[HN Gopher] Understanding British Money: What's a Quid? A Shilli...
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Understanding British Money: What's a Quid? A Shilling? (2020)
Author : lisper
Score : 111 points
Date : 2023-03-02 23:32 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.iheartbritain.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.iheartbritain.com)
| dhanush13181 wrote:
| hello
| stormdennis wrote:
| I think five shillings (20 shillings in a pound) was sometimes
| called a dollar because for a long time there were four US
| dollars to the pound.
| bolanyo wrote:
| A dollar is 10 shilling, or half a pound, and I believe the
| name goes back much further than the US dollar, to the time
| when various European precious metal coinages would have been
| recognized and converted.
|
| The Australian dollar, and perhaps others, was set equal to
| half a British pound at the point when they obtained their own
| currency.
| taejo wrote:
| The South African rand was indeed also introduced as half a
| pound in 1961 (technically half a South African pound, but
| that had been equal to the pound sterling except 1931-1933)
| denton-scratch wrote:
| A thruppny bit (three-penny piece) was my favourite coin. It was
| a brassy colour, different from every other coin - not coppery,
| and not silvery. It was quite heavy - it felt like wealth. It had
| twelve sides - the only sterling coin that had sides, until the
| introduction of the 50p bit, with decimalisation.
|
| The other thing I liked about it was that three is such a crazy
| denomination for a currency token, like a three-dollar bill;
| three old pennies were heavier and bigger, but the old pennies
| were ridiculously large and heavy.
|
| I also liked florins and half-crowns. A florin was a two-shilling
| piece, and a half-crown was two-and-a-half shillings. These were
| coins that actually contained silver.
|
| A crown was five shillings, but not generally used as currency,
| it was issued as a memorial, like a medal. At one time I owned a
| Churchill Crown, issued to commemorate Churchill's death. They
| were big, heavy coins. That's why a half-crown was two-and-a-half
| shillings.
| dspig wrote:
| thruppny bit is _also_ ryhming slang, but in the other
| direction
| pessimizer wrote:
| My favorite money has always been the guinea because it set the
| profit for middlemen. You would pay the auctioneer in guineas (21
| shillings) and they would pay the seller of the item in pounds
| (20 shillings), giving the auctioneer a 4.75% commission.
| moremetadata wrote:
| > Luckily for those who enjoy travelling to the UK, the pound
| sterling has been weak in recent years, dipping as low as $1.07
| in late 2022. Even still, dollars buy a lot more than they used
| to in the UK, so it's a great time to be travelling and shopping
| at British businesses.
|
| https://www.royal.uk/coronation-weekend
|
| Dont delay, book your coronation fortnite holiday straight away
| and upload your hot pics to youtube!
|
| This is your chance to be part of history, captured in 8K
| definition by the BBC, as you line the route waving your Union
| flags, doffing your top hat to his majesty as he drives past you
| or taking a curtsey if dressed up as the fairer sex, which some
| men like Grayson Perry have been known to do. We'll take
| dictators, we'll take Jimmy Saville, we dont care as long as you
| spend lots of money when over here!
|
| Take part in street parties, tell us where you are from and get
| to rub shoulders with cockney geezer's that sound like they are
| straight out of a Mary Poppins adaption, Cor Blimey Guvnor,
| steady on, or something like Guy Ritchie's Lock Stock and Two
| Smoking Barrels.
|
| There's a Ronnie Pickering in every town, and if he's not driving
| you around the bend, you'll find him in the nearest pub.
|
| Take in a football match, there is a Gordon Parmar Hill aka The
| Wealdstone Raider in every club waiting to oblige you in
| conversation and vocabulary a five year could understand, great
| for those people who want to practice their English skills on the
| cheap.
|
| Or maybe you'd like to hunt some of the world famous Haggis in
| the wee hills of Scotland, its the only endangered species in the
| world not on the endangered species list, which some think is not
| offally fair game.
|
| Find out who your Scottish relatives were and kit yourself out in
| the family tartan whilst tasting a wee dram of whiskey from the
| thousands on offer? Everyone has Scottish descendants, even
| Donald Trump!
|
| Either way, the country is broke, and we are selling the crown
| jewels, so come to the UK and give us your money, its all hands
| on deck.
|
| Decimalisation was just a dignified slight of hand way to cover
| up a hyper inflationary currency collapse from the oldest
| currency in the world.
|
| Ignore the news that everything costs so much here especially
| food and heating, we are all doing fine, I'm hoping to have
| defrosted and come out of hibernation and be able to move in time
| for the coronation but at least I'm putting Stephen Hawkins speak
| and spell to good use communicating with the world.
|
| Remember Global Warming lowers your heating bills, so jump on a
| plane, and jet into the UK for a fortnight long holiday, taking
| in the best of British.
|
| If you fancy an unusual souvenir, we have bridges for sale,
| telephone boxes, and post boxes. They'll make the perfect metals
| investment to hand down to your kids, whilst reminding yourself
| of what a good time you had when you come to witness a country
| going mad, putting aside their differences, and showing respect
| to the Crown.
|
| This once in a lifetime event hinges on you attending in person,
| so all the press will be gushing their Levity, not drawing
| attention to the Age of Empires, we've all moved on from that,
| although Charles has been watching too much Dr Who and is stuck
| in a time vortex from another world.
|
| So dont delay, there will be dignitaries and politicians from
| around the world in attendance, it will be the best walking
| talking Madam Tussaud's show you'll ever see. You'll be bumping
| into more stars than you can see at the London Planetarium, more
| stars than the Royal Greenwich Observatory, where you can
| actually take part in time itself!
|
| But all these rare events only happen during the week before and
| week after the crowning of a monarch, something many countries
| got rid of because they thought best.
