Why do we call a ten-dollar bill a sawbuck? The support for woodworking known as a sawbuck folds out into the shape of an X, the same shape as the Roman numeral for ten. Hence, the slang term for the currency worth ten bucks. This is part of a complete episode.
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Maybe forty years ago, there was a column in Playboy magazine (See, I WAS reading it for the articles!) that discussed the “Land of Dixie” They said that in the French Quarter, a ten-spot was used that had big “X”s and the word “dix” on it. Dixieland was the area in which those bills circulated, rather than the land south of the Mason-Dixon line. They also claimed that’s where the term “sawbuck” came from.
The “Playboy Advisor” didn’t cite sources, but they seemed to be pretty reliable.