# Explain English Money to Me **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 11, 2019, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504 "2019-08-11T15:19:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2019, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/41 "2019-08-12T20:25:25Z")
> [@Treppenwitz](#): > > I better be careful here - this may be a regional thing\*. But back when there was any use for a single penny, you would here people use the _plural_ when they were talking about one penny; as in “Have you got one pence? You’re one pence short.” > > This adds nothing to the debate, but it’s another example of imprecision about singular and plural when it comes to currency. > > j > > - > - North west No, they’d say you’re one penny short. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2019, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/42 "2019-08-12T20:49:41Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > No, they’d say you’re one penny short. As in, “a penny short of the full quid”? ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2019, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/43 "2019-08-12T21:08:55Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > As in, “a penny short of the full quid”? Are you suggesting that SciFiSam is not the full shilling? ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2019, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/44 "2019-08-12T21:18:37Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > No, they’d say you’re one penny short. Mmm. Perhaps its regional, perhaps not. Try googling (in the quotes) “one pence” (nearly 100 000 hits) or “one pence coin”. I’m not suggesting it’s correct, just saying that it is (or was) used. Sloppily. j ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2019, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/45 "2019-08-12T21:23:58Z")
Here is a challenge for anyone interested. Simply add up a shopping list: 2 loaves of bread at 6d each A dozen eggs at 1/6 1lb flour 8½d 1lb bacon 3/1 Ladies shoes 21/- £1/7/3½ ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2019, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/46 "2019-08-12T22:39:14Z")
That was too easy… ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2019, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/47 "2019-08-12T23:00:39Z")
Australia moved from a British style currency system to decimal [dollars /cents] a bit over 50 years ago. The pre-decimal slang was partly the same as we’ve read above plus some local terms. Plus we probably maintained our currency [ha!] on British decimal slang through TV shows like Minder and Porridge. The only pre-decimal slang term that has survived the half century seems to be ‘bob’ for 10 cent units. You don’t call a 10c piece ‘a bob’, but occasionally may still hear ‘two bob’ for a 20c piece, or a ‘few bob’ for vague less-than-a-dollar amounts. Compared to this rich past there are very few slang terms in common use for the decimals. The only ones that might be generally understood are ‘lobster’ for a $20 note and ‘pineapple’ for $50 note, on account of their colours, and I don’t think they are even widespread. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2019, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/48 "2019-08-12T23:55:58Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > Here is a challenge for anyone interested. Simply add up a shopping list: > > 2 loaves of bread at 6d each > A dozen eggs at 1/6 > 1lb flour 8½d > 1lb bacon 3/1 > Ladies shoes 21/- > > £1/7/3½ My visits to the UK were all after decimalization, so I never had to deal with this, but for tourists at the time, it must have been a real pain. (And this was of course before credit cards were common, so visitors would have had to handle local currency.) ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2019, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/49 "2019-08-13T02:09:30Z")
> [@Treppenwitz](#): > > Mmm. Perhaps its regional, perhaps not. Try googling (in the quotes) “one pence” (nearly 100 000 hits) or “one pence coin”. I’m not suggesting it’s correct, just saying that it is (or was) used. Sloppily. > > j Yes, I’d say it’s regional. Google won’t really help since it’ll come up with a lot more written sources, and in writing people often write pence, because it’s the formal term. Also generally people say “a penny,” not “one penny.” Or 1p. My region is the South-East, so odds are good the terms are a bit different to your area. ETA: I see what you mean about pence being used as a singular, though. Yeah, I have heard that, just not as often as penny. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2019, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/50 "2019-08-13T03:21:09Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > Slang terms for coins: > Farthing - a quarter of a penny Super nit-picky correction, but farthing wasn’t really “slang”; that was the official name for the denomination and the word “FARTHING” was actually [spelled out on the coins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farthing_(British_coin))–note that it didn’t actually say anything like “1/4 of a penny” (or “1/960 of a pound”) anywhere on the farthing coin. Similarly, [U.S. dimes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dime_(United_States_coin)) actually have the words “ONE DIME” on them, but they don’t say “ten cents”, or have the Arabic numerals “10” anywhere on them (unless they happened to have been minted in 2010 or something like that), as we Americans (like our British forebears) are kind of bloody-minded about designing money that doesn’t confuse the hell out of anybody who isn’t already intimately familiar with it. ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2019, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/51 "2019-08-13T03:40:48Z")
Footnote from _Good Omens_ (recently made into a TV mini-series), by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman: "NOTE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE AND AMERICANS: One shilling = Five Pee. It helps to understand the antique finances of the Witchfinder Army if you know the original British monetary system: Two farthings = One Ha’penny. Two ha’pennies = One Penny. Three pennies = A Thrupenny Bit. Two Thrupences = A Sixpence. Two Sixpences = One Shilling, or Bob. Two Bob = A Florin. One Florin and one Sixpence = Half a Crown. Four Half Crowns = Ten Bob Note. Two Ten Bob Notes = One Pound (or 240 pennies). One Pound and One Shilling = One Guinea. The British resisted decimalized currency for a long time because they thought it was too complicated." ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2019, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/52 "2019-08-13T04:21:17Z")
I appreciate your liking for that book, but we had already said all of that before you came in with amazing new knowledge from fiction. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2019, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/53 "2019-08-13T06:03:18Z")
