On the Crazy History of Pound Signs
I have always wondered why the abbreviation for the English system of weight unit "pound" was "lb."
Today, I decided to go on a quest to find out why, and I learned that their are a lot of cool -- in my opinion -- facts about the evolution of the various "pound signs" as well.
Pound signs?
In America, the pound sign is #.
However, elsewhere in the world, it is called the number sign or the hash.
The pound sign in Britain is £, and is used like the American dollar sign ($).
The American pound sign (#) is most often used before a number as an abbreviation for "number", as in "He is my #1 fan." Why then do we call it the pound sign?
Well, apparently, some cook books, etc. also use it as an abbreviation for a pound of weight, as lb. is usually used: "Add 3# hamburger." And this usage is older.
I don't understand how it came to mean "number" when written before a numeral when it means "pound" when written afterward, but how did it come to look the way it does at all?
It actually evolved from writing the abbreviation lb.
First, because the "l" in "lb." could be confused with a 1, people began writing/printing it with a line through it: lb. or lb.
You can see how that sort of looks like a # already, and sure enough, over time and with some sloppiness, it was simplified to #.
(As an aside, some places use the "numero sign" instead of the number sign: №3, instead of #3, which really makes a lot more sense to me.)
But in England, you don't write # for a pound of currency, you use £, and this is called the pound sign, as in £500.00.
It's evolution is thus: A Latin word libra meant "scale, balance" but it also was a Roman unit of currency similar to a pound. (Oddly, the word "pound" itself comes from a different Latin word pondus, "weight".) So, the pound symbol comes from an L with a line through it (L), similar to how $ is an S with a line through it (although the evolution of the dollar sign is hotly debated).
So, in case you haven't just figured it out, the pound abbreviation (lb.) derives from the same Latin word as the pound sign, that is from libra.
I never would have guessed the lb., £, and # were all really abbreviations for the same Latin word.
I hope you all did not find that overly boring.
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Today, I decided to go on a quest to find out why, and I learned that their are a lot of cool -- in my opinion -- facts about the evolution of the various "pound signs" as well.
Pound signs?
In America, the pound sign is #.
However, elsewhere in the world, it is called the number sign or the hash.
The pound sign in Britain is £, and is used like the American dollar sign ($).
The American pound sign (#) is most often used before a number as an abbreviation for "number", as in "He is my #1 fan." Why then do we call it the pound sign?
Well, apparently, some cook books, etc. also use it as an abbreviation for a pound of weight, as lb. is usually used: "Add 3# hamburger." And this usage is older.
I don't understand how it came to mean "number" when written before a numeral when it means "pound" when written afterward, but how did it come to look the way it does at all?
It actually evolved from writing the abbreviation lb.
First, because the "l" in "lb." could be confused with a 1, people began writing/printing it with a line through it: lb. or lb.
You can see how that sort of looks like a # already, and sure enough, over time and with some sloppiness, it was simplified to #.
(As an aside, some places use the "numero sign" instead of the number sign: №3, instead of #3, which really makes a lot more sense to me.)
But in England, you don't write # for a pound of currency, you use £, and this is called the pound sign, as in £500.00.
It's evolution is thus: A Latin word libra meant "scale, balance" but it also was a Roman unit of currency similar to a pound. (Oddly, the word "pound" itself comes from a different Latin word pondus, "weight".) So, the pound symbol comes from an L with a line through it (L), similar to how $ is an S with a line through it (although the evolution of the dollar sign is hotly debated).
So, in case you haven't just figured it out, the pound abbreviation (lb.) derives from the same Latin word as the pound sign, that is from libra.
I never would have guessed the lb., £, and # were all really abbreviations for the same Latin word.
I hope you all did not find that overly boring.
Comment link for Facebook readers