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 Replies: 96 / Views: 6,595 |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
838 Posts |
I am tired of the "cent" versus "penny" nonsense. There are several people strangely uptight about the use of "penny", as though they can't wait to post that "I know the difference - do you," even if it's off-topic. Here is my cheerful rant for those people, and your chance to hash it out ON-topic for a change!  First, many of your US cent wrappers say "50 pennies". The boxes often say "$25 in pennies". Forget about the hundreds of millions of people who would be confused if you asked to trade a dime for ten cents. Words evolve for strange reasons - often due to errors. Just ask an American "Indian"! Why don't we say "Gee, I'd really like a key date 1877 Native American Liberty Headdress Cent?" Would it be more clear? It's probably more correct. Yeah yeah, words like "dollar" which came from Spanish currency are well-accepted, but equally as well accepted is "penny". When you read a guy's post and it contains "penny" mis-used, do you understand what's meant? If you're so confused, please suggest to the moderator that the post be moved to the British forum. Let the debate begin!  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7123 Posts |
How about if the moderator takes the position that this is a numismatic forum and we should try to be correct in what we say so when others read and learn they learn the right terminology and avoid the slang ? we strive to be correct when we help with grades ,authentication ,attribution and type , why should that change when it comes to the proper names of US coins ? This has been hashed and rehashed several times already on the forum it has always come down to call it what you like ,,but there is still only one correct term for the US one cent coin and that is Cent . while everyone knows what is meant in most cases when the slang term penny is used I have seen when it caused confusion since the poster was actually refering to Pennies not cents . |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
1931 Posts |
I agree it can cause some confusion.
Here is my version (maybe seems silly but there are probably adult versions of this line of thought out there)
I recently sat down with my 4 yr old daughter to teach her the different denominations of coins. Hard enough for her because she is american and canadian so I was intending to teach her to recognize both. (other than lincoln cents cause she loves those and knows what they are)
Well.... here's where I messed it all up. She picked up different coins and asked what's this and this and I kind of absent-mindedly anwered that's a penny. SO we went through a few more times and I started asking her, show me the 10 cents, show me 25 cents etc. by the end of a couple of minutes I realized that when I said show me 1 cent she couldn't. So I put it in her hand and she said "well then, where did my penny go?"
I can see how it would get confusing to mis-label things.
thats just my 2 "cents"
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
14454 Posts |
if this were just a forum for US coins then it may be acceptable to use "penny" for a cent but since we have other countries that actually do use the penny and not a cent I think it is important to use the correct name for what ever coin you are referring to. The "dollar" comment isn't the same because if you look at a dollar coin it actually says dollar on it, if you look at any US cent no where will you ever find the word penny on that coin, you will see it named a "cent". We don't ask you to use the term cent in every day life, just when you come to the forum we would appreciate if you would use the correct term for the coin you are referring to |
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Moderator
 United States
187446 Posts |
Quote:if this were just a forum for US coins then it may be acceptable to use "penny" for a cent but since we have other countries that actually do use the penny and not a cent I think it is important to use the correct name for what ever coin you are referring to. I agree. I often pretend that calling them (US One Cent coins) Pennies bothers me, but my real issue is that we might be confusing people from other countries. As long as the term is used in context, I do not have any real problem with it. However, since we have a lot of international members, it is best to be as specific as possible to avoid confusion. Quote:
if you look at any US cent no where will you ever find the word penny on that coin, you will see it named a "cent". Should I be that guy and mention that nowhere on our Nickel (Five Cent coin) does it say "nickel" on it? Nah! That is a whole other discussion, one that might be apples to the oranges we call the One Cent coin!  |
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Pillar of the Community
Australia
1040 Posts |
I had that problem when I started reading this forum, had to do a little research to figure out penny was slang for cent. But then, US coins are a little confusing at first, with nickles, dimes, quarters etc. Then you don't even use your half dollars, or $2 notes. I wonder why? I think we would be lost over here without the good old 50c and $2 coin. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5318 Posts |
Quote:
Should I be that guy and mention that nowhere on our Nickel (Five Cent coin) does it say "nickel" on it? I agree that "nickel" by far is the strangest name, because it doesn't describe denomination at all. I also think "Penny" is particularly inaccurate, since our currency was decimal from the beginning, where "penny" was part of the Sterling system (I think). Then again, people like the sound of penny over cent, so I won't quibble too much. |
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Moderator
Australia
16804 Posts |
Personally, I don't really mind whether you use nicknames for your coins or not - and I come from a country which has historically had some pretty weird nicknames for their coins. The bit that I find harder to understand (and more than a little annoying) is when Americans call actual pennies from other countries "cents". As in, "I've got this Australian large cent from 1934" or "Does anyone collect British cents?". No, you don't, and no we don't - those are pennies. It's as if Americans have been programmed to swap "penny" and "cent" around, wherever they see 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
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Rest in Peace
Australia
661 Posts |
Simple equation:
100 cents = $1.00
240 pennies = 1 pound sterling.
regards,
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Pillar of the Community
 Canada
838 Posts |
I agree that we should strive for correctness here on the forum, where we're actually talking about coins in detail. I prefer to learn and use the most correct terminology possible. So you're very right in this sense.
