LSD

[lethargic_man]

Why did names for amounts of money change when they decimalised it? I can see why "shilling" dropped out of usage, along with the likes of "bob", "tanner", "crown", "sovereign", "dollar" (for 5/-), "florin"^*, and so forth. But why did the term for "two pence" (the amount, not the coin) change from "tuppence" to "2p"? Perhaps it was just so you could tell whether someone was referring to old currency or new. If so, it seems a bit of a shame; the term "fippence" could have come into its own, now there was a coin that actually had that value...

* Quaestio: Did people continue using this term, given that the coin remained in circulation as a 10p piece for many years?

Comments

[liv]

And I have no idea whether twelve bob for a cauliflower is a bit steep or not.
Should've known you'd pick up on that one! The shameful truth is that I also have no idea how much cauliflowers are supposed to cost, I just picked numbers out of the air. But when people use 'bob' they do generally seem to be complaining about things being too expensive.