|
| And if you are really lucky, you'll find many people selling
| their souvenir quids and shillings that they have had tucked away
| safely down the back of their sofa. The money is worthless, but
| your kids or grand kids, could melt them down in years to come
| for the precious metal content, or keep them as a souvenir before
| cryptocurrency's took over the world.
|
| Remember London is the only Govt backed crypto currency
| laundromat in the world!
|
| So come and invade for two weeks only, the Empire that gave you
| English before the Americans bastardised it, and take part in the
| world's biggest fancy dress party!
| mrlonglong wrote:
| Brilliant!
| vaughan wrote:
| I never heard of "smacker", but now I understand where
| "smackeroos/smackeroonies" comes from in Aus.
| goodcanadian wrote:
| A note on the guinea. IIRC, it was originally intended to be a
| gold one pound coin. However, the value of gold went up just when
| it was issued so it was revalued higher by adding the extra
| shilling. I imagine the extra prestige associated with it was
| mostly about it being gold.
| secondcoming wrote:
| It's still used in horse racing.
| dmurray wrote:
| I've variously heard it was a 5% commission for the groom,
| jockey, or auctioneer. If a horse won a 100 guinea prize, the
| owner conventionally got 100 pounds and someone else got 100
| shillings in commission.
| bolanyo wrote:
| I don't know about this aspect, but horse sales typically
| involved this type of commission. The buyer would pay in
| guineas (or PS1.05 times the nominal purchase price) and
| the seller would receive that number of pounds, with the
| extra going to the auctioneer.
|
| I'm not sure if this system persists now, but it definitely
| lasted long past decimalization.
| walnutclosefarm wrote:
| And oddly, in auctions for farm animals. If you go to buy a
| bull at an auction mart, you bid guineas, not pounds.
| [deleted]
| bolanyo wrote:
| In fact, a shilling was defined in terms of silver ('sterling
| silver' gives us the 'pound sterling'), so it was a bimetallic
| system.
| Havoc wrote:
| Slightly easier explanation is that a quid is used the same way
| the word "bucks" is used for USD.
| secondcoming wrote:
| It's actually not unheard of that people with Scottish banknotes
| sometimes encounter difficulty when using them elsewhere. Small
| shop owners might not know that they can be accepted. It's not so
| much of an issue these days since everywhere is pretty much
| cashless.
| smcl wrote:
| It really can vary. I remember having trouble spending Royal
| Bank of Scotland notes in England at the start of one trip, and
| after landing in Frankfurt airport for a transfer I was able to
| spend them without any problems in a shop which accepted EUR,
| GBP and USD. Also funny, here in Czech Republic I saw a money
| exchange place listing rates for both GBP and "SCP", the latter
| having little Scottish flag beside it and a worse rate :D
| gerikson wrote:
| The worse rate is understandable as the "resell value" is
| lower for a Scottish issued note than one issued by the BoE.
| smcl wrote:
| I am not complaining - I don't have reason to, I earn the
| local currency - I'm just amused they even exchanged
| Scottish notes at all, and even more so that explicitly
| stated that they would.
| gerjomarty wrote:
| As with Northern Irish bank notes, which have a similar place
| in English society to the Scottish ones. The pub I went to got
| very confused when I presented a PS10 note issued by the Bank
| of Ireland, which I guess would be confusing if you had no
| knowledge of it.
|
| I think the phrase "legal tender" has a lot to answer for here.
| It's a really well known phrase, and you'll hear shop owners
| say they can't accept these notes because they're not "legal
| tender", but the actual definition of it is only applicable
| when settling debt in specific circumstances.
| notahacker wrote:
| tbf, the actual definition of "legal tender" gives shops even
| more right to reject banknotes of a design they're unfamiliar
| with, which is why they also often refuse to accept PS50
| notes which are legal tender...
| projektfu wrote:
| The BoI notes also felt cheaper to me than the English ones,
| so maybe they look counterfeit to the untrained eye. Maybe
| it's good as they function as a sort of local scrip and serve
| there purpose of recirculating money locally, etc., but they
| will be converted on the other side of the sea.
| ghaff wrote:
| A few years back, I had some older English (pre-plastic?)
| notes. I had to take them to a bank to exchange for
| "proper" notes because stores wouldn't accept them.
| Tsiklon wrote:
| I think the Northern Irish notes have a worse and more
| obscure place in England than the Scottish ones, up until
| last year there were 4 different issuing banks in Northern
| Ireland: Bank of Ireland, Danske Bank, Ulster Bank and First
| Trust Bank [who now no longer issue].
|
| It's quite entertaining to handover a Danish-Irish-UK pound
| sterling note in the UK, like somehow the viking era never
| ended.
| gerjomarty wrote:
| Not to mention the infamous Northern bank, which Danske
| Bank replaced. I don't think I've ever seen a note
| replacement scheme happen as quickly as the one that
| replaced all of the green Northern bank notes for purple
| ones after the Northern bank robbery, which I believe is
| still the largest amount of money stolen from a bank at
| once in UK history, right?
| 88 wrote:
| For small shop owners it's a vicious cycle. They don't want to
| take in Scottish notes because many customers won't want them
| as change. Customers don't want them as change because a lot of
| shop owners won't take them.
|
| As per the article, they're not legal tender so no one is
| required to take them as payment.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| That's not what legal tender means. Legal tender is what must
| be accepted in settlement of a debt. Buying something in a
| shop does not involve any debt and the shopkeeper can accept
| or not any form of payment they like including legal tender.
| Symbiote wrote:
| PS20 notes should rarely be needed for change. Have you had
| problems with Scottish PS20 notes being accepted?
