Those who compare American English and British English will tell you that a pound is unit of weight in America and a unit of money in Britain. Those are not completely separate, though. The British pound is short for pound sterling, in which a sterling was a penny, and 240 of them weighed a pound. That doesn't apply today, however. Before the revolution, Americans were often using the Spanish pieces of eight, or pesos, as local currency while trading with the British in pounds. After the revolution, Americans wanted to inaugurate a truly new form of currency, and that's why we have the dollar. But where did the word "dollar" come from?
Believe it or not, it comes from the Kingdom of Bohemia, or more precisely, the Saint Joachim Valley in a part of Bohemia that is now Czechia, with a history that goes back to the year 1500. The word didn't travel to the United States in a straight line, though. Read the history and the reasoning behind the word "dollar" at The Saturday Evening Post. -via Damn Interesting
(Image credit: National Numismatic Collection, National Museum of American History)
