Short Stuff: Currency Symbols

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I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, sitting in for Dave. So this is short stuff. Chuck, we've talked so much about currency over the years, but we've never talked about this and I think it's high time. This is a good pick for you. Thank you. We're talking about currency symbols and what they mean and where they came from and we'll start with the dollar. We're looking at you, United States and Canada and Namibia, New Zealand and 17 other countries that use the dollar. It comes from the Spanish peso apparently, which has been around since the 15th century. The peso de ocho or pieces of eight. Did not know that. And the eventual United States, uh, would model their dollar after the peso. Did not know that either. And in fact, Chuck, they think that the dollar sign came from people abbreviating the word peso. They would say PS and somebody eventually was like, you know what? I can really save some space. If I wrote the S over the P someone else came along and said, you know what? We could save even more space if we got rid of the round part of the P and someone else said, oh my God, you guys just created a dollar sign. That's right. Uh, that first appeared in print as the dollar sign after 1800. Uh, and there are three iterations. I guess the, the first, uh, PS was the first one. The single stroke through the S was the second one. And then as all elementary school children know and love the double vertical lines through the S is yet another version. I've always, I've never really thought it out loud, but I, I've always thought of that as meaning like now you're talking real money. So you have to put two, two vertical lines through it. Yeah. Oh, that's funny. But yes. So that you could call the, uh, Randian, um, version because Ayn Rand took a crack at it and just made up this idea that the two lines are actually S over a U and someone got rid of the loopy bottom of the U and that U and S stood for United States. And that's where the double line dollar sign came from. And everybody's like, good try Ayn Rand. Um, those two vertical lines going through some sort of symbol is actually pretty common among currencies. And PS, you just made that up. Exactly. PS, I love you. PS, I love you. So like I said, there are 20 countries that use the dollar sign and, uh, how you designate it is with the, the, um, abbreviation or the, I guess the initials for the country before like U S dollar CA for Canadian dollar, et cetera. Yeah. I think that's such a great burn that Canada adopted the dollar and abandoned the pound. Way to go Canada. Uh, should we move on to the Euro? Yes. Because that's a very, very new currency. One of the newest, um, it was the, the, um, Euro wasn't around until the 21st century in 2002. Yeah. Yeah. The, the EU had been around since 1992 when 12 European countries, uh, got together to form that body. Uh, the following year, uh, and, you know, creating a single currency was one of the things behind it. Yeah. It was a big deal. Um, the symbol itself is, it's a curvy E and then it has two horizontal lines going through it. And that's based on the Greek letter Epsilon or E essentially, which is E in English. E is the first letter in Europe. You're starting to get this now. There you go. The two lines, um, represent stability. And then very mysteriously, the Euro designer has never been revealed by the EU. I suspect it's because it's an American and they hadn't looked into the person's background yet, uh, when they hired him. And I also suspect that that American is Eddie Money, which is why they hired him in the first place, but they didn't realize he was American. That's funny. He had two tickets to paradise and two strokes through a E. Yeah. He strokes it to the east, strokes it to the west. Uh, like I said, that was launched with, uh, in 2002 and originally there were seven bank notes and eight coins and the bank notes are identical everywhere. But I did not know this cause I haven't, I have been there since the Euro actually, but the, um, or have I, yes, I have, uh, the coins have a common design on one side and each country has their own design on the flip side. Yeah. I think that's sweet. Pretty cool. It's like, don't forget about it. Don't forget about your heritage. The UK was part of, uh, the EU for a long time. It was one of the founding members in 1992 and in 2020 it left. Um, I didn't know that. Did you, uh, they kept the pound the entire time though. They were like, yeah, we helped found the EU, but we're not adopting the Euro. And actually I agree with this for good reason. The pound sterling is the oldest living continuous currency in the world. And brother, it is old. Yeah. They're like, we're not going to flush that down the toilet for your fancy new money. Why would you? Uh, it's super old. I think, uh, nine 28 CE. Is that right? Yep. Well, that's when it was officially adopted by King Athelstan. Yeah. But they apparently had been in circulation even before that and accepted like the pound sterling, which I think originally was like one pound of silver. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, equals whatever this note is worth. I don't know where you got this one, but I love this sentence that no one's sure where the term pound sterling originated, but experts agree it has some connection to weight and silver. Yeah. Do you think I answered it? You know what? I could have said that too. And I'm not even a currency expert. Yeah. And of course the pound symbol, um, I guess it looks sort of like if an F and an L had a baby. Oh yeah. Good one. A lower. Like a lowercase F and a lowercase F. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. It's really hard to do by hand, I've found. Oh, I have never tried to write that. But the L is for Libra, which is Latin for scales or balances, because again, this has to do with weighing in silver. Um, and, uh, the slash through it is a mystery from what I can tell. Yeah. I don't think, uh, I don't think anyone knows. No. Which is good enough for me. I mean, keep it mysterious. It's a little bit pound sterling. Yeah. And, you know, no other nation uses the pound sterling. Um, but there are some former British colonies who have a pound that's just not the pound sterling. Like you can have a Nigerian pound. Right. Or an Egyptian pound. Yeah. And it's the same symbol, but they have, again, the designation with the letter of the country. I say that we take a break and come back and talk about some other currencies around the world and their symbols. Let's do it. 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Right now, save 60% off with professional monitoring when you visit SimpliSafe.com slash stuff. SimpliSafe.com slash stuff. And when you order, write in stuff you should know in the checkout survey. It lets them know we sent you, and it helps to support the show. So thank you. SimpliSafe. Ahead of crime in real time. In military families, service is more than a job. It's a legacy. At American Military University, that legacy can help open new doors through education. If someone in your family served in the military, you could be eligible for reduced tuition Take the next step with flexible online programs built for real life. Learn more at amu.apus.edu slash military. Okay, Chuck, I feel like a total schmo because I forgot to ask Yumi about this very surprising statement in this article that the Japanese yen is pronounced N in Japanese. I have never heard that before. I couldn't find it anywhere else. And I meant to ask Yumi and I failed to. So I'm sorry about that. Yeah, it seems dubious to me, but because this came from howstuffworks.com, by the way, and it says that they found that people from other countries pronounced it as yen. And that's why they put the Y in there. But the only reason why they put the Y in there is because they found that people from other countries pronounced it as yen. And I say that is because there's a Y in there. It's just wrong. So I can't figure it out. No, I think there's nothing to figure out. And I'm glad I didn't ask Yumi because I think she would have looked at me like I was an idiot. Well, at any rate, the symbol for the yen is a capital Y, again, with two horizontal lines running through it, through the stem, that is. And sometimes a single horizontal line, just like the dollar and some others. And it's the same thing as the Chinese symbol for its how would you pronounce that? Yuan. The yuan? OK, that's what I thought. Yep. But they have a different currency system, the renminbi. And the yuan is actually like a denomination of it. But everybody, including the Chinese, call it the yuan. But because they use the same symbol, there's the CN and then the Y symbol for the Chinese yuan and the JPY symbol for the Japanese yen. And this is true. If you go to Japan today, you better bring a lot of cash because there are a lot of independent like businesses, restaurants, that kind of thing, especially the further you get out of a city that will be like cash only, buddy. And we don't have an ATM. I love that. I miss cash. What does Japanese cash look like? Is it cool? Do you remember? I don't remember. No. All right. I'm sorry. It's been, God, I think the last time I was there was 2013. So, you know, give me a break. Yeah. I still have some Canadian cash in my purse, by the way. Yeah. And every time I'm at the airport, I forget to go by the old Cambio. So, maybe I'll just wait till I'm back in Canada and I'll spend that, invest in my friends from the north. Two things, Chuck. I think that your bank that you have like a regular account with will convert that for you. I wondered about that. And, well, three things. Number two, if you do it at the airport, you're going to get completely ripped off. Yeah. The bank will totally rip you off. Rip you off. Number three, I'm so glad you brought that up because Canada just announced that their new $5 bill has Terry Fox on it. Oh, no way. It's awesome looking, too. Oh, well, I'm definitely not getting rid of this cash. I'll just go trade it in for Terry Fox Fivers. There you go. Spend some of those on some maple syrup and Montreal bagels and then pocket one just to keep forever. Very nice. And then drink a Molson Golden and then promptly vomit. All right. You want to finish up with the rupee? Yes. It also is a very, very old currency, but it hasn't been in continuous use like the pound has. But it dates back to about 2600 years ago, which makes it even more strange that it didn't have its own symbol like a dollar sign until 2010 when they held the design contest. And this designer was named Professor D. Udaya Kumar, who is a professor in design, produced the winning symbol for the pound. Yeah. Prior to that, it had always just been R.S. or R.E. It was denoted by letters. But how would you describe, you know, encourage people if it's safe to do so to look up the symbol for the rupee. But how would you describe this? I don't think it's safe. Like, I don't think you're going to get malware or anything. No. I mean, if you're driving in a car or something. Come on. OK. Make an R, capital R. OK. Lop the top part off. So it's just flat. Oh, OK. And then lop the front part off. Bubble part off. And then get rid of the back stem. OK. Now add another line. So there's two lines. And then the bottom coming out of the R. That's essentially it. I'm going to try five or six different ways if you'll bear with me. No. No. So apparently it has elements from a script used to write a lot of Indian languages, Devanagara. And then also. And then also Roman and Latin scripts. And the Devanagara is Ra for Rupia and the Roman letter R for the English word rupee. And those parallel lines represent the tricolored flag of India as well as the equal symbol. Booyah. You can also find rupees in Indonesia, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, among others. But they don't use that R symbol, the 2010 R rupee symbol. That's right. Chuck, I feel like that's about it. We've covered literally every single currency in the entire world. So I think short stuff is out. It's out. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.