| ghaff wrote:
| Maybe about 10 years ago I was trying to pay for something in a
| London store with a Scottish banknote and the clerk didn't want
| to take it. (Their manager came over and said it was fine but,
| yeah, it happens.)
|
| Though last time I was in London, I dumped a few coins from my
| currency stash for a museum entrance donation and I didn't
| otherwise touch my cash at all. And don't think I touched my
| Euros at all when in Dublin for the same trip.
| zeristor wrote:
| Having not used cash for three years, and seeing more places
| not accept cash this is less of an issue.
|
| I've had Scottish bank notes declined in the past though.
|
| The local Fish & Chip shops only accept cash, so it does help
| me to avoid eating unhealthy food, although if there was a way
| to find it when they're using fresh oil they'd probably be far
| more tasty.
| Temporary_31337 wrote:
| The article is out of date as it suggests that the uk is in the
| eu
| Symbiote wrote:
| It's also illustrated with the PS1 coin that was withdrawn 51/2
| years ago, and banknotes that are also all withdrawn years ago.
|
| It's also incorrect to say visitors won't deal with PS50 notes.
| They're rarely in ATMs but they are common when exchanging cash
| abroad.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| PS50 notes were popular for criminal transactions, and also
| they were widely forged; I don't know whether that's still
| the case, but I'm very reluctant to accept a PS50 note. If a
| shopkeeper checks it and decides it's a forgery, they have to
| take it off me for nothing, and I'm down fifty nicker.
| notahacker wrote:
| It's correct to say visitors _shouldn 't_ deal with PS50
| notes if they can possibly help it, because they will
| generally struggle to pay for anything with them though..
| Symbiote wrote:
| They shouldn't have any problems in London, especially at
| places tourists typically frequent.
|
| I once worked at such a place, and the till would be
| stuffed with PS50 notes by the end of lunchtime.
|
| I realise it's different north of Watford.
| ghaff wrote:
| Anything over a $20 bill has been hard to use in many/most
| stores for a very long time in the US (which seemingly at
| one point decided to freeze currency denominations in amber
| --see also penny--which I assume is permanent at this point
| as less and less cash gets used). But $100 bills at least
| were in pretty common use overseas. I still tend to carry
| some as backup cash.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| >As a member of the EU, they could have opted to use the Euro,
| but they decided not to.
|
| I think, just very poorly written.
| ljf wrote:
| Depends on how you read it - I read as a historical fact:
|
| /As a member of the EU, they could have opted to use the Euro,
| but they decided not to./
|
| So 'when they were a member of the EU, they could have taken in
| the euro, but didn't, so still have the pound'
| goodcanadian wrote:
| Judging from the date on the exchange rates quoted, the UK
| was still (just) in the EU when it was written. Regardless,
| the rest of the content is still current either way you
| interpret it.
| winrid wrote:
| The first time I visited England when I was 19 the people I was
| visiting showed me all this, and consequently a lot of my cash
| was turned into "shrapnel".
|
| Later I wanted to buy some vodka, and someone wanted chocolate
| milk, so imagine the look on the cashier's face as I pay for ONLY
| vodka and chocolate milk with spare change.
| blackshaw wrote:
| Fun fact: the 20p and 50p coins are Reuleaux heptagons[0]. This
| means that they have a constant diameter even though they're not
| circular, which means that they can be accurately sorted by
| vending machines.
|
| [0] https://wikiless.org/wiki/Reuleaux_polygon?lang=en
| tylerag wrote:
| Link that has functioning CSS:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuleaux_polygon
| n1b0m wrote:
| There's also a Reuleaux wheeled bike [1]
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/ebRI4kFmR7U
| recuter wrote:
| I like this bike better:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRmdssX9l2g
| n1b0m wrote:
| That's pretty awesome. I quite like this one too
| https://youtu.be/PX3A7GLtFqM
| I_complete_me wrote:
| And of course "How to drill a square hole"
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5AzbDJ7KYI
| gostsamo wrote:
| Good Omens had one of the most eye-opening introductions to old
| british currency on the level of monoids and endofunctors. Since
| then I'm avoiding both.
| [deleted]
| jmfldn wrote:
| "1 mite = 1/8 penny, 1 farthing = 1/4 penny, 2 farthings = 1
| halfpenny (pronounced more like "haypenny"), 2 halfpence = 1
| penny (or a 'copper'), 2 pence = 1 tuppence or a half-groat, 3
| pence = 1 thruppence, 4 pence = 1 groat, 6 pence = 1 sixpence
| (a 'tanner'), 12 pence = 1 shilling (a bob), 2 shillings = 1
| florin ( a 'two bob bit'), 2 shillings and 6 pence = 1 half
| crown, 5 shillings = 1 Crown"
|
| What's the problem ;)
|
| Joking-aside, it's amazing to me that anyone ever got fluent
| with this. My dad and grandparents never complain about the
| pre-decimalisation period so I guess you just get used to it.
|
| I think I'll stick to learning the category theory mentioned by
| op over this.
| MarcScott wrote:
| It's no more complicated than measurements and weights in the
| imperial system.
|
| We're a weird country. We decimalised our currency, our
| weights and measures in shops and science, but we can't let
| go of imperial measures. Amongst the general population,
| people are far more comfortable talking about miles and miles
| per hour, than kilometers. Land sizes are still measured in
| acres and hectares. If you ask anyone their height, you'll
| probably get an answer in feet and inches, but ask their
| weight and they're more likely to tell you in kilograms
| rather than pounds and stone.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Hectares are metric, 1ha = 100m x 100m = 10000m2.
| 7952 wrote:
| A lot of those things are not actively measured but are
| more experiential or used as an approximation. Height in
| feet is about how tall someone is, not their exact height.
