'Lit' vs. 'lighted.' The mysteries of the dollar sign. Redd up.
19:04 Share

Stripe helps many of the world's most influential companies grow their revenue and build a more profitable business. Whether it's Hertz making checkout a smooth ride for their customers, OpenAI answering unprecedented demand, or PGA chipping away at back office inefficiency, Stripe's financial infrastructure platform helps companies achieve ambitious goals. No matter what success looks like for your business, Stripe helps ensure the complexity of financial systems doesn't get in your way. Learn more at stripe.com.

Jared knows what moms really want for Mother's Day. The opportunity to just sleep in and dream of idle playgrounds, empty sinks, and perfectly folded laundry. Of course, there's no better way to compliment mom's peace of mind than with a piece of fine jewelry from Jared Jewelers. A sparkling diamond pendant necklace or even 14-carat gold hoop earrings. Perfect for the woman who keeps everything in your family perfect.

This Mother's Day, be the dad who went to Jared. Grammar Girl here. I'm Mignon Fogarty, your friendly guide to the English language. Today, we're going to talk about the difference between the words lit and lighted. And then we have the fascinating story, or I should say stories, about the origin of the dollar sign.

Have you ever wondered why we have two past tense forms of the verb to light? Should you say squiggly lit the candles or squiggly lighted the candles? Maybe you've even wondered whether one is wrong. Lighted sounds kind of weird in that sentence, right? Squiggly lighted the candles.

Well, both words are correct. Light is one of those rare English words that has two acceptable past tense forms. Lighted is what we call a regular verb because you make it past tense by adding "-ed to the end. Lit is what we call an irregular verb because you make it past tense by changing the actual spelling. You don't just add "-ed to the end. So walked, sipped, and lighted are all regular verbs.

And ran, drank, and lit are all irregular verbs. In the past, English had a lot more irregular verbs, but over time, many changed form and became regular, making English simpler. But for reasons nobody seems to be able to explain, light took the opposite route.

Long ago, people used the irregular verb, saying they lit candles. And for a time, the verb acted like many others and moved toward becoming a regular verb. In other words, people started saying they lighted candles instead of saying they lit candles.

But, and this is the thing that makes the verb unusual, around the year 1900, people switched back to using lit as the past tense, and that's still the more common form today. As a verb, lit is currently much more common than lighted in both British and American English.

Of course, lit and lighted can also be used as adjectives. For example, you can say you enter a lit hallway or a lighted hallway, but the story here is a little different. According to a Google Ngram search, which looks at how often words appear in published books, lighted used to be far more common as an adjective.

Think of the short story by Ernest Hemingway from 1933 titled A Clean, Well-Lighted Place. But lit became more popular in Britain in the 1960s, and later it also became more popular in the United States around the year 2000. And in both cases, once lit took off, it really took off. As an adjective, it's used more than three times as often as lighted in books from both regions. I

I do wonder how much the fact that lit became a slang term has influenced the charts I'm looking at, as in people saying, that party was lit. But it seems like the spike I'm seeing in Google engrams started at least 10 or 15 years before the slang use became widespread.

So if you're wondering how you should use these words, the bottom line is that both lit and lighted currently exist as fully acceptable past tense forms of the verb to light and as adjectives. You can use either one. But people do use lit much more often, so it's more likely to sound natural to your readers.

Where is Jimmy Hoffa? What happened to Amelia Earhart? Where is Alexander the Great buried? Well, despite our best efforts, each question remains a mystery. Similarly, the precise origin of the United States dollar sign is, you guessed it, a mystery. And even though almost a dozen theories have been introduced, we're still scratching our heads to figure out how this symbol came into existence.

Here's what we do know. This widely used yet curious symbol is known as a hieroglyphic character or glyph. It's often described as a capital letter S with either one or two vertical lines or bars running through it.

We also know the dollar is today's standard monetary unit in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and a number of other countries and territories. Given the dollar sign's widespread use, you'd think its history would be well-documented. Yet instead of documentation, numerous speculations have circulated since the late 1700s when the dollar sign first appeared.