But there are posts on here I can hardly understand, due to lack of sentence structure. These often go unchallenged. It's getting lame to read mock confusion when there are pictures of Lincolns and it's clear the poster means "cent".
Anyway quite likely the cent will die before "penny" gets much more traction. Personally I'm hoping for that so I can close the cent albums and focus my collection on "nickels". :)
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Valued Member
United States
406 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3233 Posts |
Us stupid Yanks never had a coin called the Penny. Nor do we have a coin called the Nickel!
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
The problem with this topic is that we speak American, NOT English here in America. Our language is American. The terminology of our language is what we have made it. If we like a word from another language, we adopt it into ours. PENNY has been so adopted and should well be accepted since probably 1 or 2 hundred million people use that word to discribe a cent. Quote:
Should I be that guy and mention that nowhere on our Nickel (Five Cent coin) does it say "nickel" on it? Nah! That is a whole other discussion, one that might be apples to the oranges we call the One Cent coin!
Of coures a Nickel is a Nickel and most people use it to discribe 5 cents. However, pending where you grew up we also have: A FIN = Five Bucks. Five Bucks = 5 Dollars How about a saw buck? So what is a Dime? Ever hear of 2 Bits, 4 Bits used for coins? Why does our Quarter Dollar say Quarter Dollar and a Dime does not say tenth of a Dollar? Using this why not have our PENNIES say One Hundredth of a Dollar? We used to have a 3 Cent piece that had the Roman Numeral III on it and did not say CENTS. Same with the old V nickels. Did we stop them due to using a Foreign Languages number system? Somewhere on a forum, not sure where, someone listed numerous songs right here in America that use the term PENNY. Try singing "Cents From Heaven" Such discussions are fairly common with all types of usages of words in class rooms in schools. Eventually the words become part of our language and used by the great majority of people. Right of wrong, America is based on the majority rules. Our language is American and we can say what we want, when we want, as often as we want and the words we use eventually become American. Our language is composed of many, many other languages due to our country being composed of many, many peoples from all over the world. Don't worry about PENNIES when the mass amount of people use things like Don't, Won't, Can't, Doesn't, Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda, Ain't and instead of going on and on and on we simply say ETC. I always say ETC and have no idea what it means. |
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Valued Member
United States
442 Posts |
Ah pennies and cents. Seen this one way too many times. I prefer cents because that's what we use in the U.S. Yes, rolls and boxes say pennies. I know people locally (including a coworker at the shop) that are passionate about using the word CENT. He gets SO frustrated when a customer comes in looking for pennies. I've gotten over it. Bottom line is their DOLLARS are still good!  If I let every person that used the "wrong" term bother me I'd never get any sleep. I see lots of nickel collectors as well. Aren't those five cent pieces? - or Half Dimes? The big old coppers are almost always referred to as large cents. Why not large pennies because the small ones are frequently referred to as pannies. We sell paper too. If someone comes in asking for a hundred dollar bill should I write one up? "I clembo hereby charge you the sum of one hundred dollars for using the wrong term. I accept $100 Federal Reserve Notes as payment." Of course if they offered to give me 100 bucks instead I'd take them. Who knows - maybe they'd pay in Legal Tenders or perhaps Nationals. Hey, the term "bill" bothers me more than "penny". You won't see me using it in the Paper Money forums. You also won't see me correcting every person that I post a reply to. I use the term note in replies because that's what they are. Those that don't like pennies etc. might try the same. None of this is worth losing sleep over. clembo A bona fide 2 Cent collector. |
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Pillar of the Community
Australia
1040 Posts |
Quote:
Eventually the words become part of our language and used by the great majority of people. Case in point, "Yada Yada", from Seinfeld. Made it into the dictionary. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5318 Posts |
"Yada Yada yada"...in Australia too? lol.
I know it's from Seinfeld, but that doesn't stop me, hehe.
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Replies: 96 / Views: 6,595 |
Posted 09/14/2008 4:58 pm