| A mile to the pub is about how long it will take to walk,
| not the exact distance. Younger Brits will tend to use
| these terms in conversation but revert to metric more when
| something actually needs to be measured.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| > A mile to the pub is about how long it will take to
| walk, not the exact distance. Younger Brits will tend to
| use these terms in conversation but revert to metric more
| when something actually needs to be measured.
|
| Doesn't this get confusing when all traffic and road
| signs, car instruments, etc. are in miles and miles per
| hour?
| Eisenstein wrote:
| Don't even think about fuel efficiency ratings (MPG) vs.
| petrol dispense volume (L).
| 7952 wrote:
| You don't typically need to reason about those numbers
| though. You know what 30mph feels like.
| vmilner wrote:
| I can't remember when I last heard a Brit of any age use
| kilometres in any context.
| ghaff wrote:
| I assume that, as in the US, SI units are used in many
| scientific and technical contexts.
| vmilner wrote:
| It's kilometres specifically that I hear used rarely in
| the Uk. Other SI units are relatively common I agree.
| throwaway472919 wrote:
| People who are into running/cycling use "K" a lot,
| personally I think it's because once someone starts
| talking in km, if you use miles your stats will look bad
| by comparison. I know trackers/apps probably had this as
| default from the start because Europe=metric but so did a
| lot of satnavs and it didn't change our language in the
| same way.
| 7952 wrote:
| mm is used constantly in engineering and km will be used
| for long distances in professional settings.
| vmilner wrote:
| Metres and mm I hear a lot but kilometres very little -
| mainly because of miles on road signs. I guess the last
| reference I remember is to 5K runs.
| Symbiote wrote:
| It's rare to need kilometres in engineering, but I know
| from a friend that works at Network Rail that everything
| is done in kilometres, except final conversions on many
| older railway lines where the mileposts still measure
| miles.
|
| Those small blue signs at the side of motorways, and the
| white emergency location posts, both use kilometres.
| ghaff wrote:
| >It's rare to need kilometres in engineering
|
| Yeah, the thing with imperial units and engineering is
| that once you get anywhere near mass, weight, force,
| energy, and all the related units for same, it can get
| very confusing and error prone. So are we talking pounds-
| mass, pounds-force, or slugs? (The latter being something
| that probably no one who didn't take
| engineering/physics/etc. classes has ever heard of.)
| jmfldn wrote:
| It's incredibly common to use km here, and miles.
| bolanyo wrote:
| I don't recognize the 'vibiness' of imperial length and
| distance measurements at all. Perhaps this is a
| pareidolic interpretation which came to you when you
| noticed people using both sets of measurement types?
| jmfldn wrote:
| What's amazing is how we mix the two. Case in point, my
| wife and I are both runners, she measures her pace in
| minutes per mile, I use minutes per km. When we exchange
| stats we have to do the conversion. She does it as her
| running club uses the mile convention. This is despite the
| fact that we're doing 10 km races. So you're running a 10
| km and talking about a '7 minute mile'?!
|
| We're an eccentric bunch!
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Some years ago I was a carpenter in the UK. From what I can
| see this has changed little since then... If I were laying
| out for sheet materials...mdf or plasterboard came in
| metric sizes 2400x1200mm so joists or studs went at 400mm
| centres. If I were laying out for plywood it came in 8x4ft
| sheets so I would use 16 inch centres.
|
| If I were measuring a space to cut something to fit I would
| use inches or feet and inches, 23 an 1/8, for instance.
|
| I might need a small hole about 1/8 of an inch, open my
| drill box and select a 3mm.
|
| If I were ordering timber I might ask for a 3 metre length
| of 4x2. As in 4x2 inches! If 3m were too long you might
| prefer an 8ft length. The yardman would walk you straight
| to the 2.4m pile without hesitation. Of course timber
| lengths are in 300mm increments to align with the feet of
| old. When you got your despatch note it would say something
| like 2400x100x50. Or perhaps they used regularised timber
| and it would have been machined down to 97x47 which may or
| may not be mentioned on the ticket. It would still be
| called 4x2 whatever!
|
| Thing is, none of this caused us any trouble whatsoever.
| Well.. apprentices who learnt cm at school (which was NEVER
| used in construction) had a fun few weeks at the beginning.
|
| I had engineers use all the same terms to me verbally, but
| never in their written work which were always in mm
| bolanyo wrote:
| Distances on road signs are still in miles and speed limits
| are still in mph, so familiarity with miles reflects their
| official status, not just British weirdness/quaintness.
| notahacker wrote:
| And also, unlike the weirdness of pre-decimal currency or
| some of our more obscure weights and measures units, the
| miles we talk about are rough approximations that aren't
| supposed to be subdivided or converted into anything
| precise (or anything more precise than "about half a
| mile") so there's no particular advantage to using an SI
| unit
| denton-scratch wrote:
| I still find it easier to assess my body weight in stones
| and pounds (14 pounds, one stone). I'm currently about 13
| stone 7lb. I have no idea what my weight is in kilos.
| [deleted]
| jt2190 wrote:
| > What's the problem ;)
|
| Frustratingly, the article doesn't say! For example, could
| the reason for the weird fractions be coin cutting? [1]
|
| [1] "Medieval Cut Pennies"
| https://www.cointalk.com/threads/medieval-cut-
| pennies.266902...
| raverbashing wrote:
| > anyone ever got fluent with this.
|
| I think they didn't. It is a mix of colloquialisms of
| different origins (one farthing is "one fourth-ing" said too
| many times) but some might have been localized versions, etc
| or just used in specific situations.
|
| So I'm pretty sure most people knew some of those but not all
| of them.
|
| But if you think about it penny/nickel/dime etc is also
| confusing. Less confusing but still. Just tell me I'm 15
| cents short or something like that.