If you appreciate a good mystery, you'll enjoy deciding for yourself which of the following four stories is most plausible. They even have names. The Pillars of Hercules theory, the Ayn Rand theory, the Pieces of Eight theory, and finally, the Spanish Dollar theory. We'll start with some of the sketchiest theories.

The Pillars of Hercules story goes all the way back to the late 15th and early 16th centuries, during the reign of King Ferdinand II of Aragon. This is when the peso, the Spanish unit of currency, first appeared.

A royal coat of arms was cast upon the coin, and the king later had two columns added to the symbol to represent the Pillars of Hercules. The Pillars are the two high landmasses that jut out into the Mediterranean Sea and serve as the entrance to the eastern end of the Strait of Gibraltar. And yes, the northernmost pillar is the famous Rock of Gibraltar.

So the design also included a ribbon wrapped around these pillars. We have to go into this much detail because the theory requires a lot of imagination. It asserts that the vertical bars on the U.S. dollar sign reflect the pillars and the letter S comes from the ribbon.

If this explanation seems likely to you, you'll probably be disappointed to learn that little to no credible evidence exists to support it. Without proof, this theory may lead to water, but it certainly doesn't hold water. The next one is called the Ayn Rand theory, after the Russian-born American philosopher and author.

In her 1957 bestselling novel, Atlas Shrugged, the protagonist remarks, incidentally, do you know where that sign comes from? Referring to the dollar sign. The character continues, it stands for the initials of the United States.

Now, the character explains that the U was placed over the S and that over time, the bottom of the U is modified. This resulted in two strokes over the S and voila, the double stroke version of the dollar sign. Plausible? Perhaps. Provable? Not so much.

Although the exact date of the dollar sign's birth isn't known, it's likely that it first appeared before 1776. And if this is true, the symbol would have had to represent the United Colonies of North America, as opposed to the U.S.,

In other words, Rand's theory of melding the letters U and S is worth considering only if the first occurrence of the dollar sign came after 1776, which is possible, but not likely. And since Atlas Shrugged is fiction, there's also no real reason to believe the story is based on fact.

Stripe helps many of the world's most influential companies grow their revenue and build a more profitable business. Whether it's Hertz making checkout a smooth ride for their customers, OpenAI answering unprecedented demand, or PGA chipping away at back office inefficiency, Stripe's financial infrastructure platform helps companies achieve ambitious goals. No matter what success looks like for your business, Stripe helps ensure the complexity of financial systems doesn't get in your way. Learn more at stripe.com.

Jared knows what moms really want for Mother's Day. The opportunity to just sleep in and dream of idle playgrounds, empty sinks, and perfectly folded laundry. Of course, there's no better way to compliment mom's peace of mind than with a piece of fine jewelry from Jared Jewelers. A sparkling diamond pendant necklace or even 14-carat gold hoop earrings. Perfect for the woman who keeps everything in your family perfect.

This Mother's Day, be the dad who went to Jared. It's spring, so it's becoming a lot more fun to be out and about. And maybe you'd like to treat yourself to some luxurious wardrobe upgrades from Quince's Travel Essentials, like lightweight European linen styles from $30, and pair them with a premium stylish tote bag.

And the best part? All Quint's items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands because the company partners directly with top factories, cutting out the middleman and passing the savings on to us.

So my duffel bag was at least 25 years old, and I decided to upgrade with the Quince All Day Neoprene Duffel Bag. And I can tell why it's a bestseller, because it is even better in person than I thought it was going to be when I ordered it. It has a bunch of internal pockets, some zippered, some open, one that's the

perfect size for a laptop and a bunch of external pockets. It's going to be so much easier to keep my stuff organized. I love this thing. For your next trip, treat yourself to the luxe upgrades you deserve from Quince.

Go to quince.com slash grammar for 365-day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash grammar to get free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com slash grammar. Now let's consider the Pieces of Eight theory. It's based on the Spanish settlers of the 16th century who took over parts of South America.

