Dollar signs

[mjoekingz28]

I have been noticed a lot lately that the dollar sign ($) is being mostly written with a single vertical line through the S. I have been wanting to do things more and more proper as time goes by AND I have seemed to lean toward writing it with two lines in the past (as far as childhood IIRC), but have always messed it up as it is difficult to execute properly and have it neat and look right.


According to Wikipedia, it doesn't even seem to matter....is what I took away from spending a little time reading.

 

[Bailes1992]

The dollar sign on my admittedly UK keyboard has only one line through the S.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: mjoekingz28
According to Wikipedia, it doesn't even seem to matter....

The only thing that does matter is the number behind it.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: Bailes1992
The dollar sign on my admittedly UK keyboard has only one line through the S.

The virtual keyboard on my Android tablet has a single line, too.

 

[Silk]

On the 10th of July 1967 when New Zealand converted to decimal currency, we used a $ sign with one line.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Here is one explanation for the double line...

http://blog.dictionary.com/two-lines-dollar-sign/

My guess is that computers are to blame for the more widespread use of a dollar sign with a single line nowadays. Early computers had a fairly low graphics resolution, so representing a dollar sign with two lines that had to be very closely spaced together would have resulted in them blending into one, so they just used a single line. And it stuck, even though graphics resolution had greatly improved over the years. And since we use computers for everything these days...

Dollar sign in DOS/ASCII character set doesn't even have a line. It's just two stubs on top and bottom of the S, to help make it more legible.

 

[Merkava_4]

I used to see double vertical lines whenever it was a money bag on a Saturday morning cartoon.

 

[Vern_in_IL]

All the dollar sign does is signify the currency, and prevents you turning ten dollars into millions by fraud on your checks.

Quote:
ASCII code 36 = $ ( Dollar sign )


Quote:
The American Standard Code for Information Interchange, or ASCII code, was created in 1963 by the "American Standards Association" Committee or "ASA", the agency changed its name in 1969 by "American National Standards Institute" or "ANSI" as it is known since.

This code arises from reorder and expand the set of symbols and characters already used in telegraphy at that time by the Bell company.

 

[Leo99]

Just reading the title, before opening this thread, I wondered what the topic would be regarding dollar signs. There was an internal debate in my brain as to whether this would be about the greed that pervades our capitalist society or of it would be more literal and one line or two lines through the S in the symbol.

I'm a two line dollar sign guy. I double space at the end of a sentence. I'm also a big fan of the Oxford comma.

 

[kschachn]

And furthermore it is:

$10

NOT:

10$

I would have use the double line dollar sign had I known how.

 

[Papa Bear]

$ Imagine the money saved by reducing the dollar sign by 1 stroke ....
And the Americans save countless "U" from harbour/flavour/savour/cheque etc.

 

[JHZR2]

Based upon reviewing some old currency, one line of the U going through the S seems to have been used, at least decoratively, as far back as 1891. Im sure the symbol predates that, but its the single line through the S that interested me, since often Ive heard of the U superimposed on the S for the two-line dollar sign.







Browse around ebay for some great images of really beautiful antique currency.

 

[Johnny2Bad]

I always assumed the double-line character represented the decimal nature of the dollar currency ... as in $1.00 (vs, perhaps, $1.0).

The (decimal) Euro has two lines, the UK (and Egyptian, etc) Pound, which for most of it's life, was not, does not (one, horizontal)..

Some more examples:
Chinese Yuan, decimal, two lines horizontal.
Costa Rican Colon, decimal, two lines diagonal.
Cuban Peso, decimal, two lines horizontal.
Japanese Yen, decimal, two lines, horizontal.
DRKP Korea Won, decimal. two lines, horizontal.
Korean Won, decimal, two lines, horizontal.

Some exceptions to that theory (besides many dollar signs):
Rupees (India, Hymilaya, Mauritius, Pakistan, etc decimal, one line, horizontal.
Russian Rouble, decimal, one line, horizontal.

But they are small enough in number, and maybe are modern variants of an older symbol. The curious are invited to investigate.

 

[Yah-Tah-Hey]

Most keyboards use on one line through the S($).

 

[3for3]

The US History class I took in college taught us that the double lines on the dollar sign were from the "U" from United, being placed directly on top of the "S" from States, and then eventually the curve on the bottom of the "U" was deleted. Double lines are from the "U".

Don't know why the use of only one line now a days.

 

[JHZR2]

Originally Posted By: 3for3
The US History class I took in college taught us that the double lines on the dollar sign were from the "U" from United, being placed directly on top of the "S" from States, and then eventually the curve on the bottom of the "U" was deleted. Double lines are from the "U".

Don't know why the use of only one line now a days.


You can see from my pictures that one line dort of isnt new.

 

[3for3]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Originally Posted By: 3for3
The US History class I took in college taught us that the double lines on the dollar sign were from the "U" from United, being placed directly on top of the "S" from States, and then eventually the curve on the bottom of the "U" was deleted. Double lines are from the "U".

Don't know why the use of only one line now a days.


You can see from my pictures that one line dort of isnt new.




My bad, apologies.