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lethargic_manWhy 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?
* 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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no subject
Date: 2003-11-02 03:43 am (UTC)no subject
I remember (just) the ½p coin, and a lot of people called the coins ha'pennies. But I think when describing the amount, they'd say "2 and a half p" rather than "tuppence ha'penny". I know various people, mostly of my parents' generation or older, who describe prices as multiples of 5p, called bob ("I think 12 bob for a cauliflower is a bit steep"). I've never heard the word florin used outside pre-decimalization literature, though.
I agree that fippence would be a cool word, though!
no subject
Date: 2003-11-02 05:02 am (UTC)I've never heard anyone use "bob" (except once, in a story in my school magazine circa 1985). (And I have no idea whether twelve bob for a cauliflower is a bit steep or not.)
Just my tuppence ha'penny.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-02 05:39 am (UTC)2p is what is on the tuppence- was there a 2p coin pre-decimalisation? I know that there was both 1 and 3, which would lead me to suspect that 2 was unnecessary and 2p came in with the new coin.
Where was the Dolar used for 5/- (IIRC 5 shillings was a Crown although the half crown designation was far more common than the crown).
no subject
Date: 2003-11-02 05:43 am (UTC)LSD
Date: 2003-11-02 05:56 am (UTC)Yes, but I was referring to florins, which were the old two-shilling coins, so named because of the flower pattern on them, which remained in use as 10p coins until they shrunk them.
You're right, there was no 2d coin. (Just been reading Connie Willis' "To Say Nothing of the Dog", and one of the continuity errors caused by an American not getting a Brit to Brit-proof her work was when the protagonist accepted five pence for a purchase, then said he couldn't give change for a tuppenny purchase.)
Where was the Dollar used for 5/-
Not aware it was restricted to any particular area. I've only come across the the term a few times, of which the only reference I can give off the top of my head is in John Fowles' novel The Collector, published 1963. I'd guess a crown referred to the coin and a dollar more loosely to the amount...?
LSD
Date: 2003-11-02 05:59 am (UTC)Re: LSD
Date: 2003-11-02 06:15 am (UTC)no subject
Really? I've believed the opposite for so long I can't even remember where I heard it. Wrong pedantry is very bad. I shall crawl away and hide in a corner now...
Re: LSD
Date: 2003-11-02 06:49 am (UTC)Ah. The Florin. The Godless and Graceless Coin. IIRC, the thing was brought in as an early attempt at decimalisation and was extremely unpopular, mostly because it missed out the standard acolades, causing it to be referred to as a Godless and Graceless Coin.
Standard accolades? You mean "[REGINA] DEI GRATIA"? "FID. DEF." is on the one picture above.
Not one people minded forgetting.
Well, I liked it. But then, I grew up used to it.
*
The section on Scottish money (http://www.gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/units/money.htm#scot) on the page I got that from is worth a look. It's hard to believe some of those names aren't made up! ("Merk", btw, is "mark". In English money a mark used to be two thirds of a pound.)
One thing the page doesn't mention is that by the time it was abolished, the Scots pound had become so devalued it was worth no more than an English shilling, hence the passage in Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped:
LSD
Date: 2003-11-02 06:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-02 06:57 am (UTC)Re: LSD
Date: 2003-11-02 06:59 am (UTC)The page *does* equate a scottish pound to 1s8d sterling.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-02 07:01 am (UTC)Though seriously I think inflation is killing this usage slowly; there are fewer and fewer things that one can actually buy for 'a few bob' in this sense. And clearly people don't talk about 'a hundred bob' when they mean a fiver.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-02 07:04 am (UTC)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.
Re: LSD
Date: 2003-11-02 07:06 am (UTC)I have fun writing out cheques for "X pounds, no shillings and no pence". I've never done that for non-integral numbers of pounds, though; I'm sure it would confuse bank clerks. (Likewise cheques for amounts in guineas.)
no subject
Date: 2003-11-02 07:12 am (UTC)You write 'no shillings' on cheques? That's so cute!
Re: LSD
Date: 2003-11-02 07:23 am (UTC)Re: LSD
Date: 2003-11-02 07:37 am (UTC)http://www.24carat.co.uk/1848godlessflorin.html (http://www.24carat.co.uk/1848godlessflorin.html)
Still wasn't popular even after the new versions came into circulation.
To Say Nothing of the Dog
Date: 2003-11-02 01:13 pm (UTC)So now may we both recommend this book to
EM
Re: To Say Nothing of the Dog
Date: 2003-11-02 01:23 pm (UTC)I've got lots of other books to recommend to
Re: LSD
Tell me you're joking?! If you said that to get a reaction out of me you certainly succeeded; I nearly fell out of my chair! You can't actually be telling me that your people go about publicly auctioning mitzvot to the highest bidder? Doing it in guineas is just amusing, but actually doing it in the first place... woah.
have a listen next time you're there
You mean they do it on shabbat as well?! I'm amazed I didn't notice before (though admittedly, last time I was in Newcastle, I was trying to get through all my davening the gaps between aliyot, which would be why I wasn't concentrating at those times).
It's lucky you've told me this, cos if I'd seen it happening without warning I'd quite probably have wanted to point and go "Aargh! Freaks!"
Re: LSD
Date: 2003-11-02 03:26 pm (UTC)(And I must find out the proper Unicode character for a right-to-left space, because using a left-to-right one is completely buggering up my word flow.)
no subject
Date: 2003-11-03 12:49 am (UTC)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?)
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 <i>1984</i>, <i>Brave New World</i>, <i>The Handmaid's Tale</i>, <The Left Hand of Darkness</i>, then things like that strange Joanna Russ I had to study last year, <i>The Female Man</i>, 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 <i>Gulliver's Travels, Erewhon, Herland</i> and of course More's <i>Utopia</i>, but I still haven't finished <i>The Republic</i>. 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
no subject
Date: 2003-11-03 05:39 am (UTC)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