From: Doug Ewell (dewell@adelphia.net)
Date: Sun Oct 26 2003 - 23:30:07 CST
John Cowan <cowan at mercury dot ccil dot org> wrote:
> I can't speak for the whole of the last two centuries, but certainly
> current American bills and coins do not use either symbol. The bills
> in common use say ONE DOLLAR, FIVE DOLLARS, TEN DOLLARS, and TWENTY
> DOLLARS; the coins say ONE CENT, FIVE CENTS (the name "nickel" is
> informal), ONE DIME, and QUARTER DOLLAR. The bills are also marked
> using digits.
In my limited experience, that word DIME has done more to confuse
furriners than anything else about the U.S. and Canadian monetary
systems. The dime is the smallest coin in the set physically, weighing
less than half as much as a nickel, and made of (apparently) the same
material, yet worth twice as much. The etymology tracing the word
"dime" back to Latin "decem" ("ten") is lost on those who have not grown
up with the system, and obvious to those who have.
-Doug Ewell
Fullerton, California
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
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