| dmurray wrote:
| They all sound pretty standard to me, with the exception of
| "mite". I think at one point most people would absolutely
| have known all of them, but there were hundreds or
| thousands of other regional variations that would have been
| less known.
| Symbiote wrote:
| I'm not sure there's a whole paragraph in this article
| without an error, omission or oversight.
|
| Mite doesn't have a standard definition. My unabridged
| Oxford dictionary says it was just a very small amount of
| money, and people gave it various definitions.
|
| Copper means _any_ copper coin, it 's never been specific
| to a one penny coin. Currently it means the copper-coloured
| coins, 1p or 2p.
|
| Groats as coins worth four pence were last issued in 1662,
| and according to the OED later 4 pence coins were called
| fourpence or fourpenny bits/pieces, including in casual
| speech.
|
| Most of the words are straightforward fractions or
| multiples of a penny, with optional slurred pronunciations:
| 1/4 penny = farthing 1/2 penny = halfpenny or
| ha'penny 1 penny, usually abbreviated as 1d
| 2 pence = tuppence 3 pence = thruppence,
| thre'penny bit 4 pence = fourpence piece,
| fourpenny bit 6 pence = sixpence (slang: tanner)
| 12 pence = 1 shilling (slang: bob) 2 shillings = 1
| florin (slang: two bob bit) 2s 6d = half crown
| 5 shillings = 1 crown 20 shillings = 4 crowns = 1
| pound 21 shillings = 1 guinea
|
| As I understand it, normally prices and other quantities
| were spoken in pounds, shillings and pence unless they
| fitted a coin exactly. Something cost "6 shillings", not "1
| crown 1 shilling" or "3 florins" etc.
|
| Just like the USA, where a movie ticket presumably once
| cost a nickel, then a dime, but then 15 cents. (Although
| none of the old words above are in standard usage in
| Britain.)
| bolanyo wrote:
| I know lots of old people who are absolutely fluent with
| almost all these terms (excluding 'mite' and 'groat'),
| could reckon with them quickly and accurately, and who
| (when I was younger) would quickly and accurately translate
| decimalized amounts into shillings and pence.
| gostsamo wrote:
| People can accustom themselves to all kinds of unpleasantness
| and even grow fond of it, but the truth is that it is mental
| overload which might cause unnecessary errors.
| irrational wrote:
| I assume that is how people that are only familiar with
| metric view the imperial measurement system. 1/64, 1/32,
| 1/16, 1/8, 3/16, 1/4, 5/16, 3/8, 7/16, 1/2, 9/16, 5/8, 11/16,
| etc. for inches. 1 inch = 1/12 foot, 2 inches = 1/6 foot,
| etc. I use all of these so often on woodworking that it is
| super easy for me. I presume that same was for money in the
| pre-digital age.
| DonaldFisk wrote:
| Grew up in the 1960s, pre-decimal. In primary school, we
| learned to do arithmetic in pounds, shillings, and pence (but
| no longer farthings) and also learned imperial units. The
| coins in circulation at the time were 1/2d, 1d, 3d, 6d, 1/-
| (1s), 2/-, and 2/6d. There was also a 10/- banknote. Some
| prices were in guineas (21/-).
|
| They stopped minting groats (4d) after 1856 (except in Maundy
| money), half-farthings after 1870, and farthings after 1956.
| Farthings and silver thrupnies (3d) were still around but not
| in circulation.
|
| The florin (2/-, or a tenth of a pound) was introduced during
| the first attempt at decimalization in 1849.
|
| Crowns (5/-) were never in circulation, but were minted for
| special events such as coronations. They still are, but their
| face value is now PS5.
|
| Decimalization began in 1968 with the introduction of 5p and
| 10p coins (same size and value as 1/- and 2/- coins) followed
| by the 50p coin (10/-) in 1969. It was completed in 1971 with
| the introduction of the 1/2p, 1p, and 2p coins.
|
| From secondary school onwards, it was decimal money and
| metric/SI units, which simplified calculations a bit.
|
| Ireland decimalized at the same time as UK, and Australia and
| New Zealand a few years earlier (at the rate of two dollars
| to one pound).
| hakfoo wrote:
| I think crowns circulated up to the end of Victoria's
| reign. They're widely found in circulated conditions.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > and 2/6d.
|
| Also known as half a crown, or two-and-six.
| goodcanadian wrote:
| Eh, it's not that complicated. It is just pounds, shillings,
| and pence. The rest are mostly just terms for coins that
| existed at various times, roughly equivalent to nickel, dime,
| quarter. Some of them are even slang terms (quid, bob)
| similar to buck or two bits.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| As mentioned here, you will often see historical prices
| quoted as _PS_ x y _s_ z _d_ ... which might lead to the
| question "why is a penny abbreviated to d"?
|
| In fact, the PS sign is a stylized letter L, and the system
| is really Lsd: libra (meaning, amongst other things, pound
| in Latin), solidus, denarius. This is the Carolingian
| monetary system and, as the name suggests, goes back to the
| Holy Roman Empire - as early as the 8th century.
|
| That includes the L 1 = 20 s = 240 d ratio that made its
| way to pre-decimalization British currency.
| jmfldn wrote:
| No I know. I was being somewhat facetious.
|
| As someone else mentioned, us Brits still use imperial
| measurements (to some extent) and I get by, just about!
| dontlaugh wrote:
| A few people I talked to eventually admitted it was more
| common to get the wrong change in their youth than after
| decimalisation.
| alserio wrote:
| The gold ones are Galleons. Seventeen silver Sickles to a
| Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it's easy enough.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > it's amazing to me that anyone ever got fluent with this.
