TheBanyanTree: The lowly cent symbol

[Roger Pye]

Russ,

For nine years until three months ago I did 90% of our fortnightly basic 
shopping at one of the two 'large' supermarkets at a shopping centre 
(read 'small mall') about 5 kms away and the remainder at a 
'convenience' supermarket at out local shops. My budget for all that 
time was $100 - which isn't a real lot but there are only two of us 
humans plus our cat/dog family; then again I don't get a real lot either 
- and for about six years I stayed comfortably within it. Then 
inexorably the total spent crept up and up.

Four months ago after a 15 month 'refurbishment' which had occurred with 
marginal inconvenience to shoppers, the local semi-independent 
supermarket transmogrified into a 'large' one. I spent a month studying 
prices then I switched my shopping to it. Since then I have been saving 
$20 a fortnight - 'saving' in this case usually meaning spending it on 
other things outside the basic food list.

There are other differences, however, of much more importance than mere 
dollars and cents. For a start some of the staff have been there for all 
those nine years and when they and others say "Hi, How are you today?" I 
know they mean it. The check out people don't just toss items into bags, 
they pack them neatly. They ask (me) if they're too heavy - one would 
think I was in my dotage instead of only 71 years old :) - but I 
appreciate the thought.

I know where you're coming from, but. The lowly cent symbol has never 
appeared on an Australan keyboard or a penny symbol on an English one. 
Not even before pooter keyboards, you know those things we called 
typewriters. Our one and two cent pieces went out of fashion and 
circulation about 20 years ago. We still have the 5 cent piece but I 
fear its days are numbered - the poker machines have only taken dollar 
coins or higher denomination notes for a long time.

Progress it's called. Next year or the year after cheques will cease to 
be legal tender here. I dread the day. We'll all be back to writing them 
on cowhide - probably still walking!!

cheers

Roger

Russ Doden wrote:
> The Lowly Cent Symbol
> 
> 
> Have you noticed that the lowly cent sign is missing from the keyboard
> of computers?  I hadn’t noticed that until just recently.  It wasn’t
> due to my great observation abilities that I realized this was
> missing.  Someone else brought it to my attention.  I realized you
> don’t see this symbol used very often anymore.  Instead you see dollar
> signs with the cents denoted.  As it happened, in yesterday’s mail I
> received a flyer for a “$.99” sale.  Why not say a 99 cent sale and
> use the cent sign?  Would some (mostly young” people not recognize it
> since it isn’t on the keyboard?
> 
> The lowly cent sign is still available.  If a person knows how to use
> the “character map” option in their computer you will find the cent
> sign nestled away in many but certainly not all fonts!  It rests
> there, perhaps in its’ retirement among many other no longer, or not
> commonly used symbols.
> 
> I had to ask myself “How did this symbol fall out of favor?”  It made
> me realize that change has lost much of the value it once had.  We get
> change back, and either toss it in the “change jar” at home until it
> builds up to some meaningful money or it is put some other place, out
> of sight and out of mind.
> 
> This made me realize that maybe I’m getting older than I want to
> admit!  I realized I could sound like the “gaffers and gammers” of
> yesteryear.  I can still hear them tell me “when I was your age I
> could buy . . . “ and they would talk about buying things for mere
> pennies.  Well, they worked all day for mere pennies too!  The cent
> sign had meaning then!  When I was a kid, a quarter was a big
> allowance in the small town where I grew up.  You could take a
> quarter, go the see a movie, get some junk food to rot your teeth, and
> have a splendid afternoon.  Now it takes a quarter to buy a gumball!
> That doesn’t quite compare to an afternoon at the movies somehow.
> 
> In our headlong rush toward ever more “things” it seems that the lowly
> cent sign has become a casualty of “progress”.  Are we really
> progressing or are we regressing into a form of a high tech barbaric
> society where cents don’t count, only big bucks.  So, I sit here,
> pondering the passing of the lowly cent sign, and wonder if perhaps,
> just maybe, this lowly symbol needs to be brought back, to help us
> remember that pennies count – as do so many other little things in
> life.
> 
> Russ Doden
> June 2010
> 
>