2699: The Currency Symbol Bars are Not as Old as You Think | May 11, 2024

It’s hard to miss the fact that currency symbols on every inhabited continent have a convention to write a letter with a slash through it, but this is actually a new standard. In the case of the two older currency symbols still in use that employ this, $ and £, in the case of the dollar is is incidental, as the symbol derived from a P over an S for ‘peso’, but in the case of the pound symbol, even the Bank of England doesn’t known the exact reason. It was originally simply 𝕷 ℒ or written lower case only getting the bar at the earliest in the 17th century, but the other predecimal sterling symbols (e.g. s and d) never got the bar.

This eventually became seen as standard practice in $ and £, spreading to other currencies, and many older currencies like the Russian ruble ₽ only got the bar later, in this case in 2013 via online polling, and even pre-Euro Dutch guilder ƒ or German mark ℳ︁ did not have this extra bar. Meanwhile, many currencies introduced in the 20th or 21st century do include this bar. This is especially true of places associated with the Spanish and British Empires, or America, but not the French or Dutch Empires for instance where the bar was never used, even where new currencies were invented. 

While this bar is primarily seen on currencies in the Latin script even in areas with a different writing system like the Korean won ₩ or the Lao kip ₭, it also appears occasionally with other scripts, like the Ukrainian hryvnia ₴, Turkish lira ₺, Georgian lari ₾, or since 2010 the Indian rupee ₹. Most Arabic and native Southeast Asian scripts don’t add slashes to symbols, and just use abbreviations.

2682: The Symbol for Penny was d Apr 24, 2024

For over 50 years in Britain, the symbol for a penny is simply ‘p’, written at the end of a price like 99p, but before decimalisation in 1971, Brits would write out pence as ‘d’, also at the end. This pre-decimal system, which saw 20 shillings to the pound and 12 pence to the shilling, is often referred to as £sd or Lsd as an abbreviation of these units of sterling. For instance, something costing 7 shillings, and 9 pence might be written 7/9d. This raises the question of why ‘d’? Even the ‘s’ for shillings, not as commonly seen as the other two letters, only coincidentally had the same initial letter. 

Rather, these abbreviations come from Latin, where ‘pounds’ is ‘librae’ (hence the L-based £ symbol), ‘shillings’ is ‘solidi’, and ‘pence’ is ‘denarii’ (all written in their plural form). These words are no longer used, but the word ‘denarius’ led to many other words for modern currencies, ranging from Serbia to Bahrain, or just money as in the Spanish ‘dinero’. 

2671: Prosignals & Prowords Apr 10, 2022

Procedure words (prowords) are code words used for spoken radio telephone that developed from Morse code procedure signals (prosignals). One difference between a prosignal and a normal abbreviation is that prosignals often signal to the operators themselves, not to abbreviate the message they would send. The most famous prosign would likely be SOS, which officially does not stand for anything except signalling for help. Likewise, the most famous proword would probably be 'rodger', which signals that the message was received clearly. The history there is that it is from the once-encoded R meaning 'received' and during WWII the spelling alphabet for R was 'rodger', though now it would be 'romeo'. Other famous prowords would include 'over', 'out', 'mayday' & 'wilco' (will comply), though due to the greater efficiency of speech, there are not nearly as many prowords as Morse Code abbreviations or prosignals.

2666: Why 'Morse' Code Apr 5, 2022

Samuel Morse is known for inventing Morse code, but that was not particular to him. He and Alfred Vail developed the electrical telegraph system that would initially place the dots and dashes on a paper tape at the other end of the wire, though operators found listening to the clicks to be more efficient. That said, Morse's original idea for a system was to transmit the dots-&-dashes as numbers only, and to have a system for interpreting the numbers as words. Alfred Vail was the one who came up with the idea of encoding letters through those dots-&-dashes, and worked out the relative frequencies of each to make the system the most efficient with shorter codes for more common letters. Arguably, given the great mechanical and cypher-based contributions, it might have been more fittingly Vail code.

2664: ⌘ Command Key Symbol Apr 3, 2022

The command key symbol ⌘ for Macintosh, sometimes called the Apple key, was developed after Steve Jobs was concerned that using the Apple logo instead would be overused. The idea was inspired from similar symbols used to mark cultural heritage sites in some Nordic countries, hence why it is known as Fornminne (ancient monument) in Swedish, and Seværdighedstegn (landmark signs) in Danish. Since the command key is to allow the user to access certain shortcuts with the keyboard, but the precise history of the symbol in Scandinavia is somewhat mysterious.

2661: Japanese Semaphore Mar 31, 2022

Things like semaphore and morse code word for alphabetic systems like the Latin alphabet, but it might not be obvious how Japanese writing might be adapted for it. Japanese semaphore for instance had to rethink the concept since there are about twice the number of characters compared to the Latin alphabet, and it is a syllabary. Instead, with a red flag in the right hand and white in the left, they had the semaphore signals roughly match the trajectory of how the strokes look in the characters but this would usually take two or more different motions complete. Semaphore already rotated the flags like the hands of a clock to sign letters and numbers with the same displays, owing to its clock-like mechanical origins, but Japanese semaphore had a different system for numbers to its letters.