|
| Twelve (pence to the shilling) is actually quite a convenient
| way of denominating money. Twelve has more divisors than ten,
| which makes a lot of calculations easier. It wasn't so hard
| to learn the basics - 12 pence to the shilling, 20 shillings
| to the pound; a child could do it. But working out 17.5% VAT
| on a transaction in decimal coinage isn't so much fun.
| kurthr wrote:
| If a Crown was an hour, a mite would be 7min and 30sec.
|
| You could call 24 Crown and a Drown and 360 of those would be
| a Yawn. Throw in 5 or 6 extra Drown every Yawn, and you'd add
| a Drown to the 4th, 6th, 7th, and 11th Shawn of the Yawn, but
| subtract two Drown from the second Yawn, if you're electing a
| president, and then only subtract one, cuz Merica!
| smcl wrote:
| Just to add some more niche currency slang. A few of the Hibs
| casuals[0] that used to come into the pub I worked at sometimes
| referred to pounds as "sheets" - "it set me back fifty sheets" =
| "it cost me 50 pounds". I don't know how common it is, I only
| heard it around these guys.
|
| [0] - Hibs = Hibernian Football Club in Edinburgh, casuals =
| hooligan supporters (who were alright with me so long as they
| thought I supported a nothing-team like Montrose and didn't know
| I actually supported Aberdeen :D)
| Underphil wrote:
| I'm from the Midlands and have heard that many times.
| rubans wrote:
| Here's a good video about coins https://youtu.be/jRDOmgJyznI
| MarcScott wrote:
| There are also coins called the Sovereign and Britannia, which
| are both legal tender, although not in general circulation. Both
| are minted from 24 carat gold. The Sovereign has a face value of
| 1 pound and I think the Britannia has a face value of 5. There
| actual value, on gold markets, is hundreds of pounds, and for a
| Britannia is over a thousand. Because they are legal tender, and
| could theoretically be used to buy a bottle of milk, they are
| exempt from VAT and capital gains tax, when buying or selling.
|
| There's also enduring slang for some some values of cash, that
| doesn't necessarily have an accompanying bank note. A Pony for 25
| pounds and a Ton for 100 is still fairly widely understood, but
| mostly heard these days in Guy Ritchie movies,.
| [deleted]
| MrsPeaches wrote:
| Other slang terms (more commonly used in London):
|
| - "Nugget" - PS1
|
| - "Reds" - PS50 (usually only used in the plural e.g. a stack
| of reds)
|
| - "Bill" - PS100
|
| - "Monkey" - PS500
|
| - "Grand" - PS1000
|
| - "Bag" - PS1000 (from cockney "bag of sand" rhyming with
| "grand")
| wrycoder wrote:
| Anyone know what a hundred "large" might mean?
| slowwriter wrote:
| I believe it's a hundred thousand
| blackshaw wrote:
| I'm British and have never heard any of these before except
| "grand".
| dazc wrote:
| I always thought Bag of Sand as Scouse, we live and learn?
| denton-scratch wrote:
| Cockney rhyming slang. The custom is that you take a two-
| word phrase whose second word rhymes with the target
| word, and then you just use the first word.
|
| So "Plates of meat" == "feet", but you just say "me
| plates are cold". Scousers don't do that.
|
| [Edit] There was a cafe off Haymarket in London, called
| "My Old China". That was another kind of plate; a "china"
| is a "china plate", which rhymes with "mate". So it's "my
| old mate".
| frobozz wrote:
| PS5 and its multiples: Lady, Ayrton, Commodore, Score, Pony.
|
| Sadly, I think these are dying out due to the move towards a
| cashless society.
|
| The most common use for any of these (for me) was to ask
| someone to lend me a bit of cash when I'd left my wallet at
| home.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| As in "Lend me a tenor"?
| corblimeyguvnor wrote:
| Translation - more rhyming slang, although not necessarily
| 'cockney' Lady Godiva - 'fiver' (PS5) Ayton Senna -
| 'tenner' (PS10) - obviously a more modern idiom.
|
| I have not come accross a Commodore before so am going to
| guess because of where it sits in the list as PS15
|
| Score - PS20 (as in three-score-years-and-10 and all that)
| Pony - PS25 - some latin root in there - that is an old
| one.
|
| I don't think they are dying out, in that paying a pony is
| still PS25 with cash or with a card.
| sbuk wrote:
| Commodore - Once, twice, three times a lady...
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| And as well as Ton and Pony there's:
|
| - "Score" - PS20
|
| - "Nicker" - PS1
|
| Or if you want to go full cockney "Deep Sea Diver" or "Lady
| Godiva" PS5 (fiver), and "Ayrton Senna" for PS10 (tenner)
| simonh wrote:
| My desktop host name is fiver after the character from
| Watership Down (and it's a 5k iMac), so the VM I run on it
| is Godiva.
| finnh wrote:
| Funny, mine is "fivek". I bought that machine the first
| week it was available, I'd been waiting and waiting for a
| large hires screen so the name fell right out.
| dewclin wrote:
| Also (possibly only amongst bankers in London):
|
| - "Yard" - PSbillion (derived from the french "milliard")
| twic wrote:
| Also "buck" and "bar", which I think are one and two
| million. Not uniquely British, but certainly used here.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Milliard was the standard British word for 1,000,000,000
| until some point in the 1970s.
| throw0101c wrote:
| From _Numberphile_ , "How big is a billion?" (2012):
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-52AI_ojyQ
| simonh wrote:
| Then there was the British billion, which was a million
| million. The US version has taken over completely.
| mejutoco wrote:
| Same in German.
| gerikson wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales
| shrubhub wrote:
| Born and bred Londoner, never heard nugget in my life. TIL!
