivo de Bibliografia Portuguesa, ano X-XII, Atlântida, Coimbra, 1964-66, n o 37-48.
  14. ^ a b Seijas, Tatiana and Jake Frederick (2017). Spanish Dollars and Sister Republics: The Money That Made Mexico and the United States. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 3–4. ISBN 9781538100462.
  15. ^ Ulrich Theobald (2016): «Qing Period Money: Foreign Silver ‘Dollars'». Online article in the website ChinaKnowledge.de — An Encyclopaedia on Chinese History, Literature and Art, dated Apr 13, 2016. Accessed on 2021-08-14.
  16. ^ Sandra Choron and Harry Choron (2011): Money Everything You Never Knew About Your Favorite Thing to Find, Save, Spend & Covet. Chronicle Books LLC 336 pages. ISBN 9781452105598
  17. ^ Florence Edler de Roover. Concerning the Ancestry of the Dollar Sign. — Bulletin of the Business Historical Society. Vol. 19, No. 2 (Apr., 1945), pp. 63-64
  18. ^ a b c Joshua D. Rothman (2018): «The Curious Origins of the Dollar Sign» Online article on the We’re History website, dated 2018-04-01. Accessed on 2021-08-12.
  19. ^ James, James Alton (1970) [1937]. Robert Morris: The Life and Times of an Unknown Patriot. Freeport: Books for Libraries Press. p. 356. ISBN 978-0-8369-5527-9.
  20. ^ James, James Alton (1929). «‘Robert Morris, Financier of the Revolution in the West’«. The Mississippi Valley Historical Review.
  21. ^ Larson, Henrietta M. (October 1939). «Note on Our Dollar Sign». Bulletin of the Business Historical Society. 13 (4): 57–58. doi:10.2307/3111350. JSTOR 3111350.
  22. ^ (2018): «Where did the dollar sign come from?» Online article of the History channel website, dated 2018-08-22. Accessed on 2021-08-12.
  23. ^ (2015): «Origem do Cifrão». Note on the website of the Casa da Moeda do Brasil (Brazilian Mint). Accessed on 2021-08-12.
  24. ^ «Banque de dépannage linguistique — Somme d’argent». Office québécois de la langue française. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
  25. ^ a b Eduardo Marín Silva (22 July 2019). «Currency signs missing in Unicode» (PDF). Unicode Consortium.
  26. ^ (1960): Price «Cr$ 15,00» on the front cover of the 1960-05-07 issue of O Cruzeiro magazine, reproduced on the Muzeez website on 2016-12-105. Accessed on 2021-08-14.
  27. ^ Lisbon-tourist-guide.com. «Portuguese Escudo.» 2008.
  28. ^ a b Banco de Cabo Verde. «Moedas Archived 2011-01-22 at the Wayback Machine.» Accessed 25 Feb 2011.
  29. ^ Casa da Moeda. «Origem do Cifrão». Casadamoeda.gov.br. Retrieved 11 March 2018.
  30. ^ «24 Character entity references in HTML 4». www.w3.org. The following sections present the complete lists of character entity references
  31. ^ «8.5 Named character references». dollar;   U+00024   $
  32. ^ «Proposed New Characters: The Pipeline». Unicode Consortium. 11 October 2019. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
  33. ^ Eduardo Marín Silva (22 July 2019). «Currency signs missing in Unicode» (PDF). Unicode Consortium. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
  34. ^ Banco Central do Brasil. «Currency table.» Accessed 24 Feb 2011.
  35. ^ «Relative & Absolute Cell References in Excel».
  36. ^ Roy Morris (1995). Ambrose Bierce: Alone in Bad Company. Oxford University Press. p. 176. ISBN 9780195126280.
  37. ^ «Scrabble Glossary». Tucson Scrabble Club. Archived from the original on 30 August 2011. Retrieved 6 February 2012.
  38. ^ Weinberg, Alvin M.; Wigner, Eugene P. (1958). The Physical Theory of Neutron Chain Reactors. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 595.
  39. ^ «DOE Fundamentals: Nuclear Physics and Reactor Theory: Module 4: Reactor Theory (Reactor Operations)» (PDF). U. S. Department of Energy. n.d. p. 16. Retrieved 25 July 2022.

