What is the origin of the check mark?

The efficiency of bankers and book keepers always looking for ways to cut corners. It’s easier and faster to make than an “X”, and uses half the ink.

just guessing here

Wikipedia has the info you’re looking for.

Apparently the symbol came from the Latin word for question, questio, which was later shortened to Qo.

It started being written as a q over the letter o.

@netgrrl that link is for question marks…this is a question about check marks. Like Nike symbol…

LOL Ok it’s official. I’m too tired. Sorry!

lol

you should have seen me trying to figure out how the hell a q and an o turn into a check!

From V, for “vidi” which means “I saw” in latin.

Wrong question, dad-gummed tabbed browsing technology-whatchamacallits.

@netgrrl had the right idea for a source, but unfortunately looked up the wrong grapheme. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick_(checkmark)
NOTE: The link needs the trailing parenthesis, but Fluther says no.

Some have speculated that it comes from the Latin veritas (true, or verified) and was a foreshortening marked beside things verified in a ledger.

The Romans used to use the letter V to check things off on lists as v is short for veritas meaning true. Then came the invention of the fountain pen (ie not a pen that you dipped in ink one that had it’s own reservoir) ink would not always start flowing without some initial action. The down stroke of the v was enough to get it going so that the up stoke was made.

And I suppose after that it just stuck.

@ETpro I think vertias is a good answer, did you find that somewhere???

Ok, here’s a bonus, for you google pros…Can anyone find me a Cartesian equal sign?

@ragingloli, do you think this veritas origin is wrong?

I do not know. I got my version from the german wikipedia page.

@Ltryptophan

If by Cartesian equal(s) sign you mean what Descartes used as an equal(s) sign, then I believe it was the Greek lowercase alpha (α).

@Ltryptophan Yes, the link to the Wikipedia article is there, albeit ill formed, in the answer.

If you mean ”=”, then that was invented by the welsh Robert recorde in 1557, called “Gemowe lines”, meaning twin lines, derived from the latin “gemini”.

@ETpro there is no origin info on the wiki page… So where are you getting veritas?

Check marks (tick marks)

I always supposed it was a sort of truncated version of an elongated C for “correct.” But maybe it is the top half of an X (for “wrong”).

@Jeruba it is either one or the other then in your opinion? Do you think veritas is unlikely?

@Ltryptophan, those are both just guesses. I was remembering my early classroom days, very many years ago, when some teachers wrote an elongated script C (a curly C with a long tail) beside correct answers and some marked a sharp, efficient check. I supposed they were variants of the same symbol back when such things were apt to be more ruled by convention (no stickers, no happy faces) than they are now.

I wouldn’t be astonished if “veritas” turned out to be the answer, but I wouldn’t put it at the top of my likelihood list either, unless we learned that it had been around for a long time, going back to days when Latin was a standard part of the curriculum.

I’d be willing to make another guess, that its origin is somewhere other than in the classroom, such as in stockkeeping or household or estate management—some setting in which things have to be counted and checked and a record turned over to a master or lord. But I am totally guessing and don’t actually know a thing about it.

I think Nike invented it.

@Ltryptophan Just as @Jeruba I guessed. Took Latin back in High School. :-)