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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!hao!noao!terak!mot!al
From: al@mot.UUCP (Al Filipski)
Newsgroups: net.misc,net.jokes,net.nlang
Subject: Re: Good Old Times (really origin of "dollar")
Message-ID: <177@mot.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 1-Jul-85 12:24:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: mot.177
Posted: Mon Jul  1 12:24:24 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 5-Jul-85 05:15:04 EDT
References: <196@persci.UUCP>
Organization: Motorola Microsystems, Phoenix AZ
Lines: 23
Xref: watmath net.misc:8187 net.jokes:13078 net.nlang:3328


In article <196@persci.UUCP> bill@persci.UUCP writes:
>By the way, does anybody know the origin of the word 'dollar'? I've never met
>anyone who does. The nearest word to it is the Spanish (Latin?) 'dolore',
>which, I'm told, means 'pain'. 

 In time-honored net tradition, I won't bother to look this up, but I
seem to recall that "thal" is a germanic stem meaning "valley", whence
we get words like "dale" and "Neanderthal".  The connection is geographic,
where a monetary unit acquired the name of the place that issued it,
which happened to be in a valley.

--------------------------------
Alan Filipski, UNIX group, Motorola Microsystems, Tempe, AZ U.S.A
{seismo|ihnp4}!ut-sally!oakhill!mot!al
allegra!sftig!mot!al  
ucbvax!arizona!asuvax!mot!al
--------------------------------
In this vale
of toil and sin
your head grows bald
but not your chin.
	--    Burma Shave