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Started by alan
Sun, 06 Sep 1987 13:53
Currency symbols
Author: alan
Date: Sun, 06 Sep 1987 13:53
Date: Sun, 06 Sep 1987 13:53
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Many currency symbols, especially those with a long history, are composed of an alphabetic with some decoration, which in many cases has degenerated into a stroke or two (rather like mathematicians' symbols for The Natural Numbers, The Reals, etc). For example, the English pound is written as an L (usually a curly one) with a stroke through it. "L" because the old Norman word for it was "livre", derived from the same Latin root (librus?) as the Italian "lire". "$" is used in other countries which call their currency units "dollars"; I believe the Spanish conquistadores were responsible for spreading this convention. I would conjecture that the "S" which forms the basis of it comes from the Latin "solidus"; like the pound/livre, the name changed at some point but the symbol remained the same. Why do I guess 'solidus'? In my earlier years, Britain had a peculiar multiple-radix system of reckoning money in which the units were pounds, shillings and pence, of which an instance is L1/12s/3d: L for libri, s for solidi, and d for denarii, the old Latin names which were adopted for the units in the middle ages. Alan Wills University of Manchester -- Alan Wills +44-61-273 7121 x5699
Re: Currency symbols
Author: george
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 1987 20:59
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 1987 20:59
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I have not been following this discussion Live and so cannot
tell if these have been mentioned before. apologies if redundant info
(1) several books notably "I Claudius" by Robert Graves
discuss in minor ways the adaptation of the roman
alphabet by decree and/or changes in usage.
the shift to explicit U/V comes to mind here
(2) whilst several posters have discussed the formation
of $ and English Pound Sign & Yen in "and thats why
the word led to the choice of symbol" form, it's worth
recalling that these were established (like most of
our writing conventions) AS PRINTERS KLUDGES - having
to manufacture type was to much of an effort for any
old phoneme to get slapped into 300 -odd sizes, piches,
reversed/you-name-its, so doing it by overstrike and/or
other cheats was commonsense.
until typesetting came along spelling was in the eye
of the beholder. If it sounded right then you writ it.
if fome mechanical geniuf had invented a way to do the
big letter "f" fenfibly we'd probaby still be ufing it.
ditto rather nasty double "SS" symbol added to german
typewriters during war according to at least one novel
(brrrr eugh!)
(3) printers hacks would probably cover 75% plus of the
common problems with accent marks & currency signs
if someone wrote a filter to do overstrike-on-pattern
that was small and fast and portable enough to use.
-if it works on a Teletype 33 why can't it work on a sun?
-why dont we all junk our 32k crocks & go back to uppercase
only telex? there's only 15 MILLION plus installed machines
out there... and they appear to be QUITE happy to use
"byte-stuffing" codes to send special characters down the
line. (see T.61)
EuroCheques have a nice wee box before the space for amount and a book
listing the legal 2 and 3 letter combinations for all allowed currencies.
since there is no symbol for ECU and anyone on an EEC grant will have a
LOT of experience writing *that* modernism and since furthermore there
should shortly be european currency at least for higher denomination
quantities perhaps we can all sit back and watch social pressure drive
a change in our keyboard layout.
George Michaelson
----------------
JANET: george@uk.ac.ucl.cs
UUCP: {...mcvax!}ukc!ucl-cs!george
OTHER: what are you doing wasting DoD network resources anyhow?
Re: Currency symbols
Author: Ben Cranston
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1987 21:39
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1987 21:39
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In article <8574@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
> If you look at an italic lowercase F, you will see the character you
> allude to with a small horizontal stroke across it...
> (This is one place, incidentally, where an italic font is *not* just a
> slanted roman font.)
Another is the lower case a:
*** ****
* * * *
* * *
**** * *
* * * *
* * * *
*** * *** *
(well, pretend the second one is slanted...)
--
Copyright 1987 Ben Cranston (you may redistribute ONLY if your recipients can).
umd5.UUCP <= {seismo!mimsy,ihnp4!rlgvax}!cvl!umd5!zben
zben @ umd2.UMD.EDU Kingdom of Merryland UniSys 1100/92
umd2.BITNET "via HASP with RSCS"
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