Pound sign

The pound sign (£) is a special symbol for the pound, the currency of the United Kingdom and places like the Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories. It was also used for money in the past in Great Britain and the Kingdom of England. Some other countries, like Egypt and Syria, also use this symbol for their money called "pound." People sometimes draw the pound sign with one line or two lines in the middle, but since 1975, the Bank of England has always used the one-line version on its paper money.

In the United States, the term "pound sign" often means the symbol #, also called the number sign. In Canada, "pound sign" can mean either the £ symbol or the # symbol, depending on what you are talking about.

Origin

The pound sign (£) comes from the Latin letter L. This letter stood for libra pondo. In the Roman Empire, this was a unit of weight. The word libra meant scales or a balance. Later, the pound became an English unit of weight. It was defined as a certain amount of sterling silver.

We do not know exactly when lines were added to the L to make the £ sign. But a cheque from 1661 shows the £ sign. By 1694, when the Bank of England started, the symbol was commonly used. Even later, the simple letter L was still used in printing until the 19th century.

Usage

The pound sign (£) is placed before numbers, like £12,000. In the UK, we use the symbol as it is. In countries like Egypt and Lebanon, they add a letter to avoid confusion, such as E£ or £E and £L. In international banking and foreign exchange operations, people usually use the ISO 4217 currency code, like GBP for British pounds or EGP for Egyptian pounds.

Other English variants

In most types of English, except American English, the symbol £ is called the pound sign. In Canada, the symbol # is sometimes also called the pound sign, but it is more often known as the number sign. When using a telephone, people in the United States often call the # symbol the "pound key."

In American English, the term "pound sign" usually refers to the symbol #, which is also called the number sign. Like in Canada, the # symbol has many other uses.

Historic variants

The pound sign (£) has looked different over time. Since 1975, the Bank of England has only used the one-bar style on its money. Before that, both one-bar and two-bar styles were used.

In old metal fonts from the 1700s, the pound sign looked like an upside-down italic uppercase J. Today, computers use one special character for the pound sign, no matter which style you see.

Currencies that use the pound sign

The pound sign (£) is used for several currencies around the world. Countries and territories that use the pound sign today include Egypt for the Egyptian pound, the Falkland Islands for the Falkland Islands pound, Gibraltar for the Gibraltar pound, Guernsey for the Guernsey pound, the Isle of Man for the Manx pound, Saint Helena for the Saint Helena pound, South Sudan for the South Sudanese pound, Syria for the Syrian pound, and the United Kingdom for the Pound sterling.

In the past, many other places also used the pound sign for their money. This includes some American Colonies and many other countries and regions.

Use with computers

The pound sign (£) is part of the Unicode standard. It is found at U+00A3 £ POUND SIGN (£). The pound sign may have one or two bars, depending on the font, but its code stays the same.

Early computers had smaller sets of characters. For example, the UK version of ISO 646 used the £ symbol instead of the # symbol. Different devices placed the £ symbol in different spots, like MS-DOS on the IBM PC and the BBC Ceefax system. Each computer system had its own method for showing the £ symbol.

Other uses

The British political party UK Independence Party used a logo that looked like the pound sign. This showed that the party did not want to use the euro or be part of the European Union.

A long time ago, from 1993 to 1995, the pound sign was used as a capital letter in a special alphabet in a country named Turkmenistan. Its lowercase form was a letter called the long s.