| frobozz wrote:
| I use(d) it a lot. Specifically for pound coins, rather
| than the value of PS1.
|
| e.g. you would ask, "Can you swap us 5 nuggets for a Lady?"
| If you wanted to go and get something from a vending
| machine, but only had notes.
|
| Even more so than other terms, I think this is being lost
| to cashlessness.
| MrsPeaches wrote:
| It's a bit outdated tbh, as it was a reference to to gold
| colour of the pound coin (as shown in the article).
|
| To be used as follows:
|
| Bredda, set me a nugget. I've only got 50p and I'm feeling
| that Junior Spesh [1]
|
| [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6pbZLiLt30
| makingstuffs wrote:
| Jacks: fiva: PS5
| jdksncnskw wrote:
| Also used to denote weights of certain herbs circa 2000:
|
| Jacks: PS5
|
| Ben: PS10
|
| Henry (I.e 1/8): PS20
| beowulfey wrote:
| I didn't realize grand for 1000 was slang. That one made it
| to the USA too.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| I think it probably crossed the atlantic in the other
| direction; I'm pretty sure that "grand" for a thousand
| didn't originate here.
| gumby wrote:
| Americans also say "large" for $1000, and "grand" is
| French for "large" so the travel might have been in the
| opposite direction.
| bradwood wrote:
| score == 20GBP
|
| for 50 quid, I've heard "reddies" quite a bit too, but my
| personal favourite -- an "Ayrton" for 10GBP (rhyming slang:
| Ayrton Senna -> tenner)
| dazc wrote:
| An Archer, PS2,000
|
| 'A reference to the libel case involving the novelist Jeffrey
| Archer. The term is slang for the sum of PS2,000, a reference
| to the amount that Archer allegedly offered as a bribe which
| was the basis of the case.' https://inews.co.uk/light-
| relief/offbeat/the-most-confusing-...
| benj111 wrote:
| Bob is also now another word for pounds. That might be a
| northern thing though.
| lIl-IIIl wrote:
| Thank you so much. I finally understand the line "I put a pony
| on Liverpool" from "IT Crowd".
| roter wrote:
| Stick a pony in me pocket
|
| I'll fetch the suitcase from the van
|
| 'Cos if you want the best ones
|
| But you don't ask questions
|
| Then brother, I'm your man
|
| - Fools & Horses Theme
| ehecatl42 wrote:
| I think it was the popularity of Only Fools and Horses that
| gave rise to a pseudo-Cockney slang common in my time as an
| undergrad. Degrees were ranked:
|
| - Geoff (Hurst) -- Class I -- "first"
|
| - Simon (leBonn) -- Class II:1
|
| - Desmond (Tutu) -- Class II:2
|
| - Douglas (Hurd) -- Class III "turd"
|
| (I matriculated '91. And not in London.)
| secondcoming wrote:
| A 1oz Britannia has a face value of PS100
| rwmj wrote:
| > [sovereigns] are exempt from VAT and capital gains tax
|
| This is a weird corner of UK tax law. If you buy gold bars and
| sell them at a profit you have to pay tax on the gains. If you
| buy and sell the equivalent weight of sovereigns there is no
| tax to pay, because they're just currency. Buying and selling
| gold coins in general (like Krugerrands that were not produced
| by the Royal Mint) attracts tax. Then there are coins which
| used to be legal tender but are no longer (pre-1837 sovereigns)
| which have a separate exemption from tax, unless they're a
| "set" of such coins where there is a different limit.
|
| (Not legal advice!)
| Aperocky wrote:
| But are sovereign coins as accessible as gold? How much
| markup do they command?
| rwmj wrote:
| Absolutely - loads of companies (including the Royal Mint)
| sell them online. Prices seem to vary depending on whether
| the issue is collectable or not. If you're not fussed about
| buying something collectable but just want the best price,
| the mark-ups seem to be around 5% over the price of gold.
| Note that as well as not having to pay capital gains tax on
| profits, you don't pay any VAT [like a sales tax] on the
| sale either. This is very unusual - almost no other non-
| essential item is zero-rated for VAT.
| NLips wrote:
| Note that legal tender != can buy milk with. Legal tender is
| only about payment of debt. A shop selling you something
| doesn't have to accept any specific form of payment, as they
| don't let you build up a tab which needs repaying.
| LBJsPNS wrote:
| Were I a shopkeeper and someone offered me a PS1 Sovereign
| for PS1 worth of merchandise, I don't think I would have any
| trouble accepting it.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| The Coinage Act of 1971 describes, in detail, which
| combinations of coins must be accepted for various purchase
| amounts.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| Grand (PS1000) is also a really common term. I think I hear
| that more than the mathematical term.
| martyvis wrote:
| We use "grand" ubiquitously here in Australia for $1000.
| mattpallissard wrote:
| Here in America too.
| DonaldFisk wrote:
| Some minor corrections: the sovereign is 22 carat gold, the
| gold Britannia (24 carat) has a face value PS100, and the
| silver Britannia has a face value of PS2.
| _dain_ wrote:
| A better explanation is Lindybeige's video about pre-decimal
| British coinage:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2paSGQRwvo
|
| It goes into the underlying mindset behind this seemingly bizarre
| system. Basically:
|
| - the penny was always the fundamental unit. every denomination
| was defined in terms of the penny, not the pound or the shilling.
| It wasn't like the modern system where the fundamental unit is
| the pound (or dollar) and pennies (or cents) are defined as
| hundredths.
|
| - the system was evolved, not designed
|
| - different multiples and fractions of the penny went in and out
| of fashion at various times, so at any given time the system
| wasn't quite complicated as you might think, even though in
| retrospect it can be hard to keep track of every denomination
| from every period
|
| - the shilling (12 pence) and the pound (240 pence) stuck around
| and became important denominations because those are highly-
| composite numbers and so have lots of ways of splitting them up
|
| And this isn't stated explicitly in the video but it seems the
| system lost its value due to inflation, not any desire for
| metrication. Nobody gave a damn about pennies by the late 60s.
