Pound sign (was Re: the Telephone Test)

[Walter Bright]

In article <8905081532.AA02862 at beaches.hub.toronto.edu> thomson at hub.toronto.edu (Brian Thomson) writes:
>In article <1334 at nusdhub.UUCP> rwhite at nusdhub.UUCP (Robert C. White Jr.) writes:
>>Just because you (culutrally) have chosen to use a strange unit
>>name for your currency dson't mean that every refrence to that
>>unit refres to your curency. 
>Noting that the words 'peso' and 'lira' both mean 'pound',  I'd say that
>those of us whose currency is not named after a unit of weight are
>the ones with the strange units.

The history of the word 'dollar' is:

There is a valley in Austria, I forget the name, where there was a very
rich silver mine in medieval times. The silver was minted into local coins,
called '<name of valley>talers' (the German word for valley is 'tal').
This was obviously shortened to 'taler'.

The most popular currency in the American colonies was the Spanish
'piece of eight', also called a 'dollar', the englishification of 'taler'.
The fathers of the Constitution merely codified existing practice.

(Ever wonder why a quarter is 'two bits'? Remember a dollar is a 'piece
of eight'?)

This has, of course, absolutely nothing to do with comp.lang.c!