Why is the “r” in Debit?

 

Why is the “r” in Debit?

 

Six years back when I was teaching Accounting Evolution to the undergraduate students and used debit and credit terms in my explanation, a student just put a puzzling question to me, “why there is an ‘r’ in debit when this r does not exist in debit?”. I was really surprised and clueless as I never read it in books or say I was not smart enough to raise this question to my teacher despite it had struck into my mind in eleventh standard. Then I requested her to give me one day to make sure myself to explain answer for her question in a right way. The answer for this basic question is hidden in the history of evolution of Accountancy. Originally, the terms debit and credit both have Latin roots. The term debit comes from the word debitum, defined as "what is due," and credit comes from creditum, can be described as "something which is to be entrusted to another”.

I found in my investigation that there are three or four theories prevailed to explain this puzzle. Some teachers satisfy their students by explaining that the 'Dr' is an abbreviation for 'Debit Record' and the 'Cr' is an abbreviation for 'Credit Record', but, historical observation of accounting origin doesn't support this theory at all. Some researchers found that writing ‘Dr’ for the Debit was due to some sloppy handwriting and mistakenly, ‘De’ for Debit was written as ‘Dr’. It sets our logical reasoning somehow but it is also not a true fact behind the puzzle. A more satisfying theory is that as English texts for accounting were translated from the manuscripts originally written in Latin language. Actually, the Latin words ‘debere’ and ‘credere’ are the past participles for the English words debit and credit. So, the English translators must have simply kept the ‘Dr’ and ‘Cr’ as the abbreviations for debit and credit sides of the accounts.  However, most trusted theory for this ‘r’ is given by Professor W. Richard Sherman in his research and he rejects the past participles concept of debere and credere. Professor Sherman believes that he has solved the riddle of ‘r’ in Debit and supports his findings with some robust research. He explains that in every transaction of debit or credit escorts finally to the specific debtors or creditors. So, the mystery simply solved with the answer that ‘Dr’ is an abbreviation for debtor and ‘Cr’ is short for creditor. After investing almost a day in my investigation, I was able to explain all the prevailing theories and the most accurate one as well.