| You could very well make a new version of "old money" with modern
| coinage, just inflated by a factor of 100. A neo-shilling = 12
| dollars, etc. Could be a fun cyberpunk worldbuilding detail.
| clort wrote:
| interestingly, while I was living in Ireland I heard people
| referring to a euro as a quid reasonably commonly.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| I'm a Brit who's lived in Finland (with the Euro) for 10+ years
| - I occasionally say quid instead of euro. Mostly when
| referring to an approximate amount - such and such cost a few
| quid, rather than a few euro.
| stevekemp wrote:
| Also a Brit, living in Finland, and I do the same.
| Tsiklon wrote:
| This makes sense given the close history of language between
| the two and that pre-Euro, Ireland's currency was the Irish
| Pound or Punt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_pound
| entropyie wrote:
| Well, chances are the word comes from the Irish language
| (Gaeilge). Cuid. As in "Mo chuid ..." (my portion of ...).
| https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-22...
| bell-cot wrote:
| 10,000-foot geezer's perspective:
|
| Before the Great War (WWI), Great Britain was _rich_ , Great
| Britain completely dominated the financial world, Great Britain's
| Pound Sterling was the world's reserve currency (
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_currency ), and the Pound
| Sterling was no more decimal than Her Royal Majesty Queen
| Victoria was Japanese.
|
| When you are the 900 pound gorilla, not only can you get away
| with all sorts of unique complexity - mites, farthings, groats,
| shillings, florins, crowns, pounds, guineas, etc. - but being
| quite conversant with your complexity is a point of pride for
| many foreigners, who wish to be seen as educated and
| sophisticated.
|
| WWI might reasonably be described as a "no matter how hard it is,
| no matter how long it takes" suicide pact by Europe's greatest
| nations and nobles, to destroy their own positions and prestige
| in the world. They were quite successful in that.
|
| Great Britain's post-WWI economic policy might be described as
| "keep saying 'Great', but don't think nor try too hard". Combine
| that with interest payments on their huge war debts, and the
| writing was on the wall.
|
| Then came WWII. Before the U.S.A. stepped in to pay for things,
| national bankruptcy was at least as much a threat to "Great"
| Britain as the Nazi armies were. More than a year before that war
| ended, on 22 July 1944, Britain formally signed the Bretton Woods
| Agreement ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_System )
| - which explicitly made the U.S. Dollar the world's reserve
| currency.
|
| Post-WWII, "Great"-no-longer Britain's economic situation was
| grim. Rationing of _food_ , for the general population, did not
| end until 4 July 1954.
|
| Still, the funny old Pound Sterling currency system hung on. I
| mostly credit human memory. Brits born in 1895 would have adult
| memories of pre-WWI British Greatness, yet be only 70 years old
| in 1965.
|
| Finally, 15 February 1971 was Decimal Day - when the cool old
| farthing/groat/shilling/etc. British Pound was converted to the
| dull, conformist "100 pence to the pound" modern system.
| okeuro49 wrote:
| > "Great"-no-longer Britain.
|
| We're all French living in Greater Brittany, "Grand Bretagne",
| it's not a value judgement.
| tragomaskhalos wrote:
| Nice summary. Tradition dies hard, especially in these isles -
| my old nan maintained that decimalisation was the greatest con
| ever perpetrated on the British people!
| denton-scratch wrote:
| It _was_ a con. Everyone rounded their prices upward. Some of
| the price-rises weren 't simply rounding, either.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Double-checking on the inflation data for that era - https://
| www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-... - I'd
| say that your old nan was quite right. (But maybe not quite
| in a literal, "terms as defined by an economic professor",
| sense.)
| eadmund wrote:
| > WWI might reasonably be described as a "no matter how hard it
| is, no matter how long it takes" suicide pact by Europe's
| greatest nations and nobles, to destroy their own positions and
| prestige in the world.
|
| You're quite right about the Great War being a suicide pact,
| but I think it was far more democratic than you give it credit
| for. Previous wars between kings and/or aristocrats would have
| ended far sooner, but with the industry, finance and media
| landscape of the early 20th century the belligerents' hands
| were tied by their own populaces. It was a complete and utter
| catastrophe, one whose aftershocks still reverberate.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Quite true about how democratic it was, and the diminished
| powers of the emperors, kings, and aristocrats...though I
| know enough older European history to have doubts about
| "would have ended far sooner". Their power wasn't so
| diminished because they'd proven so competent in the past.
|
| Hmm...reading your comment again, I sense that similar
| reflections were behind Churchill's famous quote about
| democracy.
| sircastor wrote:
| We had a get together with our international team this past
| summer, and I was shocked to learn from a Scottish colleague that
| some banks are authorized to print their own currency notes. I
| thought "That can't be right". Though this is historically what
| many banks throughout the world used to do. It just seemed
| totally crazy that a private corporation could distribute
| nationally accepted currency. What a weird, wild world we live
| in...
|
| > Scottish banknotes are a funny thing because they're not issued
| by a central bank, and they're not technically legal tender
| ANYWHERE in the UK. Three retail banks (Bank of Scotland,
| Clydesdale Bank, and Royal Bank of Scotland) are permitted to
| print notes, and they're classified as promissory notes rather
| than legal tender. Go to the ATM of any of those banks, and
| you'll get their notes.
| forgotusername6 wrote:
| They are of course a right pain if you accidentally get one
| given to you in change down south. Plenty of shops will refuse
| them.
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