Ethnic Avenue – The Street That Crosses All the Others

Posts Tagged ‘Dollar Sign’

Nothing says shady (or in select contexts, bad-ass) more than using a dollar sign in place of the conventional letter S (or wearing it around your neck).

But, let’s make an important distinction. If you’re a hip-hop arti$t or a pimp named $ilky or a 99-cent $tore, you’re likely to improve your image by using the dollar sign. Chances are it resonates with your “demographic.” But, if you’re a law office or a bank, you’re probably better off sticking to the core 26 letters of the alphabet.

You’d think all of this goes without saying. But, I often run into poor uses of the dollar sign around town.

In the wrong context, the dollar sign does the exact opposite of what it’s supposed to do. (For instance, I’ve since withdrawn all of my money from Ca$h Bank.) But, the way I see it, currency-symbols-as-letters is a risky move if you’re a business of any kind (except maybe a rapper named £e$ter €x, which would be kinda the shit).

My guess is that the few people that are actually swayed to buy something because every S on the billboard was a dollar-sign, aren’t that desirable as customers in the first place. And, the significant percentage of people you turned off with your dollar-sign-replacements probably were.