I usually use one line, but in tourist-y places in Mexico, where pesos and dollars are both accepted, I’ve seen two strokes for USD prices and one for peso prices to distinguish the two symbols.
When jotting down quick notes for my own reference, I use one line- but this is because my handwriting is small and rather closed (loops/curves/circles) and if I try for two lines it just becomes unreadable.
When I am making an effort to write nicely for either another person’s reference or something that will be on display to be read, I use two lines- because that’s what I think of as more “correct”.
Although I do both, I voted for “two lines” in the poll because that’s what I think of as proper whereas the single line is something I use for expediency and readability when only for my own reference.
Incidentally, not that it’s authoritative or anything, but a Google Image search for “dollar sign” yields the “two lines” version for 4 of the first 10 results.
I always use two lines. I don’t understand using one line, that’s like not dotting i’s or saying, "fuck it, I’m not drawing the middle bit of the ‘H’ any more.
I understand one line as a dollar sign, it just seems really strange to not put both lines to me.
Yeahbut, it’s only got one line through it on the keyboard. (Well, on my keyboard anyway. Both of them. I’ll have to check the computers at home, now - I’m curious.)
Ha ha. In my mind there are two, but I only write one. Apparently I do just give up at the last step and go, “That final strike is too far.” I just leafed through some notes I scribbled, and the second line does not appear anywhere.
Depends on the font too. In the edit box, that shows up as a single line crossing the S. In the forum, the line is broken and only appears above and below the S.
A lot of older typewriters use the two-line dollar sign. That was where I learned what they should look like, so that’s what I usually write.
For a long time I believed that the symbol was just the superposition of U and S (with the bottom of the U cut off), so I assumed that this was just the natural and correct way to write it. In recent years I’ve learned that this history of the $ symbol is generally considered hor$e$hit.
I found out that in US you should put two because it’s a S with a U in it with the bottom part of the U cut off. See? It’s now US! Either way works though. I use two and it never looks sloppy either… One is too little though! It looks like not enough to me.
When I’m just writing down a dollar amount, I tend to use one line. When I’m spelling words with dollar signs to be cool, I’ll often use two lines. Ke$ha’s album covers (here and here) both have two lines in the dollar sign, so that’s why I’ve started using the two lines more often.
I may have used two lines on occasion, but almost always it’s one line. In programming you write a lot of those things (or used to back in the day, now I just type a lot of those things).