I got into a brief exchange with a fellow over Bernard von Nothaus using the word "dollar."

He said Nothaus had no right to use the word as it was reserved to the treasury and/or the fed reserve.

I tried to explain that nobody could claim or copyright the word because it was centuries long in common usage. That in fact since dollar was associated with silver coinage, Nothaus had a better claim than the government or the fed.

So, here is Rothbard (who took his research seriously) on the origin of the word "dollar."

[link to mises.org] (scroll down to section 4)

QUOTE

The "dollar" originated as the name generally applied to a one-ounce silver coin minted by a Bohemian count named Schlick, in the sixteenth century. Count Schlick lived in Joachimsthal (Joachim's Valley). His coins, which enjoyed a great reputation for uniformity and fineness, were called Joachimsthalers and finally, just thalers. The word dollar emerged from the pronunciation of thaler.

END QUOTE

So, it is just as I suspected. "Dollar" is a corruption of a Germanic word for valley - "thal."

I'll bet that thal became in English - dale.

Beyond this statement from Rothbard, I discovered that the coins were also called "tallers" and "talers"

Joachimsthal was a part of the Ore Mountains that lie on the border of Germany with Czechoslovakia.

[link to en.wikipedia.org]

That particular wikipedia entry is quite long and detailed with pictures and maps.

Quite interesting.

The silver coins produced there became the unit of settling contracts within the Hanseatic League that operated across national boundaries generally along the shores of the Baltic sea and westward to the North Sea.

[link to en.wikipedia.org]