<UseNetOnly@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:fttm64hi8dp60fbt9fp76g4vm1uakltp49@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> When I first visited England (in 1964) most people could
> not imagine they would ever understand a decimal system,
> now they hardly remember the imperial units :-)
The youth of today, that they do not know Lsd (Libra-solidus-denarius
to you) anymore....
Now listen up, here is the short version:
In Britain the pound Sterling is the central unit of money. Prior to
decimalization the pound was divided into twenty ****llings and each
****lling
was divided into twelve pennies or pence. Although this system seems odd,
having a pound divided into 240 equal parts does mean that the pound can
be
exactly divided into halves, thirds, quarters, fifths, sixths, eighths,
tenths, twelfths, fifteenths,
sixteenths, twentieths, twenty-fourths, thirtieths, fortieths,
forty-eightieths, sixtieths, eightieths, and one-hundred-and-twentieths. A
decimal system allows only halves, quarters, fifths, tenths, twentieths,
twenty-fifths, and fiftieths.
Amounts of money are written in various ways. The pound is represented, as
it still is, by a £ sign, the ****lling by a 's' and the penny by a 'd'
(for
'denarius', a Roman silver coin which was also used as the name for the
English silver penny). So the meaning of £3-4s-6d is fairly obvious. But
amounts below a pound are also written '12/6' meaning 12s-6d or '10/='
meaning ten ****llings. An amount such as 12/6 would be pronounced 'twelve
and six' as a more casual form of 'twelve ****llings and sixpence'. From
the
late eighteenth century a
****lling was popularly called a 'bob' as in 'it cost three bob'. But you
would only use that for whole ****llings so it would be 'three bob' or
'three
and eight' but never 'three bob and six'.
A guinea is £1-1s-0d (which is £1.05) and could be written as '1g' or
'1gn'
or, in the plural, '3gs' or '3gns'. It is considered a more gentlemanly
amount than £1. You pay tradesmen, such as a carpenter, in pounds but
gentlemen, such as an artist, in guineas. It is a tradition in the legal
profession that a barrister is paid in guineas but keeps only the pounds,
giving his clerk the ****llings. The guinea can also be divided exactly
into
many different amounts - halves, thirds, quarters, sixths, sevenths,
ninths,
fourteenths, twenty-firsts, twenty-eighths, thirty-sixths, forty-seconds,
sixty-thirds, eighty-fourths, and one-hundred-and-twenty-sixths. One
useful
factor is that a third of a guinea was exactly seven ****llings.
The coinage reflects the principal divisions of the money and adds some of
its own. A gold coin worth £1 is called a sovereign and the half
sovereign,
also in gold, is worth ten ****llings. These coins were first minted in
1819
as a response to the rather uncertain value of earlier gold coins. Both
were
current throughout Victoria's reign. A crown is a silver coin worth 5/=-
though much more common is the half-crown worth 2/6 or exactly one eighth
of
a pound. The ****lling is also a silver coin as are the sixpence and the
threepence (usually pronounced and sometimes spelled 'thruppence'). The
coin
is sometimes called a thrupp'ny bit. Silver coins called groats worth four
pence were also minted and are sometimes called Joeys (a term also used in
the mid-twentieth century for threepenny bits when they were no longer
made
of silver).
Half-groats and silver pennies are not in circulation but are still minted
for a tradition known as Maundy Money where the Monarch gives poor people
in
a parish a groat, a threepence, a half groat and a penny. The number of
poor
people favoured in this way is the same as the number of the monarch's
years. The tradition still goes on, although now the number of people
honoured is as many men and as many women as the monarch's years and they
each get the same number of pence as the monarch's years. For example, in
1998 the 74-year-old Queen Elizabeth II gave out 74 pence (seven and a bit
sets of a groat,
a thruppence, a half-groat and a penny) of Maundy money to each of 74 men
and 74 women in ****tsmouth. The sets come in an official little purse and
some recipients immediately sell the sets at considerable profit to
waiting
dealers.
Lower value coins are made of copper (bronze from 1860). The penny is
accompanied by the halfpenny (pronounced hape-nee and sometimes written
ha'penny) and the farthing, worth a quarter of a penny. Half farthings
were
also minted for some of Victoria's reign but were unpopular because of
their
small size. Smaller coins - one third and one quarter farthings - were
minted mainly for use in some British colonies. For most people the penny
is
still the central coin of their currency and is used in words like
'penn'orth' meaning a penny-worth
of something as in 'I'll take a penn'orth of tobacco' and also as in 'it's
a
good penn'orth, sir' meaning it is good value for your penny. These coins
are referred to as 'coppers' as in 'It cost a few coppers'. Not to be
confused with the slang meaning of 'a copper' from the early Victorian
period of 'a policeman'.
The Victorians introduced one new coin intended as the first step towards
a
decimal system of coinage. A two ****lling coin, exactly a tenth of a
pound,
was first minted in 1849. It was called a florin and it was minted for
nearly 120 years until 1968 when, in preparation for decimalisation, a
coin
of the same size became the new ten pence piece. The florin is also called
the two-****lling-piece or the two-bob-bit. It did not oust the popular
half
a crown, usually called a half-crown, worth 2s-6d, which also remained
until
decimalisation. Even in the 1960s auctioneers at country sales would move
the bidding on in half-crowns. The bid between five and ten ****llings was
always 'three half-crowns'. A double florin was minted in 1887 but was not
popular. Guineas were not minted after 1813. In the eighteenth century
half,
third, and quarter guineas were also minted. Two and five guinea coins
belong to an earlier age.
Got that?
Quite simple really....
Now, can I tell you about cricket?
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