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Here is the original text from Lord Macaulay’s History of England:

They are the men of double entry, magnifying routine. In business they have added mechanical device to mechanical device, they have put wind, water, steam, and electricity into subjection; they have done most of the reckoning in England, and their brains are hieroglyphed with l. s. d.

Source: Macaulay, Thomas Babington. The History of England from the Accession of James the Second. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1901. xviii. Print.

tchrist
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George Chen
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    And why hieroglyphed? Though I might imagine that after consuming LSD those which to anyone else are obviously letters might look like hieroglyphs. – Marc van Leeuwen Apr 10 '17 at 08:52
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    Very apt coincidence all the same. – KalleMP Apr 10 '17 at 11:58
  • @MarcvanLeeuwen If you wanted to be charitable, he might be referencing the manner in which the Egyptians covered every square inch of the wall space in their temples and tombs with writing. It may have just been a side effect of one of Europe's periodic bouts of Egyptomania, though. – lly Apr 11 '17 at 14:09
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    @MarcvanLeeuwen Since etymologically hieroglyph refers to "sacred" writing (not always Egyptian), the author may be saying that these men have declared the almighty dollar to be their god, and inscribed its name upon the temple of their minds. – LarsH Apr 11 '17 at 15:23
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    Lysergic acid diethylamide was not first synthesized until 1938. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysergic_acid_diethylamide You could get the stuff from moldy ryegrass, but it's not at all likely that's what is meant here. – Wayfaring Stranger Apr 11 '17 at 16:55
  • "Like getting l.s.d. out of him. Does himself well." Musings by Bloom in James Joyce's Ulysses, ch.8. – Alan Apr 11 '17 at 19:38
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    Related: (1) what does “lost a shilling and found a penny” mean?; (2) Why is “pound” (of weight) abbreviated “lb”? - see my answer. – TrevorD Apr 11 '17 at 23:27
  • The author is probably alluding to the accounting practice of measuring and recording assets in terms of monetary units. – George Chen Apr 12 '17 at 02:03
  • @LarsH "the author may be saying that these men have declared the almighty dollar to be their god" If the author meant to refer to the dollar, they would have said "dollar", not some other currency. – David Richerby Apr 12 '17 at 08:11
  • @David: Yes, I was using an American idiom to refer to money in general, not to specific units of currency... as the author used a British idiom. Sorry if my choice of idiom detracted from the point. – LarsH Apr 12 '17 at 19:05

4 Answers4

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Given the location and the period, I think it's likely to be a commonly-used variant of "£sd" for "pounds, shillings, and pence" - that is, money. The abbreviation comes from the Latin librae, solidi, denarii.

Mark Beadles
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L.S.D. was the standard abbreviation for "Pounds, shillings, and pence". See wikipedia.

Note that wikipedia claims it was usually written £sd and "sometimes" as Lsd. That was not my experience - I would have said "l. s. d." was at least as common. (Source: I was 13 when the UK decimalized).

Martin Bonner supports Monica
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  • I also would dispute the "sometimes" (although I was only 7 at the time). Also the pedant in me would point out (to the world in general) that the "£" is a stylised "L" and not as is too-frequently seen in promotional slogans a stand-in for an "E" – TripeHound Apr 10 '17 at 15:11
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    Thanks for the link. The answer is definitely out there, but it is so inundated, even google couldn't help. – George Chen Apr 10 '17 at 16:32
  • The typewriter had not yet been invented when Macaulay died in 1859. At the time, most text was produced either done by hand (where one can write any symbol), or by professional typesetters (who had rich cases of type that would have certainly included ‘£’). It was only after the typewriter that crude approximations began to creep into print. (The earliest typewriters even approximated the digits 1 and 0 with letters like O!) So with 1971 as when the UK decimalised, you would have seen "l. s. d." in the 60s: I blame it on typewriters. – ShreevatsaR Apr 10 '17 at 22:04
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    Not so much "the earliest typewriters" as "all but the latest typewriters". I learnt to type on typewriters without 0 or 1. – Martin Bonner supports Monica Apr 11 '17 at 08:05
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The correct form is £sd, for Pounds Shillings and Pence. £ is the symbol for pounds sterling, in the same way that $ is the symbol for dollars. I am an old, ex bookkeeper, I would write £ dozens of times a day, 5 days a week, in ledgers the size of my desk top.

Catweasel
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    Yes, but the £ symbol is nothing more than a stylised L. LSD has always been the common abbreviation. – Chenmunka Apr 10 '17 at 15:04
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    It's not an L, stylized or otherwise, it's a pound, a bona fide symbol in its own right. Now, I'm not saying it didn't start out as an L and get promoted to symbol. I'm not that old. – Catweasel Apr 10 '17 at 15:40
  • @Catweasel - he's probably referring to bankers. Perchance you know what "magnifying routine" means? Is it something specific to accounting? – George Chen Apr 10 '17 at 16:34
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    It was indeed originally a stylized L; it stands for the Latin word librae. – zwol Apr 10 '17 at 20:43
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    @GeorgeChen - His Lordship is referring to the magnifying glasses used by old book keepers of yore to read their ledgers by candle or gas light. – Catweasel Apr 11 '17 at 06:06
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    @Catweasel - are you sure that's the meaning here? Could "magnifying" not be being used here in the sense of "glorifying" - as in the King James translation of the Magnificat - "My soul doth magnify the Lord"? – Ed Harper Apr 11 '17 at 11:10
  • @Catweasel and Ed Harper: Thanks. It could have both meanings: journal entries are tiny, so a magnifying glass is a necessary fixture; the process of posting to the ledger account reveals deep meanings hidden in the journal - thus both glorify and enlarge a seemingly uninteresting book of routine. – George Chen Apr 11 '17 at 13:22
  • @Catweasel - if it's not a variant of 'L' then please for what, is '£' short?

    I think it's short for librae and I think that being short for librae makes it an 'L'. That it's a special form of 'L' doesnt stop it being a form of 'L', does it?

     – Robbie Goodwin Apr 24 '17 at 23:44
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Pounds-shillings-and pence To make it more confusing (for some), we should look at the amounts in each. 12 pennies in a shilling - 20 shillings in a pound, which gives us 240 pennies in a pound. Ireland had a similar system some years ago until they changed to the Euro. One last bit of confusion, there was a halfpenny, and in fact, a farthing (quarter penny), not sure about this but I think the halfpenny and farthing are gone.

Ciaran O'Melia
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    Ireland had the same system as the UK (just different names, e.g., púnt instead of pound) and Ireland decimalised at the same as the UK: in 1971. The Irish halfpenny was in use until the late 80s. – Anthony Geoghegan Apr 11 '17 at 22:39
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    The old farthing went in the 1950s or 1960s. The old halfpenny went in the late 1960s, prior to decimalisation in 1971. A new-halfpenny (i.e. half of a new penny, which was equivalent to 2.4 old pence: 240 old pence to the £ v. 100 new pence to the £) was used for some time after decimalisation but was withdrawn in the late 1970s or early 1980s (can't remember exactly). In fact, not only were there farthings, but - at least in some of the British Colonies in the 19th century, there were half-farthings, one third-farthings & quarter-farthings. I possess examples of some of these old coins. – TrevorD Apr 11 '17 at 23:08
  • Some time last year, I found an old farthing in my purse. I think I had been given it in change as an error for a modern 1p (1 penny) coin, which is now of similar size. In fact they are of similar face value, but the farthing is probably now worth rather more than 1p as a collector's item! – TrevorD Apr 11 '17 at 23:12