2660: Origins of Semaphore Mar 30, 2022

Although the idea of having a system of flag-signals to represent letters for use on ships or other long-distance scenarios might seem both vital and basic, the modern semaphore system only came about in 1866. This followed the telegraph system and the optical telegraph. While the optical telegraph was useful for shore-to-ship signalling as it was a large structure and could use long mechanical arms to do so, but on ships this was impractical so people signalled with their hands, often holding flags for visual clarity. That said, by the time semaphore was introduced formally, the optical telegraph was out of use, replaced with the electric telegraph.

2659: Optical Telegraph Mar 29, 2022

Before the advent of radio, and even the electric telegraph, there was still a need to transmit specific messages short-distance, especially without the use of cables. This was particularly needed with ships, and while a lighthouse can be useful sometimes, another machine called the optical telegraph was invented. At night, a so-called shutter telegraph use panels to precisely block light in order to transmit a message in code, but during the day, semaphore telegraphs would use long mechanical arms to indicate the different letters. Some could be used to transmit messages up to 20 miles with a telescope and good weather conditions, not only to ships but to other relaying post towers. These machines were not in use very long, but they did inspire the use of other developments that followed shortly.

2655: Long S Outside Writing Systems Mar 25, 2022

While naturally the long s ⟨ſ⟩ character was used in handwriting, print, and in ligatures, outside of specific writing systems it’s also had other functions. was the symbol of the shilling when that was part of British currency, though this has largely been replaced with a / symbol. ⟨ſ⟩ is used in mathematics for integrals, though this is a stylized form based on the italicised version /ʃ/, hence the tail at the end and no x-height nub. In the International Phonetic alphabet, the same italicised version /ʃ/ is used to represent the first found in 'SHort'.

This is the final post in a series about the long-s. To read all of them together, click here.

2654: Lingering Traces of Long S Mar 24, 2022

While usage of the long s ⟨ſ⟩ declined sharply after the start of the 19th century, but it did not totally disappear. First of all, it was used in the alphabets as its own letter—that is, not as a variant of 'S'—such as in various writing systems of Slavic and Caucasian languages even into the early 20th century; Turkmen used it for its Latin script as its own letter before that was replaced with 'ž'. Moreover, it is still found as a ligature making up the German ß (sz) though this has long been considered its own letter.

Moreover, outside of specific writing systems, it was the symbol of the shiling when that was part of British currency, though this has largely been replaced with a / symbol. ⟨ſ⟩ is used in mathematics for integrals, though this is a stylized form based on the italicised version /ʃ/, hence the tail at the end and no x-height nub. In the International Phonetic alphabet, the same italicised version /ʃ/ is used to represent the first found in 'SHort'.

2447: Dagger Mark † Aug 23, 2021

The dagger mark (†), also known as a obelus, or as an obelisk has been used for a variety of purposes since antiquity. Now, this symbol indicates death, especially in German language contexts, but it also acts as a secondary footnote marker when an asterisk (*) has already been used. It originated as a line (–) or with two dots (÷) as a way to indicate language that was dubious and may need to be cut, with the specific imagery representing a spit or a spitroast. Later, it was used for the end of a marked passage, and then gaining its use in footnotes, to be followed by a tertiary (‡). Between all these uses, especially in religious literature and symbols for cantillation it was used extensively in medieval Christians, but it never has had explicit reference to Christianity or crucifixes. Still, today many falsely intuit a religious connection.

2299: Hebrew's Alternative Plus Sign: ﬩ Apr 2, 2021

Numbers in modern Hebrew writings, including in math equations, are written left-to-right, even though Hebrew is written right-to-left. This means that math and numerals in general are exactly the same as in Europe for instance, with one exception. The plus-sign, conventionally + for most places, is often written ﬩ as a sort of inverted capital T. This is because historically, the Jews using the symbol wanted to avoid writing something that resembled a Christian cross but even in secular settings now the symbol remains present.

1988: Pound Signs: Both £ and # May 25, 2020

Both the £ and # symbols are known as pound signs, but not for the same things; the former is for the currency and the latter is for the weight. Still, despite their apparent vision they actually come from the same abbreviation. Both come as a quicker way to write the letters lb., themselves short for the Latin 'libra' meaning 'pound [weight]' or 'scale'. The use of # as a number sign only came about from computer coding.

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1017: £ Sep 21, 2017

The symbols for the currencies euro, €, ruble, ₱, won, ₩, and the yen and yuan, ¥, and many others including the no longer used Dutch florin, ƒ, are all at least partially based upon the first letter for the name of the currency, though the euro is also said to be from the Greek lunate epsilon, ϵ, as Greece is said to be the cradle of European civilization. Still, the dollar-sign, $ and the pound-sign, £—though the symbols are not arbitrary—do not appear as obvious necessarily. The £ comes from the first letter of the name for the currency as many others do, but in this case the name is from Latin, not the native language. The Latin word for 'pound', as in a weight or balance, was 'libra', related to other words from Romance languages like the French 'livre' of the same meaning, as well as the source of the abbreviation 'lb.' for pounds when referring to weight.