Show significance OF MONEY SIGNS engi sh terms derived from latin words dollar mark they were discussing the other at the question of currency sym bols the discussion had started by some one making a casual remark about L S D referring of course to pounds shillings and pence says the washington star the question arose why some of the coins were de noted by letters that had nothing at all to do with their selling and there was not one in the crowd though there were some nominally well in formed people present who could tell the significance of the letters till the question was looked up it appeared that the pound sterling mark was simply a capital L with a line drawn across the stem it came from the latin V ord librae meaning a pound the d used tor the penny came also from the latin meaning igl nally a small roman silver coin but la er having developed into a generic term for money and cally for a small opper coin of in significant value the b mark also used for the avoirdupois pound came from the same word librae as la saxon times the aund avoirdupois was the same weight as a pound sterling of silver and the shilling was one awen bieth of this making the old shilling about three times the size of the present one when it came to the dollar mark there was more discussion there being halt a dozen explanations tor this sign but the most likely seemed to be that it was simply a modified figure 8 there having been eight liver reals in the old spanish dollar or piece of eight in use in this country long before the introduction of american currency |