It was here they discovered vast amounts of silver in what is today Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia. The silver was milled into coins called pesos, as we said, which served as Spain's most common denomination of currency. The assertion is that the dollar sign is simply a stylistic variation of the Arabic numeral 8.

Why the number eight, you ask? Well, because the full name of the Spanish dollar, which was worth eight reales, was peso de ocho real, or pieces of eight. Real is the Spanish word for royal.

While this attempt to decipher the mystery of the dollar sign seems reasonable, we have no documentation that shows the numeral 8 was ever used to represent the Spanish dollar. But even though the pieces of 8 theory lacks hard evidence, when first introduced, people ate it up. The next and final position on the dollar sign's history that we'll talk about today is commonly referred to as the Spanish dollar theory.

Most consider it to be "the one," and it relies on the fact that the Spanish dollar was also known as the silver peso. Not everyone knows this, but following the colony's declaration of independence in the latter part of the 18th century, the Continental Congress of the U.S. created a common currency that was based on the Spanish dollar, or peso. And from this common currency, the dollar sign may have emerged, even though we aren't sure exactly how.

One study of late 18th and early 19th century manuscripts indicates colonial businessmen began abbreviating the word pesos when referring to Spanish dollars. The abbreviation they used was the capital letter P accompanied by a superscript S.

Then we have a handwritten invoice from 1778 by the American revolutionary financier Oliver Pollock that does show a symbol with a P overlapping an S. Eventually, only the stem of the P remained. The result was an S symbol with a single vertical strike through it.

Few people dispute the resemblance between Pollock's handwriting and the dollar sign, a symbol that soon accompanied the U.S. dollar after it was introduced by the Congress Act of 1792 to serve as the common currency.

Interesting, yes, but still, little evidence exists to prove such a symbol was in popular use at this time. Such evidence would have suggested Pollock's so-called slip of the hand did, in fact, catch on. Yet, compared to the previous three theories, the Spanish dollar theory sounds pretty good.

Could this be the actual origin of the dollar sign? It could be, although it all basically comes down to who knows. Next, before we discuss how to properly use the dollar sign, yes, this symbol has guidelines, let's first circle back to address how the U.S. came to have two versions of the dollar sign. If you recall, one version has a single vertical bar and the other has two. But why two versions?

One possible explanation for the single bar version of the dollar sign is that it's a combination of the letters S for Spanish and P for peso. When joined to form a single character, also known as a ligature, it looks just like today's dollar sign with a single stroke.

Another similar explanation is that in 1869, the U.S. issued a $1 note that included a large symbol consisting of a U with the right bar overlapping an S. Like the S and P ligature, this too resembles the single bar dollar sign.

Either speculation is possible. As for the two-stroke configuration, it may be a design that combines the S for Spanish with two vertical stripes representing the pillars of Hercules mentioned earlier. Or it might stem from a narrow U superimposed on an S that over time omitted the bottom of the U. The result was a double-line dollar sign, which has a catchy ring to it.

As far as we know, each dollar sign design is merely a stylistic choice, usually just a typeface variant. If you want a specific dollar sign, most word processing programs allow you to insert a single or double barred dollar sign as a special character. So you can also select a different typeface to create your desired dollar sign symbol if necessary. Now, as promised, we'll review some useful dollar sign guidelines.

In the United States, it's customary to place the dollar sign before the numeric amount, with no space in between. We do this for consistency and to clarify the number has a monetary value. Conversely, in most non-English-speaking European countries, the currency symbol follows the amount, with a space between them. This is also true for French-speaking Canadians, except they omit the space.

So in Europe, eight euros would be written as the numeral eight followed by a space and then the euro symbol, which looks like the capital letter C with two horizontal bars running through it. And in the US, we'd write about $8 with a dollar sign followed by the number eight with no space between them. Now, if you choose to spell out $8, be sure to omit the dollar sign, leaving it in as a common mistake.

Like writing ATM machine or please RSVP, the word dollar makes the dollar sign redundant. The same goes for USD, an abbreviation for United States dollars. If you write USD space in the amount, you also leave out the dollar sign.

