Futility Closet

Money Talks

Posted in History, Language by Greg Ross on April 8th, 2008

When, at the General Peace of 1814, Prussia absorbed a portion of Saxony, the king issued a new coinage of rix dollars, with their German name, EIN REICHSTAHLER, impressed on them. The Saxons, by dividing the word, EIN REICH STAHL ER, made a sentence of which the meaning is, 'He stole a kingdom!'

– William T. Dobson, Poetical Ingenuities and Eccentricities, 1882