Captain Al
in Vancouver Island, Canada
Member
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Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2005 | 09:01 PM
I have lived in Canada all my life and I have never heard of a 'Canadian dollar' sign. We have always used the same symbol as the US. If you want to differentiate between the two, you just put Cdn behind it.
The web site address is suspicious too. It is obviously a spoof on the site <a href="http://www.iam.ca">iam.ca </a> that is used by the Molson Canadian brewing company for their well known I AM CANADIAN beer ad campaign. |
Aphra
in Ottawa, Canada
Member
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Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2005 | 09:21 PM
I agree...I've never heard of using a different symbol. I admit, I live in a really small town (we like to call it a bubble) while at university, so I may just not have heard any news yet...but yeah, I'm thinkin no. |
andychrist
Member
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Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2005 | 09:38 PM
Well this is a fairly new marketing idea, so that would explain why no one has heard of it before. And the site looks way too serious to be a hoax. As the American dollar sign was originally a composite of U+S, it would make sense for the Canucks to get their own symbol going. Though I don't get why they put it on the P key, rather than the 4. Also I think the character is a little too busy-- eliminating either the A or N component inside the C would make it both more decipherable and easier to transcribe manually. |
Winona
in USA
Member
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Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2005 | 11:55 PM
When I differentiate now I always do it $2.00C or C$2.00. (I still occasionally send money back home, or discuss money with my family in Canada). In some ways it would be easier to have a real symbol than the way it is now. |
Rod
in the land of smarties.
Member
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Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 | 12:34 AM
First clue...
Google ads. When was the last time a government or major company had them on their site?
Second clue...
There is a link to 'rate the site' at topsitelists .com in the bottom right corner.
Third clue...
There is no mention of this on the Royal Canadian Mint website. (They make Canada (and several other countries') money).
Fourth clue...
Registered to...
Organization: AM Canada Inc.
Description: Federally incorporated firm: e-commerce WEB design
and Internet servises
Admin-Name: Alex Malikov
Admin-Title: Administrative Assistant
Admin-Postal: AM Canada Inc.
AM Canada
2708-3100 Kirwin Avenue
Mississauga ON L5A 3S6 Canada
Admin-Phone: 1 (905) 566-5062
Admin-Fax: 1 (416) 236-0321
Admin-Mailbox: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
NOT registered to a government contact or the RCM.
Actually, the first clue is that this has never been on the news, and the website is copyright 2004. Something like this would be big news here.
Kinda sad, isn't it. |
Maegan
in Tampa, FL - USA
Member
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Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 | 05:37 AM
Even for a spoof though, it's a little bit if a prolonged symbol to use just for money.
For instance.. C would make more sense. B/c the cent sign as a line going top to bottom, a line left to right would not be confused, and it's quick to make. |
Smerk
in to mischief
Member
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Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 | 05:38 AM
Looks very arty. |
Smerk
in to mischief
Member
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Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 | 05:43 AM
Good reason why you couldn't use the C. It looks to similar to the Euro symbol, which is C with a double strike. |
Nettie
in Perth, Western Australia
Member
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Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 | 08:57 AM
This may sound like a stupid question, but was the dollar sign invented by the Americans? The article makes it sound that way but I've never actually thought about it before.
If it was, I guess you learn something new everyday! |
Captain Al
in Vancouver Island, Canada
Member
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Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 | 09:16 AM
After reading through parts of this site, I am inclined to think that it is not a hoax. This guy is serious about selling the Canadian government on the idea and hopes to cash in on selling fonts to computer users and probably royalties from the Canadian mint.
He also received responses from several government officials he wrote to. One was the current Prime Minister Paul Martin who was at the time he wrote, Finance Minister. The letters are hard to read but they all seemed to say "Thanks for the suggestion, but no thanks." (Don't call us, we'll call you.) |
padego
Member
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Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 | 10:22 AM
What this person has done is copywrited a symbol in order to make money from sales of the font (see bottom) Now he just has to convince the rest of us to use it. |
Katherine
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Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 | 10:48 AM
I've read so many things about the origin of the dollar sign that I'm not positive what is right, but if you Google "dollar sign" AND "origin" you get links that are pretty well like this:
http://www.alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxorigin.html
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_178.html
http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/dollar_sign
http://www.pballew.net/dollar.html
So eh. Googling isn't proof positive of anything, of course, but I take it to mean that although there are varying theories, the peso one has the most credence at the moment. |
Citizen Premier
in spite of public outcry
Member
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Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 | 03:12 PM
I had thought it was a ribbon floating in between two pillars, which simplified to one. I still see the dollar sign with two lines sometimes, and I write it that way occasionally. |
Accipiter
Member
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Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 | 07:51 PM
Yes, I agree that it's probably some guy who's developed and copyrighted that design, and is now hoping to get it adopted by the government so he can get lots of money. That's not a new sort of thing. There's been a problem with people taking the names of cities and putting them into web site addresses and copyrighting them, and then when that particular town gets around to wanting to make their own website, they find that they can't name their site after their own town unless they pay royalties to whoever owns the copyright. |
MrKurto
Member
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Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 | 10:12 PM
Rod, this obviously isn't a government endorsed site. It's just some kook trying to make a big fuss over a dollar sign. Attempting to create nationalism perhaps? |
Rod
in the land of smarties.
Member
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Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 | 11:13 PM
Uh, I believe that is what I was pointing out.
😊
Except the creating nationalism part. Nobody much bothers with that, except the government anymore. And advertisers (beer, hockey, etc.). |
andychrist
Member
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Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2005 | 05:56 AM
Also, the guy isn't just trying to sell one single font, he's trying to market a copyrighted symbol. His customers would actually be all those who currently hold font rights; a distinct new character would have to be tailored to each font line that supported his Canadian Dollar sign. That could add up to a lot of licen$es.
While a number of countries do share the Dollar sign, it is perhaps Canada's very closeness to the US that creates confusion between the two's identically demarcated currency. Thus the idea of a unique Canadollar sign certainly bears merit. Still, I agree with Maegan that the "I am Canadian" prototype is miserable failure (no offense to George Bush.) Quite aside from the fact that it would require too many strokes to be easily rendered when writing by hand, it just looks too much more like a logo than a symbol. Reduced to, say, even an 18 point type face, it would be indecipherable.
I myself have devised a much more elegant solution. Sales information is available upon request. |
christ junifer
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Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 | 11:55 AM
As for the value of the canadian dollar.The truth of the truth,is that the canadian dollar should be trading atleast 1.25 to the u.s. dollar.For every canadian dollar one get only atleast three quarters of one dollar..the canadian dollar has so much value,much more then the american counterpart,as canada has a wonderful prime minister,A prime minister which is unique in the whole world surrounding canada..Yes, the canadian dollar should move not only to par with the U>S>,but it should be going up to atleast to $1.30 or $1.50... |
christ junifer
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Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 | 12:07 PM
IF you let Prime minister Stephen Harper read the remarks,100% sure the canadian dollar will drop in value immediately, and only then can I exchage all the u.s. dollars I stashed in my pillow so I can sleep a whole night. |
Lauren
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Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 | 01:08 PM
what about a C with a vertical line through it? or is that symbol taken.....? |
ricco the man
Member
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Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 | 01:29 PM
The dollar symbol $ used in the US and Canada was originally the symbol for the Mexican/Spanish Peco and the cent symbol |