General and cited sources[edit]

  • Cajori, Florian (1993). A History of Mathematical Notations (Reprint ed.). New York: Dover. ISBN 0-486-67766-4. Contains section on the history of the dollar sign, with much documentary evidence supporting the «pesos» hypothesis.
  • Cuhaj, George (2009). Standard Catalog of United States Paper Money (28th ed.). Krause Publications. ISBN 978-0-89689-939-1.
  • Ovason, David (30 November 2004). The Secret Symbols of the Dollar Bill (Reprint ed.). Harper Paperbacks. ISBN 0-06-053045-6.

External links[edit]

  • Media related to Dollar sign at Wikimedia Commons

«$» — ОДИН ИЗ САМЫХ УЗНАВАЕМЫХ СИМВОЛОВ СОВРЕМЕННОСТИ, большинство людей безошибочно идентифицируют «S» с одной или двумя вертикальными «палочками» как знак доллара. Доллар – основная денежная единица не только США, но и во многих других странах, — поэтому знак доллара «$» используется для обозначения не только американского доллара, но и валют прочих стран с добавлением к основному символу дополнительных букв, указывающих на принадлежность тому или иному государству: к примеру Тринидад и Тобаго – ТТ$, Барбадос – Bds$, Австралия – А$ или Au$, и так далее.

Почему же именно «S» стала основой для обозначения американской валюты, ведь в слове «доллар» даже нет такой буквы? Дело в том, что изначально «$» — знак не доллара, а песо.

Далее немного истории.

В восьми странах(Аргентина, Чили, Колумбия, Куба, Доминиканская Республика, Мексика, Филиппины и Уругвай) денежные знаки называются песо

История слова «доллар» началась в XVI-м веке в Чехии. Европа тогда впервые за долгое время стала богата серебром. Столетиями европейцы тратили золото и серебро на покупку шёлка, пряностей и другой экзотической роскоши, в результате чего запасы драгоценных металлов в Старом Свете порядком истощились. В начале XVI-го века в Тироле, Саксонии (в настоящее время — области Австрии и Германии) и Богемии (современная Чехия) обнаружились довольно большие залежи серебряной руды и серебряные монеты начали активно вытеснять из обращения золотые. «Йоахимсталер». Так назвалась монета шестнадцатого века, которая чеканилась возле шахты серебряной руды в чешском городе Йоахимстале.

Богемские йохимсталеры стали эталоном в чеканке серебряных монет и вскоре сокращённым словом «талер» уже называли любую серебряную валюту. Каждый народ переиначивал чешский термин на свой лад — скажем, голландцы произносили его как «даалдер», в Словении «талер» стал «толаром». В Дании из-за особенностей произношения монета называлась уже «далер».

В Великобритании несколько позже название трансформировалось в более созвучное и современное «доллар». Так, в Англии 17-18 веков «долларами» назывались любые похожие на талер серебрянные монеты – и уже в «Макбете» Шекспира можно найти упоминание о них:

Король Норвежский, мира запросил,

Но прежде, чем предать земле убитых,

Ему пришлось на острове Сент-Кольм

Нам десять тысяч долларов вручить…

Когда Испания начала активно осваивать богатства Нового Света, европейские месторождения драгметаллов утратили своё былое значение, на следующие несколько сотен лет «серебряный центр» мира переместился в Боливию, Перу и Мексику. Реалы, их ещё называли «испанскими долларами» или «peso de ocho» (англ. «piece of eight» — восьмая часть, «осьмушка», каждый реал стоил 1/8 английского фунта), отчеканенные из «индейского» серебра заполонили Европу и постепенно вытеснили с рынка талеры, став основной международной валютой. Чтобы понять, насколько велико было влияние испанских денег на культуру и экономику того времени, обратите внимание на названия некоторых современных национальных валют.

Peso de ocho

В восьми странах (Аргентина, Чили, Колумбия, Куба, Доминиканская Республика, Мексика, Филиппины и Уругвай) денежные знаки называются песо. Китайские юани и японские иены получили свои названия в честь формы испанских монет (кит. «юань» — круглый) — Япония и Китай взяли их за основу при создании своих денег. Риялы, которыми рассчитываются в Саудовской Аравии и катарские риалы также обязаны своими именами испанским реалам. И наконец, главное — когда молодое государство Соединённые Штаты Америки озаботилось чеканкой собственных денег, их назвали «доллар», испанские деньги тогда широко применялись при расчётах внутри страны.

