In America, we obviously have shorthand “nicknames” for the various coins. A 1 cent piece is a penny, a 5 cent piece a nickel, a 10 cent piece a dime, and a 25 cent piece a quarter. How do people in other countries (besides other countries who use a dollar) nickname their coins? Germany? What do you use for shorthand for a 1 pfennig (sp?) piece, etc.? England, a 10p piece, etc.? Just wondering…
Sometimes I call the fiver a “nickel note.” And of course there’s the “Benjamin” ($100).
Bills are another story. Fives are “fins” and tens are “sawbucks” (don’t know why). But it’s just as easy to call them “fives,” “tens,” and “twenties.” I am curious about coins. Surely non-Americans don’t say “I have a ten-unit piece and a 5-unit piece in my pocket.” There must be nicknames for these, no?
I have spent a conciderable amount of time in Malaysia, Korea, Singapore and Thailand. In all of these contries coins and bills are called by their value, ie. 100 won, 20 sen, 1 ringit, etc.
Canadian dollar coins are ‘loonies’, from the bird on the back. When two-dollar coins came out, some suggested calling them ‘bruins’ (a bear on the back), but ‘toonie’ ended up as the common name.
Put them together and you get the common opinion of the government introducing those coins.
“Two bits” refers to one quarter of a Spanish dubloon. Ergo, “Pieces o’ Eight” divided in four, or one quarter of a dubloon, equals two bits (the Spanish coin was frequently cut into eight pieces).
Oh yeah, you all heard the one about the gal who went upstairs with a Swede and came down with a Fin…?
::bah dum bum::
PS: A “sawbuck” (ten dollar bill) refers to the older numerical font on paper money that showed a Roman numeral “X”, which looked like the old-style carpenter’s sawhorse or “sawbuck.”
Before they decimalized, the UK had an enormous number of nicknames for coins of various denominations. Some, like “quid” for a pound, have survived into the new system.
Let’s see, there was bobs and tanners and crowns and florins and …
“Me and Billy was standing there with twelve-and-half p.” - doesn’t cut it somehow.
Let’s not forget the sackie!
When I went to England, I didn’t know what a “quid” was. I asked the ticket clerk at Victoria Station and he said, “It’s a pound. Like you Americans say “greenback”.” I didn’t tell him that AFAIKw, “greenback” wasn’t used much anymore.
As long as we’re on the subject of paper money, we can’t forget the C-note and the buck. According to Money talks, the fin gets its name from Yiddish finf, “five”.
If it’s not obvious, Canadians have the same names for their smaller coins that Americans have: penny, nickel, dime, and quarter.
I know a lot of people who say ‘bill’ for $100 or a ‘dollar’ if it’s obvious they are talking about large amounts, i.e. drugs (‘Can I get an o.z.?’ ‘six dollars’), though the latter is more of a code than slang, while the first I have used more commonly.
“have used more commonly.” should be “have heard used more commonly.”
Zenster said
I don’t believe the last part of that statement. I have made my living from buying and selling coins for thirty years. In all that time, I have handled thousands and thousands of Spanish pieces of all denominations covering the period 1600-1821. And I have seen perhaps 3-4 actually cut. It is a popular misconception, IMHO.
I thought ‘greenback’ was a general term for any US note? Because ALL of the denominations are mostly black on the front and mostly green on the back?
I’m sure all the doubloon fragments would have been gathered up and melted down, over time - they wouldn’t circulate as much as they would be less accurate.
[nitpick]
In the US, dime is the official name of the coin (look at its reverse, it says “ONE DIME”), while calling a Canadian ten cent piece a dime is using a nickname. The same with the quarter, I believe.
[/nitpick]
From reading a FAQ at the US Mint’s website, I’m going to guess that the name “nickel” was put into use after 1866 when the content of the 5-cent piece was changed from silver and copper to copper and nickel. The definition of “nickel” at CoinWorld supports the mid-19th century origin of the term. The glossary at Coincollector.org indicates that the 5-cent coin was called a “half-dime” from 1794 to 1873. How’s THAT for a crappy slang term.
This probably doesn’t translate well, as most of the puns are phonetic, but anyway, Danish money nicknames:
1000 kroner note: A “tudse” (toad), from Danish “tusind”, meaning one thousand.
500 kroner note: A “ploughman”, because an old (very, very old) version of the note had a picture of one. Although the note has disappeared, the name lingers.
100 kroner note: A “hund” (dog), from Danish “hundrede”, meaning, you guessed it, one hundred.
50 kroner note: A “hvalp” (puppy) - half a dog, see ? (Not that commonly used)
And back when there were 5 öre coins, they were sometimes called an “Anker” after Prime Minister Anker Jörgensen, with the rationale that they were “small, red and practically worthless”.
S. Norman
Thanks, Spiny Norman! That’s the kind of info I was looking for. It just seems unlikely (although it is possible) that people would walk around saying, “I have a 25 ____ piece,” etc., all the time.
I’ve been looking for the origin of the word ‘quid’. I know it’s slang for the British pound, but WHY is it slang for pound?
Can anyone help me with the history of this usage? If not, I’ll have to send Cecil a message. This one is bugging me.
Thanks!