Get it off your back
When you need money, the dollar sign is your constant companion. It follows you everywhere. It fills your mail box, calls you on the phone, and makes demands. It even wakes you up in the middle of the night. It cheats you at the gas pump, shocks you at the grocery store, and gets a good laugh when you look at the price tag on a new pair of shoes. Why not get this persistent symbol off your back with a quick payday loan? Then relax for a minute and consider where it may have come from.
The dispute rages on (in limited circles)
Thomas Jefferson
The origin of the dollar sign is a matter of controversy for anyone interested in numismatics, the study of coins and paper money. The first use of $ in an American context is in 1784 in a memorandum from Thomas Jefferson suggesting the dollar as the primary unit of currency. Some have deduced from this that he made it up there and then, either as a monogram based on his own initials or as a kind of doodle.
Ayn Rand
A more widely held notion is that it originated as the letters U and S superimposed on each other and that the U eventually disintegrated into unconnected parallel lines. The problem with this theory (popularized by novelist Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged) is that $ as a symbol for peso far
outdates its application to U.S. dollars and is still widely used as a peso sign throughout Latin America.
Hercules
The most likely explanation may be that the dollar sign is a simplified depiction of the Spanish coat of arms engraved on the old, silver Spanish pieces of eight – the twin Pillars of Hercules wrapped around with an S-shaped scroll.
Other theories abound
The numeral eight
The dollar sign is derived from a slash through the numeral eight, denoting Spanish pieces of eight.
The Potosi mint mark
The dollar sign was inspired by the mint mark on Spanish “pieces of eight” minted in Potosi (a city and department of Bolivia) comprised of the letters “PTSI” superimposed on one another.
A unit of silver
The dollar sign derives from a unit of silver, each unit being one bit of a piece of eight. Before the American Revolution, prices were often quoted in units of the Spanish dollar. According to this theory, when a price was quoted a capital S was used to indicate silver with a capital U written on top to indicate units. Eventually the U was replaced by double vertical hash marks.
The Romans
The dollar sign derives from the sesterius, a Roman coin represented by the letters HS which, when superimposed, form a dollar sign with two vertical strokes.
The Greeks (who lumped bankers with thieves)
The dollar sign originated with Hermes, the Greek god of bankers, thieves, messengers, and tricksters. One of Hermes’s symbols was the caduceus, a staff from which ribbons or snakes dangled in a sinuous curve.
Give peace a chance
Whatever its source, the dollar sign is everywhere and it’s here to stay. So try to make friends with it. A convenient online cash advance may be just the debt relief (as well as the peace offering) you need.
Lumping in the bankers with thieves isn’t too far a stretch of the imagination, especially these days. However, in an even further ironic twist, the caduceus is also the symbol for medicine, and with the extreme negative publicity that medical costs have, an irony that is surely not lost.