[GNC] [OT] Why is Debit abbreviated Dr?

[David Cousens]

Geoff

On Wed, 2018-09-05 at 20:42 +0200, Geoff Jankowski via gnucash-user wrote:
> For example, if I take cash from the cash box and deposit it at the bank I enter a cr to the cashbook and a dr to the
> bank account. 

I don't find the above really counterintuitive. It treats the cash book and bank account  as though they were someone
else holding your money for you, i.e. (who owes us). There is obviously an implicit assumption both on behalf of the
cashbox and the bank that when we take money out (who we owe) that we are going to have to put it back at some point. We
do that in a sense when we purchase an asset and enter the value of the asset as a debit entry in the account that
records it or as a debit entry in an Expense account.

Luca Pacciola, who was Leonardo DaVinci's maths tutor, was the first to make it less of a black art by spelling out the
mathematical basis behind double entry accounting in a codified sense. My own background is in mathematics and physics
but I did an accountancy degree several years before I retired, so once the accounting equation was laid out, what had
previously been an arcane mystery while accounting for a business I ran, suddenly became clear to me.

Jane Gleeson White's book, Double Entry: How the merchants of Venice shaped the modern world is an interesting read on
the history. The recorded western historical literature on accounting goes back to the Babylonian cultures and what
survives is mainly associated with recording tax collections and disbursements. Both the Japanese and Chinese also have
recorded accounting systems very early on.

Benedikta Kotruljevića's work, Book on the Art of Trade, originally written in 1458 in handwritten form in Croatia, but
not published and more widely distributed until the mid 1500s (which is possibly why Pacciola received all the credit), 
has been recently re-relased in translation. Pacciola's treatise, really on mathematics not accounting specifically, was
widely translated and distributed throughout Europe shortly after being originally released.

David