lethargic_man

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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?

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From:

lethargic-man.livejournal.com

Yes, I liked it (though not everyone will, for example, as I recently confirmed in discussion,

rysmiel). I'm surprised you read it in the first place; I didn't think SF was your thing. Though I suppose you could approach the book from a number of directions.

I've got lots of other books to recommend to

livredor ahead of TSNotD, though. Though perhaps I could recommend it as a compare-and-contrast with Tim Powers' The Anubis Gates.

From: (Anonymous)

livredor, I was only moderately taken by it, don't think I'll buy it. But I do have a sprinkling of SF tomes, mostly obvious classics like 1984, Brave New World, The Handmaid's Tale,

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If I had a pound for every time I heard someone say "but I didn't think SF was your thing"...

Most of it isn't. Ursula Le Guin says somewhere that she's not interested in technology, she's interested in sociology, anthropology, philosophy, politics, that sort of thing. Someone got me to read Arthur C. Clarke's short stories and they bored me (I understand his main claim to fame consisted in his ability to foretell the future; good for him, can't stand his writing style though), and while I enjoyed reading that Greg Egan you gave (recommended to?) <lj site="livejournal.com" user="livredor">, I was only moderately taken by it, don't think I'll buy it. But I do have a sprinkling of SF tomes, mostly obvious classics like 1984, Brave New World, The Handmaid's Tale, <The Left Hand of Darkness, then things like that strange Joanna Russ I had to study last year, The Female Man, and let's not forget Primo Levi's short stories. I have a particular interest in utopian/dystopian literature. As well as the modern stuff, I'm getting through quite a lot of the main historical ones, like Gulliver's Travels, Erewhon, Herland and of course More's Utopia, but I still haven't finished The Republic. It's fascinating but it always does a wonderful job of putting me to sleep.

I wouldn't really call that Willis hard-core sci-fi. To be honest, I more or less ignore the SF content in it. The comedy of manners is fantastic, though. I've read a couple of her other novels; they were highly praised but I didn't like them.

Right, I was meant to be checking my e-mail then getting on with cleaning the bathroom. Parents arriving today!

EM

From:

liv

If I had a pound for every time
See, inflation strikes again! I'm sure that phrase used to be if I had a penny for every time...

I think that most people who say they 'don't like SF' mean they don't like Clarke, Asimov and Bradbury. You have more sophistication than that (one would hope so, really). But lots of people make a living out of arguing what counts as SF; try this discussion in

coalescent's journal. It's kind of an obsession of his, that's just the most recent example, and he specifically mentions 1984. But it gives you a flavour of the kind of debate that can go on.