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Short Stuff: Currency Symbols · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, sitting in for Dave.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: So this is short stuff. And Chuck, we've talked so
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: much about currency over the years, but we've never talked
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: about this. And I think it's high time. This is
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: a good pick for you.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Thank you. We're talking about currency symbols and what they
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: mean and where they came from. And we'll start with
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: the dollar. We're looking at you, United States and Canada
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: and Namibia, New Zealand and 17 other countries that use
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: the dollar. It comes from the Spanish peso, apparently, which
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: has been around since the 15th century. The peso de
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: ocho or pieces of eight.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Did not know that.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: And the eventual United States would model their dollar after
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: the peso.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Did not know that either. And in fact, Chuck, they
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: think that the dollar sign came from people abbreviating the
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: word peso. They would say P.S. And somebody eventually was like,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: you know what? I can really save some space. if
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: I wrote the S over the P, someone else came
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: along and said, you know what? We could save even
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: more space if we got rid of the round part
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: of the P. And someone else said, oh my God,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: you guys just created a dollar sign.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: That's right. That first appeared in print as the dollar
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: sign after 1800. And there are three iterations. I guess
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: the first PS was the first one. The single stroke
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: through the S was the second one. And then as
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: all elementary school children know and love the double vertical
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: lines through the S is yet another version.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: I've always, I've never really thought it out loud, but I,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: I've always thought of that as meaning like now you're
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: talking real money. So you have to put two, two
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: vertical lines through it.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, that's funny.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: But yes, so that you could call the Randian version.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Cause I ran, took a crack at it and just
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: made up this idea that the two lines are actually a,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: S over a U and someone got rid of the
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: loopy bottom of the U and that U and S
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: stood for United States. And that's where the double line
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: dollar sign came from. And everybody's like, good try, Ayn Rand.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Those two vertical lines going through some sort of symbol
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: is actually pretty common among currencies. Yeah.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: And P.S., you just made that up.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Exactly. P.S., I love you. P.S.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: I love you. So, like I said, there are 20
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: countries that use the dollar sign. And how you designate
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: it is with the abbreviation or, I guess, the initials
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: for the country before, like U.S. dollar, C.A. for Canadian dollar, etc.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's such a great burn that Canada
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: adopted the dollar and abandoned the pound. Way to go, Canada.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Should we move on to the euro?
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Yes, because that's a very, very new currency. One of
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: the newest currencies. It was the euro wasn't around until
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: the 21st century in 2002. Yeah. Yeah.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: The EU had been around since 1992 when 12 European
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: countries got together to form that body the following year. And,
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: you know, creating a single currency was one of the
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: things behind it.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a big deal. The symbol itself is
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: it's a curvy E. And then it has two horizontal
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: lines going through it. And that's based on the Greek
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: letter epsilon or E essentially, which is E in English.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: E is the first letter in Europe. You're starting to
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: get this now.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: There you go.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: The two lines represent stability. And then very mysteriously, the
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Euro designer has never been revealed by the EU. I
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: suspect it's because it's an American and they hadn't looked
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: into the person's background yet. when they hired him. And
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: I also suspect that that American is Eddie Money, which
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: is why they hired him in the first place, but
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: they didn't realize he was American.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: That's funny. He had two tickets to paradise and two
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: strokes through a E. Yeah.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: He strokes it to the east, strokes it to the west.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Like I said, that was launched in 2002. And originally
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: there were seven banknotes and eight coins in And the
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: banknotes are identical everywhere. But I did not know this
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: because I haven't been there since the Euro, actually. Or
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: have I? Yes, I have. The coins have a common
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: design on one side and each country has their own
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: design on the flip side.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's sweet.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Pretty cool.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: It's like, don't forget about your heritage. The UK was
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: part of the EU for a long time. It was
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: one of the founding members in 1992. And in 2020,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: it left. I didn't know that. Did you?
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: They Brexited.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. I'm just kidding. They kept the pound
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: the entire time, though. They're like, yeah, we helped found
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: the EU, but we're not adopting the euro. And actually,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: I agree with this for good reason. The pound sterling
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: is the oldest living continuous currency in the world. And brother,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: it is old. Yeah.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: They're like, we're not going to flush that down the
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: toilet for your fancy new money.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Why would you?
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: It's super old. I think 928 CE. Is that right? Yep. Well,
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: that's when it was officially adopted by King Athelstan.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: But they apparently had been in circulation even before that
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: and accepted like the pound sterling, which I think originally
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: was like one pound of silver.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Equals whatever this note is worth.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know where you got this one, but I
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: love this sentence that no one's sure where the term
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: pound sterling originated. But experts agree it has some connection
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: to weight in silver. Yeah.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Do you think I answered it?
