Talk:£ (currency)

Untitled

Does anyone have a source for the use of £ to refer to the unit of mass as well as currency. If not, I will redirect £ to pound (currency). --Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley _{talk contrib} 23:57, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

My source was Wikipedia's own article on the apothecaries' system. It could be that that article is incorrect; if so, that article should be changed before this one is. Therefore, the question you are asking should be asked on that page, not this one. I don't know for sure whether £ was ever used to refer to a unit of weight, but since £ is a stylized L standing for libra ("pound" in Latin), and since "pound" (the currency) takes its name from the value of a "pound" (weight) of silver, it's certainly possible that the symbol £ was at one time likewise polysemous. —Psychonaut 01:56, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

According to the article on pound(mass) which I don't seem to be able to link to properly, the apothecaries' system article was wrong. "The Latin word libra describes a Roman unit of weight similar to a pound, and the abbreviation “lb” for the unit of weight and the signs £ and ₤ (crossed-out Ls) for the currency derived from this. The word “pound” comes from the Latin pendere, “to weigh”; Latin libra means “scales, balances”."

This doesn't rule out historical usage, but I have yet to encounter it, and I haven't seen anyone linking to here meaning the weight/mass.

I'd say including this disambiguation needlessly confuses people looking for the currency, since even if it is used in rare historical cases to refer to weight, it is overwhelmingly used for currency and the pound(currency) page carries a link to the weight page, for those that need it. Meanwhile, this statement, and at the level of disambiguation suggesting it is common, confuses those who know little about either. Skittle 01:12, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Redirect to Pound (currency) or pound sign?

Should this page redirect to Pound (currency) or pound sign? Ewlyahoocom 12:40, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Tricky. Probably pound sign, but it's a tough call.Skittle 17:57, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Pound (currency) is a disambg page, so Pound sign is definitely better. I've redirected accordingly. Tevildo 13:43, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I have turned into a disambig. The very fact that Skittle says "Tricky" above strongly suggests the need for a disambig. Please see related discussion at Talk:€. Arbitrary username 07:52, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

• I think this should redirect to Pound (currency), as it used exceptionally commonly in the Wikipedia to say something costs £2 million. — Reinyday, 05:34, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Somebody redirected it to Pound--clearly out of the question. I'd say it is fine as a disambiguation page that will get you to either article in the header here with just one click. Gene Nygaard 02:48, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

• Seems to me the most logical thing is to redirect to Pound sterling. Nearly all of the references I checked are simply linking the pound sign at the front of some number of pounds sterling. Much easier to fix the occasional reference to pound sign or some other currency than to constantly monitor and disambiguate the incoming links to this page. -- SteinbDJ · talk · contributions 21:02, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I believe it should £ should redirect to pound sign, just like $. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 22:46, 31 May 2007 (UTC)