> [@Treppenwitz](#): > > I better be careful here - this may be a regional thing\*. But back when there was any use for a single penny, you would here people use the _plural_ when they were talking about one penny; as in “Have you got one pence? You’re one pence short.” It wasn’t a regional thing, it was a post-decimalisation thing, where the new prices tended for the first few years to be spelt out to emphasise “X pounds and Y pence”, where before everyone knew what, say, “two and nine” meant. Before, you only ever heard “pence” as a half-swallowed part of a compound like “tuppence” and “threepence”: now you distinctly heard “three + pence”. Somehow the idea stuck that “pence” meant even one decimal penny. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2019, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/54 "2019-08-13T06:21:36Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > It wasn’t a regional thing, it was a post-decimalisation thing, where the new prices tended for the first few years to be spelt out to emphasise “X pounds and Y pence”, where before everyone knew what, say, “two and nine” meant. Before, you only ever heard “pence” as a half-swallowed part of a compound like “tuppence” and “threepence”: now you distinctly heard “three + pence”. Somehow the idea stuck that “pence” meant even one decimal penny. The explanation make sense, but isn’t inconsistent with the idea that the usage was regional. My memory (in Ireland) is that the new pennies were called “pee” (from the appreviation, ‘p’) to distinguish them from the old pennies (abbreviated ‘d’). Thus “one pee, five pee” referred to one new penny, five new pence. I never heard “one pence”, that I recall. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2019, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/55 "2019-08-13T07:16:13Z")
Indeed, I’m going by London experience: both those forms were around. But it won’t be long before 1p and 2p coins start to disappear, I suspect, what with inflation and electronification. There’s a pause in minting new ones this year already. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2019, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/56 "2019-08-13T08:31:09Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > The threepenny bit (before the introduction of the multi-sided copper coin in the 1930s) was known as a “joey” or (because it still had some silver in it) a “silver joey” (my mother still had a couple to put in the Christmas pudding in the 1950s). I’ve read that many American servicemen in Britain in World War II, found British currency mildly insane-driving because non-decimal, and definitely on the complicated side – some never completely got the hang of it. Many of them conceived a special hatred of threepenny coins; possibly contributed to by their being in that era, of – as per your post – two very different kinds, both common: old tiny silver-coloured one, and new larger twelve-sided one (as **glee** says, “yellow with funny straight sides”). The Americans called threepenny bits, “bastard coins”: with the celebrated thing of their being much better-paid than British troops – occasioning much envy – there are tales of the Yanks on payday, extracting the “bastard coins” from their pay packets and throwing them scornfully on the ground, providing quite a harvest for the local kids. One of those stories which one feels ought to be true, even if they aren’t… > [@PatrickLondon](#): > > And then there are all the slang terms for different quantities of pounds, like “monkey”, “pony” and so on (though might that be a purely London thing). I have read – can’t give any cite at this point – that the “monkey” and “pony” names came from British India, of all things, by way of guys who had been out there when in the Army: various-denominations-of rupees-notes in India – the x-rupee one featured a picture of a monkey, and the y-rupee ditto, a picture of a man on a horse. > [@MEBuckner](#): > > Super nit-picky correction, but farthing wasn’t really “slang”; that was the official name for the denomination and the word “FARTHING” was actually [spelled out on the coins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farthing_(British_coin))–note that it didn’t actually say anything like “1/4 of a penny” (or “1/960 of a pound”) anywhere on the farthing coin. “Farthing” is an old word meaning a fourth part / quarter of something – in this case, of a penny. In Tolkien’s writings, the hobbits’ Shire is divided into four administrative regions, in so far as hobbits “do” administration: the North, South, East, and West Farthings. This is reckoned to be a “nod” by Tolkien to the large English county of Yorkshire, which for many centuries until reorganisation in 1974 was divided into three “Ridings” – old word for a third part of something – North, East, and West. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2019, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/57 "2019-08-13T08:46:54Z")
> [@Sangahyando](#): > > I have read – can’t give any cite at this point – that the “monkey” and “pony” names came from British India, of all things, by way of guys who had been out there when in the Army: various-denominations-of rupees-notes in India – the x-rupee one featured a picture of a monkey, and the y-rupee ditto, a picture of a man on a horse. Don’t think attempts by me at direct linking, would work; but if one Googles “British money slang monkey pony”, various items come up to suggest that it’s largely a Cockney thing, and is indeed reckoned to be derived from Indian banknotes and their artwork, when we ruled there: “pony” = 25 pounds / rupees, “monkey” = 500 pounds / rupees. (The “hits” thus made by Googling, imply that this falls under Cockney rhyming slang; but the monkey and the pony are nothing to do with words rhyming.) ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2019, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/58 "2019-08-13T08:53:37Z")
> [@Sangahyando](#): > > This is reckoned to be a “nod” by Tolkien to the large English county of Yorkshire, which for many centuries until reorganisation in 1974 was divided into three “Ridings” – old word for a third part of something – North, East, and West. Amplifying: “Riding” here, a variation on old word “thriding”= a third part. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2019, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/59 "2019-08-13T09:44:58Z")
I was at school when we had 12 pence to a shilling and 20 shillings making a pound (i.e. 240 pence to the pound.) I discovered that: - 6 shillings and 8 pence was precisely one third of a pound - 8 shillings and 4 pence was 100 pence Neither of these were much use. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Myglaren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Myglaren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myglaren)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2019, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504/60 "2019-08-13T09:52:14Z")
"One pence"seems to me to have come about since decimalisation. It really grates. Re: “Quid” - quite often corrupted to _squid_ as in “Lend us a few squid” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-english-money-to-me/838504.md?page=4)