http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3788395.stm
From the above article, bolding mine:
I was always under the impression that the term “fiver”, referring to a five pound note, was slang. Is it now considered “proper” so to speak, or is it a mistake by the journalist? When did “fiver” cease being slang?
It is slang, but it’s in such common use that I wouldn’t have raised my eyebrows.
Now, if he’d said ‘purchased for a Lady Godiva’, that’d be a different story.
Not to mention for a Pony (£25) or a Monkey (£500)…
Xerxes…666 posts shudder
The term fiver in this sort of context just means five pounds; not specifically a five pound note, in the same way that quid means one pound; the amount, not explicitly the coin itself.
Is this also true in the US and Australia/New Zealand of £5?
I have seen that the term appears to be in common useage but is it similarly applied to the value rather than the actual banknote.
Should have been $5, of course!
I agree with what has already been said. In addition to that I’d WAG that the journo used “a fiver” rather than five pounds to emphasise the cheapness. It has got that market stall “three for a fiver” kind of feel to it.
A fiver, by way of its informality, sounds cheaper than Five Pounds.
yes, I agree witih others: “fiver” does have a rather un-BBC ring to it, but I suspect it was used to give that “bargain from a dubious market stall” idea. Mind you, I’d like to buy any hard disk for a fiver!
A $5 note in the US is a fin, but that’s not heard much anymore.
A more pertinent question is: wherever did you get the idea that a journalist wouldn’t use slang? Do COR! WOTTA SCORCHER!, UP YOURS, DELORES and GOTCHA! mean nothing to you?
I’ve never heard the term “fiver” used to describe the five dollar note here in Australia. We don’t really have any currency-related terms akin to those in the UK, or indeed the USA (dimes, nickels). We just use mundane terms like five dollar note, twenty cent piece etc.
A yard is $100 (got that from a pawn-shop employee, gotta be authentic) and “1 large” is $1000.
You need to get out more, Cunctator. A twenty cent piece will always be two bob to me and I was born after 1970. See also; tenner, lobster, pineapple. I’m sure there are others. I’ve been trying to spread ‘pavarotti’ as slang for a tenner but I’m not having any luck.
My grandfather used to call a five cent piece a zac, but even I wouldn’t go that far.
**cabdude ** - I think I get out a reasonable bit
But apart from the term “two bob”, which I remember my grandmother, who’s been dead for over twenty years, occasionally using, I’ve never heard any of those other terms you mentioned.
If you said “fiver” in the US to mean a five dollar bill I think your meaning would be perfectly clear, but I don’t think anybody really says that. “Fin” is archaic. “A five” for the bill or “five bucks” for five dollars of any form would probably be current usage. “Large” means any number of thousands, not just one - “twenty large” or “twelve large” or whatever is common in Mafia movies. Ditto “grand”, but that has a much less underworldly connotation. A “sawbuck” is a hundred, and many bills may be referenced by the portrait on them (“Have you met my friend Mr. Jackson?” is a stereotypically cheesy way to duke somebody a 20 in order to get, say, a good table at a restaurant.)
My dad and other people of his generation say “two bits” for a quarter (25 cents, to those from elsewhere) which I’ve never understood. Is a “bit” then 12 and a half cents? Doubtful.
A sawbuck is actually a $10. And a double saw would be a twenty.
I think the ‘two bits’ thing is very old indeed. Someone may well contradict me here but a spanish dollar, a common form of currency in the US during colonial times, would be broken into eight bits, hence ‘pieces of eight.’ Two bits was a quarter or 25 cents.