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The surprisingly mysterious reason we use the $ symbol for the U.S. dollar
By Annie Reneau
Upworthy, Los Angeles
Friday, May 15, 2026
We see many symbols in our everyday lives that we likely don’t pay much attention to: the @ in our email addresses, for instance, or the % in our weather forecasts. But do we ever wonder where these symbols came from? Why they look like they do? Or how they came to mean what they mean?
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One of the most commonly used symbols that most of us are clueless about is the dollar sign ($). Why does it have an "S" if there's no "s" in "dollar"? Is there supposed to be one line or two? And where did the $ symbol even originate?
As educator and etymology enthusiast Rob Watts (better known as RobWords on YouTube) explains, the answers to those questions are surprisingly complicated. ...
... For the remainder of the report:
https://www.upworthy.com/the-surprisingly-mysterious-reason-we-use-the-symbol-for-the-u-s-dollar/
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