TheBanyanTree: The lowly cent symbol

[jodeneperrin at comcast.net]

Your piece about the one cent sign struck a chord with me. Did you know that 
cursive writing is no longer taught in schools? We are headed for a graceless 
society, I'm afraid. 


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Russ Doden" <russ.doden at gmail.com> 
To: "The Banyan Tree" <thebanyantree at remsset.com> 
Sent: Thursday, June 17, 2010 7:29:11 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific 
Subject: TheBanyanTree: The lowly cent symbol 

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 


-- 
Take things one day at a time 
IF that is too much go 1 hour at a time 
If that is too much, go 1 minute at a time 
Miracles come one minute at a time.