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: You know what? I could have said that, too. And
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: I'm not even a currency expert.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And of course, the pound symbol, I guess it
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: looks sort of like if an F and an L
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: had a baby.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, good one. A lowercase F.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, lowercase F.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. It's really hard to do by hand,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: I've found.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, I have never tried to write that.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: But the L is for Libra, which is Latin for
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: scales or balances, because, again, this has to do with
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: weighing in silver. And the slash through it is a
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: mystery from what I can tell.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think anyone knows.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: No. Which is good enough for me. I mean, keep
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: it mysterious a little bit, pound sterling. Yeah.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: And, you know, no other nation uses the pound sterling.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: But there are some former British colonies who have a
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: pound that's just not the pound sterling. Like you can
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: have a Nigerian pound.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Right. Or an Egyptian pound. Yeah.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: And it's the same symbol. But they have, again, the
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: designation with the letter of the country.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Okay. I say that we take a break and come
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: back and talk about some other currencies around the world
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: and their symbols.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: Let's do it.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, Chuck. I feel like a total schmo because I
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: forgot to ask Yumi about this very surprising statement in
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: this article that the Japanese yen... is pronounced N in Japanese.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: I have never heard that before. I couldn't find it
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: anywhere else. And I meant to ask you me, and
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: I failed to. So I'm sorry about that. Yeah.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: It seems dubious to me, because this came from HowStuffWorks.com,
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: by the way. And it says that they found that
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: people from other countries pronounced it as Yen, And that's
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: why they put the Y in there. But the only
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: reason I say that is because there is a Y
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: in there.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: It's just wrong.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: So I can't figure it out.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: No, I think there's nothing to figure out. And I'm
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: glad I didn't ask you, because I think she would
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: have looked at me like I was an idiot.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Well, at any rate, the symbol for the Yen is
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: a capital Y, again, with two horizontal lines running through it,
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: through the stem, that is. And sometimes a single horizontal line,
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: just like the dollar and some others. And it's the
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: same thing as... the Chinese symbol for its, how would
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: you pronounce that?
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Yuan.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: The Yuan.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: That's what I thought.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Yep. But they have a different currency system, the renminbi,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: and the Yuan is actually like a denomination of it,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: but everybody, including the Chinese, call it the Yuan. But
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: because they use the same symbol, there's the CN and
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: then the Y symbol for the Chinese Yuan and the
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: JPY symbol for the Japanese Yen. And this is true.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: If you go to Japan today, you better bring a
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: lot of cash because there are a lot of independent businesses, restaurants,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Especially the further you get out
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: of a city, that will be like cash only, buddy.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: And we don't have an ATM.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: I love that. MS Cash. What does Japanese cash look like?
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: Is it cool? Do you remember?
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: I don't remember. No.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. It's been... God. I think the last time
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: I was there was 2013. So, you know, give me
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: a break. Yeah.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: I still have some Canadian cash in my purse, by
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: the way.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And every time I'm at the airport, I forget
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: to go by the old Cambio. So maybe I'll just
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: wait till I'm back in Canada and I'll spend that,
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: invest in my friends from the north.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Two things, Chuck. I think that your bank that you
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: have like a regular account with will convert that for you.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: I wondered about that.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: And well, three things. Number two, if you do it
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: at the airport, you're going to get completely ripped off. Yeah.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: The bank will totally rip you off. Number three, I'm
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: so glad you brought that up because Canada just announced
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: that their new $ 5 bill has Terry Fox on it.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, no way.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: It's awesome looking, too.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: Oh, well, I'm definitely not getting rid of this cash.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: I'll just go trade it in for Terry Fox Fivers.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Spin some of those on some maple syrup and Montreal
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: bagels and then pocket one just to keep forever.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Very nice. And then drink a Molson Golden and then
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: promptly vomit. All right.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: You want to finish up with the rupee?
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Yes, it also is a very, very old currency, but
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: it hasn't been in continuous use like the pound has.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: But it dates back to about 2600 years ago, which
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: makes it even more strange that it didn't have its
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: own symbol like a dollar sign until 2010 when they
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: held the design contest. And this designer was named Professor D.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Udaya Kumar, who is a professor in design, produced the
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: winning symbol for the rupee.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, prior to that, it had always just been R-S
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: or R-E. It was denoted by letters. But how would
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: you describe, you know, I encourage people, if it's safe
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: to do so, to look up the symbol for the rupee,
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: but how would you describe this?
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's safe. Like, I don't think you're
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: going to get malware or anything.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: No, I mean if you're driving in a car or something.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: Come on.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, make an R, capital R.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Lop the top part off so it's just flat. Oh, okay.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: And then lop the front bubble part off and then
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: get rid of the back stem.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Now add another line. So there's two lines. And then
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: the bottom coming out of the R. That's essentially it.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: I'm going to try five or six different ways if
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: you'll bear with me. No. No.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: So apparently it has elements from a script used to
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: write a lot of Indian languages that Devanagara, and then
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: also Roman and Latin scripts. And the Devanagara is Ra
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: for rupiah, and the Roman letter R for the English
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: word rupee. And those parallel lines represent the tricolored flag
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: of India, as well as the equal symbol.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Booyah. You can also find rupees in Indonesia, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: and Sri Lanka, among others. But they don't use that
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: R symbol, the 2010 R rupee symbol.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Chuck, I feel like that's about it. We've covered literally
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: every single currency in the entire world. So I think
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: short stuff is out. It's out.
• 12:49
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• 12:52
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