Мы привыкли к обозначению доллара латинской буквой «S», обычно перечеркнутой двумя вертикальными линиями, но иногда и одной. Версия этого знака с одной вертикалью используется в печатных изданиях прессы, так как два тонких штриха намного хуже пропечатываются при использовании мелких кеглей газетных шрифтов.

Но откуда, собственно, взялось такое обозначение доллара? — История происхождения знака и его смысл темны и загадочны. Доллар просуществовал больше двух столетий (американская валюта появилась в 1785 году), и за этот период времени он успел обрасти множеством различных легенд и теорий, некоторые из которых весьма убедительны. Однако доказанной версии не существует, и мы можем лишь, рассмотрев основные предположения историков, склоняться к выбранному варианту.

Варианты начертания знака доллара

Одной из наиболее вероятных версий считают возможное происхождения знака доллара от испанского сокращения «P’s», некогда обозначавшего денежные единицы этого государства — песо или пиастр. От буквы «P» предположительно осталась лишь вертикальная черта, что позволило увеличить скорость записи, а буква «S» осталась неизменной в качестве фона. С другой стороны, в данном случае «S» — второстепенная буква-окончание, так как обозначает лишь множественное число песо. Поэтому кажется не вполне логичным упрощение в бухгалтерских документах буквы «Р», указывающей на конкретную денежную единицу.

Вот пишут даже, что  в 1778 — нью-орлеанский бизнесмен Оливер Поллок придумал знак доллара. Считается, что первоначальный смысл значка $ связан с обозначением испанских пиастров, активно использовавшихся в Америке тех лет. В деловых бумагах пиастры традиционно сокращались до  сочетания латинских букв PS, наложение которых одна на другую и давало используемый ныне знак.

Другая версия гласит, что буква «S» — это первая буква слова «Spain» (Испания). Такая точка зрения подкрепляется тем фактом, что «S» ставили на слитках золота, вывозимых из испанских колоний Нового Света. При отправке слитков в Испанию на них якобы наносили вертикальную черту, а после прибытия добавляли ещё одну для контроля за происхождением золота.

Серебряный реал Потоси: символ $ — монограмма из букв PTSI (Potosi)

Некоторые эксперты Штатов полагают, что истоком возникновения знака «$» послужило сокращение «PTSI» — так маркировалось серебро из боливийских рудников Потоси (крупнейшего мирового промышленного центра 16-17 столетий), которое шло на чеканку монет в песо с 1573 года по 1825 год. Эти монеты находились в обращении у североамериканских колоний Великобритании.

Перечеркнутая «$» может с тем же успехом быть остатками перечеркнутой восьмерки, — ведь некогда в Северной Америке были широко использованы испанские реалы для денежных расчетов. Они весили, и соответственно стоили одну восьмую английского фунта стерлингов, на письме обозначаясь как «1/8» -и потому их называли «piece of eight» («восьмушки»). Тогда второе перечёркивание могло происходить от европейской традиции переписчиков обозначать таким образом сокращения.

«Королевская» версия утверждает, что знак доллара – ни что иное, как стилизованный герб испанской королевской семьи, поскольку в 1492 году король Фердинанд II Арагонский избрал в качестве символа Геркулесовы столпы (Columnae Herculis) — так в античности называли скалы, обрамляющие вход в Гибралтарский пролив (Гибралтарская скала, Северная скала, гора Джебель-Муса в Марокко и гора Абила возле Сеуты). Символические Геркулесовы столпы обвивает лента с девизом «Non plus ultra» («не дальше» — имеется в виду «…пределов мира»). Однако с открытием новых земель за Гибралтаром Колумбом, девиз видоизменился на «Plus ultra», то есть «ещё дальше». Этот девиз избрал император Карл V, а когда в Мексике и Перу обнаружили крупнейшие серебряные рудники, символ «$» начал чеканиться на монетах Нового Света, которые широко обращались и в Европе.

