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Journalism of Courage
Everybody knows why the dollars represented by . Or at least they think they know. Because of the Roman sestertius think Asterix,say some firmly,pointing out that if the coins
Roman abbreviation HS were pushed together,it would look like . Mere fetishising of the Romans,say others: no,its because the Greek god of healers and bankers,Hermes,carried a caduceus,a staff with an entwined snake,still visible on some medical crests. Absurd classicist mumbo-jumbo,say yet others: all know that it comes from the Spanish coins pieces of eight think Treasure Island,represented by a vertical slash through the letter 8. And,of course,conspiracy theorists insist that it is because of the Templars,freemasons and the pillars of the Temple of Solomon,but nobody listens to them but Dan Brown and Nicolas Cage.
The fear is that this might degenerate into farce. Consider Russias decade-long search for a symbol for the rouble,which featured various unofficial symbols and a decision to test-drive thirteen different variations. Cynics might claim that the main reason for this confusion was that they couldnt decide whether the first letter of the word rouble should be in Cyrillic or Roman script before they put the Double Bars of Stability through it. All moot,anyway perhaps: the ultimate authority,Microsoft Word,already lists unicode decimal 8360 an R and a p joined together,as they were on old Indian-made typewriters as the rupee symbol. Whats a government competition compared to that?
