{"id":1329,"date":"2018-03-14T09:26:36","date_gmt":"2018-03-14T13:26:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/answerwall.domain.bc.edu\/?p=1329"},"modified":"2018-03-14T16:52:43","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T20:52:43","slug":"why-do-we-put-the-sign-before-the-amount","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/2018\/03\/14\/why-do-we-put-the-sign-before-the-amount\/","title":{"rendered":"Why do we put the $ sign before the amount?"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_1314\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1314\" style=\"width: 294px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/aw031418-4.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1314\" src=\"http:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/aw031418-4-294x300.jpg\" alt=\"Why do we put the $ sign before the amount? I don't say &quot;dollars 45&quot;: I say &quot;45 dollars.&quot; Shouldn't I write &quot;45$&quot;?\" width=\"294\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/aw031418-4-294x300.jpg 294w, https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/aw031418-4.jpg 628w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 294px) 100vw, 294px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1314\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Why do we put the $ sign before the amount? I don&#8217;t say &#8220;dollars 45&#8221;: I say &#8220;45 dollars.&#8221; Shouldn&#8217;t I write &#8220;45$&#8221;?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Tradition, it seems. Many European countries place the euro sign (\u20ac) after the number. One interesting theory is that it follows from British usage for the pound (\u00a3) from the pre-decimal era of pounds\/shillings\/pence, when amounts were written with slashes, e.g. \u00a3 3\/5\/6, or &#8220;three pounds, 5 shillings, sixpence.&#8221; It was understood that \u00a3 referred to the whole assembly of numbers denoting a system of currency, not just a qualifier of the first number. Interesting side note: the word &#8220;dollar&#8221; derives from Low German &#8220;taler,&#8221; short for &#8220;Joachimstaler,&#8221; the name of a coin from the silver mines of that name, once in Bohemia, now a town in the Czech Republic; it was adopted in the US because it was the British English word for the Spanish Peso, a common currency in the colonies at the time of the Revolution. <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/whence-dollar\">bit.ly\/whence-dollar<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tradition, it seems. Many European countries place the euro sign (\u20ac) after the number. One interesting theory is that it follows from British usage for the pound (\u00a3) from the pre-decimal era of pounds\/shillings\/pence, when amounts were written with slashes, e.g. \u00a3 3\/5\/6, or &#8220;three pounds, 5 shillings, sixpence.&#8221; It was understood that \u00a3 referred &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/2018\/03\/14\/why-do-we-put-the-sign-before-the-amount\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Why do we put the $ sign before the amount?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[173],"class_list":["post-1329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dollar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1329"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1348,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1329\/revisions\/1348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.bc.edu\/answerwall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}