Обвитые лентой Геркулесовы столбы (муниципалитет Севильи,Испания, XVI век)

Еще одна популярная версия говорит о том, чтосимвол доллара появился благодаря Соединенным Штатам Америки (сдается мне, что и версия-то эта придумана самими американцами). На английском языке название звучит как United States of Ameriсa (сокращенно — USA). Так вот, эта версия утверждает, что символ производен от названия американского государства на английском языке. При этом осуществляется смещение  двух первых букв и (U и S), а часть буквы U изменилась: исчезла нижняя часть буквы, а остались только две вертикальные палочки, которые в сочетании с  буквой S  и дали символ национальной валюте страны. Слишком попахивает неподдельным патриотизмом. Эту версию пропагандировала американская писательница Айн Ренд.

«Серебряная» версия похожа на предыдущую упрощением буквы «U», однако согласно ей буквы «U» и «S» являются сокращением от «Silver Unit» («Серебряное объединение»).

Нельзя исключить также версию происхождения знака от обозначения древнеримской денежной единицы сестерций — sestertius от semis+tertius (полтретья, два с половиной), серебряная монета достоинством в два с половиной фунта меди. Сестерций обозначался буквами «LLS» или «IIS», иногда «HS». Эта аббревиатура расшифровывается так: «Libra-Libra-Semis», — то есть: «Фунт-Фунт-Половина». При сокращённом написании две буквы «L» с усечённой нижней поперечной чёрточкой накладывались на букву «S» и получался как бы знак доллара. Именно так обозначалась на письме денежная единица сестерций в Древнем Риме. Древнеримская тема была очень модной в эпоху Просвещения. Так, например, место расположения Конгресса США называется Капитолием (главный холм в Риме), а верхняя палата Конгресса США называетсяСенатом — так же, как в Древнем Риме.

Религиозная версия объясняет поисхождение знака от видоизмененного реверса австрийского талера с изображением распятого Иисуса и змеи, обвивающей крест. Масонская же версия, близкая поклонникам теории заговоров и тайных обществ, гласит: символ «$» является обозначением Храма царя Соломона (начальная буква от «Solomon» и две колонны).

Но истина может быть намного более тривиальной и находиться буквально у нас под носом: знак доллара мог быть выведен от… шиллинга, который обозначается буквой «S», которую иногда «подкрепляют» вертикальной чертой.

Что же касается международного порядка написания перед денежной суммой знака долара – то это традиция, которую американцы унаследовали от англичан – последние всегда ставили знак фунта непосредственно перед числом.

Какую версию мы забыли ? Дополняйте !

[источники]

источники

http://origin.iknowit.ru/paper1238.html

http://www.factroom.ru/world/dollar-sign

http://ria.ru/spravka/20080401/102641988.html

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%BB_%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BB%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B0

А вот например вашему вниманию 16 версий происхождения слова «Окей» или почему Почему американцев называют «пиндосами«. Посмотрите еще на Гибель «Америки» и узнайте про Мустанга как заблуждение. Ну и как же без этого — Официальная и тайная истории ФРС

Оригинал статьи находится на сайте ИнфоГлаз.рф Ссылка на статью, с которой сделана эта копия — http://infoglaz.ru/?p=59340

Давайте раз и навсегда закроем вопрос о том, как правильно писать валюты.

Вот рубль по-русски можно написать такими вариантами: руб., р., ₽, RUB, RUR.

А вот варианты с долларами: доллары, $, USD.

Так какой вариант выбрать? А как писать: в начале или в конце? А пробел нужен?

Лебедев в своем «Ководстве» пишет:

Как бы соблазнительно ни выглядел доллар слева от суммы, писать его в русских текстах можно только справа. (Исключение могут составлять финансовые и биржевые тексты, но это отраслевой стандарт, который не может распространяться на остальные области.)

Артемий Лебедев

Так же он отмечает:

В русском языке единица измерения, стоящая перед значением, означает примерно столько: «долларов сто». А не писать пробел перед знаком доллара, это все равно что писать 50руб.

Артемий Лебевев

Илья Бирман с этим не согласился.

Лебедев не понимает, что $ — это знак, а не сокращение. Когда написано «$100» я это читаю «сто долларов», и мне нисколько не мешает, что знак $ стоит перед числом. И ни одному человеку в мире это не мешает. Знак доллара всегда и везде ставятся перед числом, и без пробела; <…>

Илья Бирман

Потом, однако, признал в этом свою неправоту.

Есть очень много ясности в вопросах использования. И много темных мест.

Я много времени проработал дизайнером финансовых продуктов и теперь точно знаю, как надо.

