quote:
Originally posted by Kyra
quote:
Originally posted by crystalk64
Yes, but don't forget our Congressmen/women are using base metal for brains as well!!!
LOL!! I've always wondered why a dime is called a dime. What is a quid anyways? I've heard the word before but don't know how much it is!
Rachel [:p]
Ok Rachel you opened a can of worms
Here are the Australian and British definitions
Quid Slang (British) for one Pound Sterling
(£). The Irish pound and the Australian pound were also referred to by this name.
One pound is divided into 100 pence, the singular of which is "penny". The symbol for the penny is "p"; hence an amount such as 50p is often pronounced "fifty pee" rather than "fifty pence".
Pre-decimal system
Australia
Before 1966 Australia used a monetary system directly
inherited from Britain. The principal currency unit was the pound (£) which was divided into twenty shillings each comprising 12 pence. Monetary amounts less than a shilling were expressed with the suffix 'd' so that threepence would be written 3d and fivepence halfpenny would be written 5½d. For larger amounts, the denominations were separated by virgules or slashes. "Fifteen and six" (meaning fifteen shillings and six pence) was written as 15/6 but amounts comprising even shillings had a dash in place of the zero so "one shilling" was written as 1/-rather than 1/0. The principle was extended to larger amounts. For example, "Six pounds four and twopence halfpenny" was written as £6/4/2½, "one pound ten [shillings]" as £1/10/- and "Ten pounds" as £10/-/- or simply £10. Finally, "two pounds and tenpence" would be written as £2/-/10 and rarely, if ever, as £2/0/10.
Penny is singular regardless of usage. When talking about individual coins, the plural is pennies but for monetary value, pence is the plural so two pennies have a combined value of twopence. Penny amounts were always spoken and spelled as a single word, "elevenpence" rather than "eleven pence". "Twopence" was always pronounced "tuppence" and "threepence" as "throopence" ("oo" is as in "book"). Finally, "halfpenny" was never pronounced as written but always as "haypnee" (and sometimes it was actually written as "ha'penny").
After Federation in 1901, the Australian government assumed the power to issue currency and began superscribing the private issues that were in circulation, in preparation for the issue of a domestic currency.
In 1910 the first truly national Australian silver coinage was introduced in denominations of threepence, sixpence, one shilling, and two shillings (one florin). Copper pennies and halfpennies followed in 1911. In 1937 a five shilling piece was issued to commemorate the coronation of King George VI. This coins proved unpopular and was discontinued shortly after being reissued in 1938.
A Crown was five schillings
UK
Pre-decimalisation, the pound was divided into 240 pennies (or pence) rather than 100, though it was rarely expressed in this way. Rather it was expressed in terms of pounds, shillings and pence, where:
• £1 = 20 shillings (20s).
• 1 shilling = 12 pence (12d).
Thus: £1 = 240 pence. The penny was further subdivided at various times, though these divisions vanished as inflation made them irrelevant:
• 1 penny = 2 halfpennies and (earlier) 4 farthings (half-farthing, third-farthing, and quarter-farthing coins were actually minted in the late 1800s, but circulated only in certain British colonies and not in the UK itself).
Using the example of five shillings and sixpence, the standard ways of writing shillings and pence were:
• 5s 6d
• 5/6 (see below for the / mark)
• 5/- for 5 shillings only, with the dash to stand for zero pennies.
This sum would be spoken as "five shillings and sixpence" or "five and six".
The symbol, £, for the pound is derived from the first letter of the Latin word for pound, the librum. This symbol is found in the Unicode table as (U+00A3), and differs from that allocated to the Turkish and former Italian unit, the lira, which derives from the same source word. That symbol is usually two-barred, and is found at (U+20A4) (although note that the British pound symbol is often written with two bars).
The old abbreviation for the penny, d, was derived from the Roman denarius, and the abbreviation for the shilling, s, from the Roman solidus. The shilling was also denoted by the slash symbol, also called a solidus for this reason. The English penny was derived from a silver coin which was in general circulation in Europe during the middle ages. The weight of this coin was originally 1/240th of a troy pound, a weight known as a pennyweight - around 1.555 grams.
The pre-decimalisation coins with exact decimal equivalent values continued in use after 1971 alongside the new coins, albeit with new names, (e.g., the Shilling became the 5p coin, and the Florin equating to 10p). The others were withdrawn almost immediately but most of those that did have precise equivalents in the new system remained legal tender until they were replaced by smaller coins in the early 1990s. Pre-decimalisation shillings were used as 5p coins, with many people calling the new 5p coin a shilling, since it remained 1/20 of a pound, but was now worth 5p instead of 12d. The pre-decimalisation sixpence, also known as a sixpenny bit or sixpenny piece, was rated at 2½p but was demonetised in 1980.
Posted 08/18/2005 08:20 am
