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Posted 04/18/2018 7:03 pm
Coins have, historically, always had names that are distinct and different from the amount of money that the coin represents. The farthing is worth 1/4 pence, the groat is worth 4 pence, the guinea is worth 21 shillings, and so forth. The American (and later French) revolutionaries thought this was overly complicated, and when they devised the new decimal currency systems, the names officially assigned to coins were their denominations: the half-disme was half a disme, and so forth.
The "problem" arises from this simple observation: when the plural form of the name of the coin is identical to the plural form of the name of the unit of currency, this causes ambiguity and confusion in certain circumstances, for the people who actually have to use and handle the money.
Consider the sentence: "Please give me five cents". This is ambiguous: do you want five once-cent-pieces, one five-cent-piece, or do you not really care what form the money is in, so long as you get five cents worth of it? If you specifically need the specific coins you can remove the ambiguity by being more specific: "Please give me five one-cent-pieces", but that's way too many syllables to say for someone in a hurry.
In Britain (where they actually use real "pennies"), this isn't a problem, because the plural of "penny" has always had two forms: "pennies" for the one-penny-coins, and "pence" for the unit of currency. Thus, "Please give me five pennies" means five one-penny-coins, while "please give me five pence" means you just want five pence in money, of whatever form of coinage that takes.
So in America, to get around this problem, you have cleverly devised a nickname for the coin, to use in that first instance: you've borrowed the British word "penny". So if you say "Please give me five pennies", you must mean five one-cent-coins, but "Please give me five cents" means you just want the money, in whatever form.
This is why the banks that handle the coins put "pennies" on the box, to remove all ambiguity about what kind of coins are inside the box.
However, Americans should be aware that, once you leave America and go elsewhere (or start posting in the non-American parts of a coin forum
) then the ambiguity returns, thanks to the aforementioned use of "penny" as an actual proper name for a currency unit in some countries. You should then refer to your one-cent-coins as "cents" or "once-cent-pieces", rather than "pennies".
Americans (I should say "North Americans", since Canadians seem to be just as prone to this) have gotten used to seeing the words "ONE CENT" on a coin and saying "penny". It's buried so deeply in the subconscious that those two words should be swapped around, that I've often seen it happen in reverse. I don't know how many times I've heard American folks here on this forum and elsewhere refer to "British cents" or "Australian large cents", when those coins both clearly say "ONE PENNY" on them.
The "problem" arises from this simple observation: when the plural form of the name of the coin is identical to the plural form of the name of the unit of currency, this causes ambiguity and confusion in certain circumstances, for the people who actually have to use and handle the money.
Consider the sentence: "Please give me five cents". This is ambiguous: do you want five once-cent-pieces, one five-cent-piece, or do you not really care what form the money is in, so long as you get five cents worth of it? If you specifically need the specific coins you can remove the ambiguity by being more specific: "Please give me five one-cent-pieces", but that's way too many syllables to say for someone in a hurry.
In Britain (where they actually use real "pennies"), this isn't a problem, because the plural of "penny" has always had two forms: "pennies" for the one-penny-coins, and "pence" for the unit of currency. Thus, "Please give me five pennies" means five one-penny-coins, while "please give me five pence" means you just want five pence in money, of whatever form of coinage that takes.
So in America, to get around this problem, you have cleverly devised a nickname for the coin, to use in that first instance: you've borrowed the British word "penny". So if you say "Please give me five pennies", you must mean five one-cent-coins, but "Please give me five cents" means you just want the money, in whatever form.
This is why the banks that handle the coins put "pennies" on the box, to remove all ambiguity about what kind of coins are inside the box.
However, Americans should be aware that, once you leave America and go elsewhere (or start posting in the non-American parts of a coin forum
) then the ambiguity returns, thanks to the aforementioned use of "penny" as an actual proper name for a currency unit in some countries. You should then refer to your one-cent-coins as "cents" or "once-cent-pieces", rather than "pennies".Americans (I should say "North Americans", since Canadians seem to be just as prone to this) have gotten used to seeing the words "ONE CENT" on a coin and saying "penny". It's buried so deeply in the subconscious that those two words should be swapped around, that I've often seen it happen in reverse. I don't know how many times I've heard American folks here on this forum and elsewhere refer to "British cents" or "Australian large cents", when those coins both clearly say "ONE PENNY" on them.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
I use both depending on the situation and company. I do appreciate the history behind the terms, though. If I am remembering correctly, "two bits" originates with the 8 reales in that a "quarter" could actually be two physical bits, or pieces, of the coin (piece of 8).
