"Cent" Versus "Penny" - My Rant

Such as--our "dollar" comes from the Germanic Daler/Taler.

Though this discussion is kind of silly and pointless, we just need to remember that a language is a living and breathing thing. There is rarely a single "correct" way to say things. My wife is a grammar teacher so she knows the "right" answer to everything, but it is pretty common that the "right" answer feels wrong.
English changes based on people's usage of words. Kleenex is a brand name, but it is now common usage, as in "May I have a Kleenex please?" Even if you buy the house brand of "facial tissue", you know what the speaker is requesting and to challenge them by saying, "I'm sorry, we have no Kleenex, only this facial tissue" makes you look a little more than anal-retentive, but rather challenged.
I am all in support of using the word penny at will as long as no confusion is present. If enough people start referring to the "cent" as a drofol, then I'll support the name drofol. Whatever people use becomes correct.

Jays-Dad, that's one of the most intelligible comments on the topic that I have read yet. Thanks for the thoughts.
regards.

I agree with everyone so far!! (how often does THAT happen?)

I'm in the IT support industry and often-times certain techs will use "correct" terminology, but only to strut their stuff a bit.

Perhaps my favorite example is the term "power cycle". Here is a direct copy-and-paste explaining what that is - I am not making this up:

The first step to troubleshooting any networking printer problem is to power cycle both the printer and the computer:

Turn the power switch off.
Shut down your computer.
Turn the printer back on.
Turn the computer back on

Or you could have just said, turn the stuff off and back on again.

Oh well.

In deference to Rick (aka Metalman), I have attempted to change my vernacular to a more accurate one on this subject. (Hi Rick) To an extent, I have been successful and most generally use the word cent, today. Out of curiosity, I thought I would run a quick test. As I type this, I am setting in Panera Bread having coffee. To test the premise of this thread, I have asked each person that walked by what they called the cent I held in my hand. After twenty people, here are the results. 20 pennies / 0 cents. No I do not have ages, gender or race/religion demographics. What does this mean, probably nothing. It does seem to indicate that we may be taking ourselves too seriously, though.

Hi guys, great to be back.

Jim

Excellent! Thank you for making my point better than I originally did (and for the obvious result to the 20-person poll).

Language is what we make it. Let's not get too uptight.

I try to use "cent" on here, though, and "penny" in the real world - just like a zoologist uses two different terms for animals, one at work, and one in the real world.

Great experiment, Jim!

I thought of this a few weeks ago when the designs for the new cent were publicized. I noticed every news article referred to them as pennies. Thinking that some paper must have gotten it right, I looked at google news, where they show dozens of news stories from separate sources, and 100% of them said 'penny' instead of 'cent'. Then I went to the official press release from the US Mint's website, and was surprised to see that in the title, they used the word 'penny' themselves!

WheatieFan