# Pound Sign (£) is an L not an E



## Mad Tam McC (Jan 13, 2008)

ITV (one of the British TV stations) have a new game show called DUEL and in their advertising they spell it Du£l. Using the pound sign for an 'E'. Unfortunately the uneducated idiots haven't realised the a pound sign is actually an 'L' (it comes from the Latin)

What they've spelt is DULL.


----------



## Overread (Jan 13, 2008)

HAHAHAHAHA!
hehehehehe
and you know the correct spelling is probably the most accurate!


----------



## Pyan (Jan 14, 2008)

*Due£ *actually _looks _better, as well.


----------



## Wiglaf (Jan 14, 2008)

You know I've know it was an L since 3rd grade and I'm American. That has to be as embarrassing as a station here using $ for D.


----------



## AE35Unit (Jan 14, 2008)

Err i just thought the pound sign was... A pound sign!  
So does that mean the dollar sign is an S? And the euro an E?


----------



## ravenus (Jan 14, 2008)

If $ is an S what does it stand for?


----------



## AE35Unit (Jan 14, 2008)

***************
If $ is an S what does it stand for?
*************** 

Err,spondoolies?  
All I know that to use an embarrassed smiley i need to put $ after a : thus :$


----------



## The Ace (Jan 14, 2008)

God only knows why it's an 'L,' I always thought it looked like an 'F,' myself but pre-decimal currency was referred to as £-s-d, (pounds, shillings and pence) pronounced 'LSD,' it's probably an, 'L,' for the same reason a penny was written 1D, maybe someone else knows.


----------



## chrispenycate (Jan 14, 2008)

Livre, in French, is both pound weight and pound stirling. Same word as "lira" in italian.
Now, who can tell me the last time a pound of stirling silver was worth a pound (or a lira, for that matter)?


----------



## Delvo (Jan 14, 2008)

ravenus said:


> If $ is an S what does it stand for?


It's unknown, unlike the "L" for pounds (in Latin) and the "Y" for yen. Masonic conspiracy folks believe the two lines represent pillars of Solomon's treasury, so the "S" would be Solomon's initial. A few theories relate it to the word "silver", such as our money having once been measured not in "dollars" but in "units of silver". A couple of theories say that the symbol was taken from someplace else where the "S" meant something in that other language. One theory is that it comes from the name of a Roman unit of money, "sestertius"; even first known use of the symbol was in the late 18th century in the USA, apparently the idea was that they were referring back to the Roman republic, as a lot of the imagery of early American official stuff does.

BTW, the "pound" as a unit of money doesn't exist over here, so the symbol doesn't either; when you say "pound symbol" to one of us, what we think of is
"#", which is sometimes used to represent the weight measurement when it's displayed right after a number (so I could say my weight is "230 pounds" or just "230#").


----------



## AE35Unit (Jan 14, 2008)

Ah that would explain why one gets a # symbol when we want a £ sign when we install windows and forget to set the keyboard to UK English. Also @ and " are switched around.


----------



## Wiglaf (Jan 15, 2008)

The pound symbol exists here; we just do not have much need to put things in units of British currency.  # = lbs. as in the unit of weight.  
My computer doesn't have the dollar symbol.  I believe at least one foreign country uses a single line as in $, but in the US it has two lines resembling the uprights of a U superimposed upon an S.


----------



## Dave (Jan 15, 2008)

The terms £sd "pounds, shillings and pence" do originate from the Latin words "librae, solidi, denarii" as already mentioned.



ravenus said:


> If $ is an S what does it stand for?


I don't know that for certain, but unless it is "sestertius" as Delvo said, then it must have something to do with the Spanish silver dollar or peso. Maybe it stands for silver or for Spanish. The Spanish dollar was still legal tender in the United States until an Act of the United States Congress discontinued the practice in 1857. 

The Spainish Dollar had widespread use in Europe, the Americas and in the Far East, leading it to become the first world currency by the late 18th century. Many existing currencies, such as the Canadian dollar, United States dollar and the Chinese yuan are based upon it. 

The coins were cut into eight bits or pieces (pieces of eight) to make change and American coins still use names from the pieces:- 

"A bit" = 12½ cents
"Two bits" = "A Quarter"
The Dime = "A short bit"
15 cents = "A long bit"
50 cents = "4 bits"
75 cents = "6 bits"

The New York Stock Exchange listed stock prices in one-eighths of a dollar until 1997.


----------



## Brigitte (Jan 18, 2008)

Hahahahaha... just another example of how shows can fail--poor topic research.


----------