And why would you write USD? Well, it doesn't make much sense if you have an American audience, but if your audience might include Canadians or Australians, for example, the dollar sign becomes ambiguous because they use it for their currency too. Another option is to leave off the D for dollars and write US followed by the dollar sign in the amount with no spaces. And that's it for the dollar sign guidelines. But before signing off, here's a bit of trivia.

The dollar sign also has a non-monetary purpose. That's right, it's also used as a symbol to designate a variable in computer coding. Just know that darn innocent looking symbol is as useful as it is mysterious. One thing's crystal clear though, if you're betting on a theory, it's probably not worth losing money over.

And we have a special treat for Grammarpalooza supporters this week. You'll get a bonus episode tomorrow with some of the other interesting theories about where we get the dollar sign. If you aren't already a supporter, you can sign up on the show listing at Apple Podcasts or through subtext, and you can learn more about both options at quickanddirtytips.com slash bonus.

Grammar Palusians get some nice bonuses and also really help support the show. So thank you. And I hope you enjoy learning about the other dollar sign stories this week.

That segment was written by Jim Norina, MFA, who has been writing and editing for more than 35 years. He's the founder and principal editor at typosection.com, an independent editing and writing service. He taught grammar and copy editing intensives and professional proofreading workshops at Media Alliance and served as events coordinator for Bay Area Editors Forum. You can find him on LinkedIn.

Before we get to the familect this week, one of you had a response to our request a while ago from Randy, who grew up near Detroit, about what to call the back area of a VW Beetle.

So Terry Roberts' family called it the Wayback. This makes me think of the Wayback Machine, another name for the Internet Archive. But Terry, who grew up in Ohio, says, quote, my little brother used to ride back there, unquote. Fun memories. Thanks for writing in, Terry, and I hope Randy is listening.

And finally, here's a familect from Ed. Yes, you wanted familects this week. My name is Ed Thomas. I'm in Hanoi, Winchester, Ohio, just outside Columbus. Our family always used Red Up the dishes when we were done with eating in the evening. Nobody could ever tell me where that came from, but that's what we use. I guess it kind of came from Ready Up or something like that, but it's Red Up the dishes. Have a good day.

Thanks, Ed. This is so interesting because it's actually a regionalism in the United States. There's even a listing in the Oxford English Dictionary, which says it goes all the way back to Old English and was inherited from Germanic.

There are words with similar pronunciations in Old Frisian, Old Swedish, Old Icelandic, and more that mean things like to make ready, to clear, to prepare, or to set to order. In English, it's usually spelled with two Ds, R-E-D-D, and people usually talk about reading up something or very occasionally about reading off or reading out something.

But I'm not surprised you thought it was a familect because I'd never heard the word before I became Grammar Girl and spent a lot of time talking about language.

Merriam-Webster says its use is chiefly dialectical and use in the U.S. is mostly confined to the North Midland region, which includes your home state of Ohio, as well as parts of some states to the north and west of you. So thanks again, Ed. If you want to share the story of your familect, a word or phrase that you only use with your friends or family,

Leave a message on the voicemail line at 83-321-4GIRL or leave a voice message on WhatsApp. And if you want that number or link later, you can always find them in the show notes.

Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast, and we have lots of other shows. This week, The Savvy Psychologist has a show about gaslighting. And tomorrow, this sounds especially intriguing. The show is about why we overshare and what to do instead. Check it out. Again, that's The Savvy Psychologist.

Thanks to Nat Hoops in marketing, Dan Fireobbend in audio, Morgan Christensen in advertising, Holly Hutchings in digital operations, and Brandon Goetjes, director of podcasts, who has 40 plants and counting in his small Brooklyn apartment. And I'm Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl and author of the tip of day book, The Grammar Daily. That's all. Thanks for listening. Hey, everybody. It's Rob Lowe here. If you haven't heard,

I have a podcast that's called Literally with Rob Lowe. And basically, it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling up a chair at an intimate dinner between myself and people that I admire, like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J. Fox. There are new episodes out every Thursday. So subscribe, please, and listen. We're

wherever you get your podcasts.