Однозначные символы: $, ¥, ₽, €, ₣, £, ₩,…

Это все типографские символы. Лигатуры. Они входят в Стандарт Юникод, но не стандартизированы в ISO по правилам их использования.

Символы валют очень популярны, вы встретите их везде: на ценниках, в банковских приложениях, в общих и тематических статьях.

Однозначные символы нативны. Часто, они изображены на самих купюрах. Люди их быстро узнают и легко считывают. А значок доллара вообще равен значку денег.

Много, однако, неясностей.

Где писать?

Непонятно где их ставить, в начале или в конце? Лебедев топит за то, что нужно писать в конце, якобы в России у нас так. А если это международный сервис? Например, интернет-магазин, локализованный на разных языках. На русском писать так, а на английском по-другому?

Пробел нужен?

В США пишут без пробела $100 (хотя тоже не всегда). У нас символ намекает на то, что это единица изменения, хотя это спорно. По системе СИ единица изменения пишется через пробел и точка в конце не ставится.

Чей доллар?

Мало кто знает, но доллар – это название валюты очень многих стран. Не только США. Есть например, австралийский доллар, канадский, либерийский, доллар Намибии и еще пару десятков стран. Все они обозначаются символом $.

А еще есть аргентинское песо, боливийский боливиано, бразильский реал, кабо-вердийский эскудо и еще много валют, которые вообще не доллары, но обозначаются значком $.

Как тут быть, если в одной системе я использую сразу несколько из этих валют? Как их различать между собой?

Боливиец живет в своей стране, заходит в магазин, видит ценники и понимает, что условно, хлеб за 10 $ – это значит хлеб за десять боливийский боливиано.

А что случается, когда он заходит на брокерскую биржу, где целая система разных международных валют?

Символ?

Вообще не у всех валют есть однозначные символы. Их очень мало. Все, что есть в заголовке этого раздела и еще пару символов, этим наверное и ограничится. Если вы знаете еще какие-нибудь символы, напишите, пожалуйста, в комментарии.

Большая часть валют вообще не использует лигатуры: арабский дирхам, бахрейнский динар, белорусский рубль, венгерский форинт.

А даже если есть, то не факт, что они будут в Юникоде. А даже если есть в Юникоде, то не факт, что они будут в гарнитуре, которую вы используете в своем проекте. Попробуйте, например в Фигме ввести символ армянского драма ֏ на разных гарнитурах.

Как вводить?

На Windows все зависит от клавиатуры, с которой вы вводите. На клавиатуре Apple с русской раскладкой символ доступен по Alt + р.

Значок доллара тоже $ доступен, но не просто. На Mac OS, например нужно переключиться на английскую раскладку и потом Shift + 4. Со значком евро еще сложнее: на английской раскладке Shif + Alt + 4.

Остальные символы не доступны на клавиатурах, поэтому их придется гуглить.

Многозначные коды: USD, RUB, BTC, ETH, …

Коды валют стандартизированы в ISO 4217 и все они трехзначные. Вроде все круто, есть международный стандарт, будем его придерживаться. Но и здесь есть непонятные места.

Проблема в том, что этот стандарт не учитывает валюты непризнанных государств, типа приднестровского рубля RUP или абхазского апсара LTU. А в целом на этой можно закрыть глаза

Так же в этом стандарте нет криптовалют. Тоже можно закрыть глаза. Но криптовалют много. На сегодняшний день их более 18-ти тысяч, а количество комбинаций их трехзначных символов латинского алфавита составляет 17576. Поэтому очень много криптовалют используют четыре знака: FLOW, USDT, MANA, NEXO.

Где писать?

Все просто. Стандарт ISO 4217 не регламентирует с какой стороны от числа нужно писать код валюты, мол, придерживайтесь тех традиций, которые установлены в вашей системе.

Пробел?

Пробел точно ставится в любом случае.

Сокращения: руб., р., дол., …

В сокращенной англоязычной культуре не приняты сокращения (хотя раньше сокращали).

В России мы чаще всего видим именно сокращения р. или руб. вместо .

Пробел и точка?

Пробел в русском языке обязательно.

Точка нужна, так как это не единица измерения, а сокращение слова «рубль».

Решение

Решение опубликую завтра утром. А пока что подпишитесь, пожалуйста на мой телеграм-канал.

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