It doesn’t really seem to make much difference to the sound of the word, cent, whether its followed by an ‘s’ or not. Not in Northern Ireland where we speak so quickly (when we cross the border to buy diesel and lotto tickets of course.)
Ah, same as the Spanish word “duro” has gone from meaning “5 pesetas” to meaning “5 céntimos (de euro)” (not to be mistaken with céntimos de peseta, which would be real, real tiny). So a duro is now worth 6 pesetas but buys less that a 5-peseta duro did in 2000.
The original definition of peseta was the 5th part of a “peso duro” :), the duro is actually an older denomination than the peseta.
In my professional experience the singular unit was always used pre and after the euro. That makes it look more “scientific” and professional. In science and engineering you always use the unit in singular. In accounting and financial documents I have always seen the singular used. That does not mean the common speech in the street does the same.
Whoa! Hold on there just a minute! Something don’t add up!
1 euro = 166.386 pta ----> 5 centimos = 8.32 pta
BTW, I have never heard “duro” used for the 5 cent coin but it may be regional.
A better example is that “céntimo” which used to be 1/100 of a peseta is now 1/100 of a euro. This is universally used and I have never, ever, heard anyone in Spain say “cent”.
Old Spanish currency is a nightmare to reckon. The “peso duro” or “peso fuerte”, “piece of eight” in English, was the original US dollar.
I have the last will of a Scottish ancestor of mine who left property in southern Spain dated 1813. The document was done in both English and Spanish and provides an interesting insight into the currency at the time. Unfortunately it is so complicated that I have not been able to make sense of it. Nothing adds up. But one thing which is clear is that “pesos duros” in Spanish is the same as “hard dollars” in English. This is from an email I was exchanging with another person who was collaborating in deciphering the awful handwriting of the documents:
And for those of you who don’t read Greek that’s ‘lepto / lepta’. Oddly the same word also means ‘minute’ (as in 1/60th of an hour). I think it generally just means ‘a small bit of something larger’.
the words “minute” and “second” have similar derivation.
Minute cames from “pars minuta prima”, first small part, and “second” from “pars minuta secunda”, second small part.
Cent, of course, comes from “centum”, “one hundred”.
Around Nashville I hear it’s called a Mini Eurol.
Howdee!
Prior to decimalization, English money was a nightmare too. Shillings, pence, bits, pounds…
Then for a little while after decimalization, it got even worse because the 10p piece was a shilling, only before decimalization it wasn’t a tenth of a pound…
Nothing compared to 1800 Spanish money. Modern British Pound/Shilling/pence was always at a fixed rate. The problem with Spanish money until the mid-late 19th century is that the exchange ratio would fluctuate depending of the fluctuating value of the metals (gold, silver, copper) and on global and local demand. So, at the time, 16 reales de vellón = 1 peso sencillo (16 rials bullion = 1 soft or simple peso) but in my relative’s will they are reckoned at 15 to 1. So, in fact Spain had several currencies which floated with respect to each other. Imagine if the USA used in everyday life dollars and euros and pounds with the exchange rate continually fluctuating.
We sometimes think those people of old times were dumb and uneducated but those who were minimally educated managed to handle these things pretty well and better than most Americans can handle such things today. And they didn’t have electronic calculators.
Sheesh. No wonder the Spanish lost their empire!
And to add to the mess, until the mid-XIX century treaty which unified Castilla and Navarra into a single kingdom with, among other things, cessation of import/export taxation between them and unification of coinage… there was more than one mint! And even more than that pre-War of Succesion (c. 1700), and mints in America, and the coins were supposed to be equivalent but if the Master of one Mint dipped too much then the coins would not be equivalent and…
Have I mentioned I love having a single coin for all these countries in the EU? It makes travel so much easier!
No. The 5p piece replaced the shilling, and was still 1/20th of a pound. The 10p piece replaced the florin (2 shillings), and was still 1/10th of a pound.
That was the whole point - the new coins were exactly the same size as the old ones, and had the same value. Until the 5p and 10p coins were shrunk (in 1990 and 1992 respectively), shillings and florins still circulated as 5p and 10p coins, and nobody really gave it a second thought. (I remember as a schoolboy thinking it was quite cool that these ancient (to me) coins from the 1930s and 1940s with long-dead kings on them were still in my pocket.)
I was trying to Google up a side-by-side picture of the shillings, florins and 5p and 10p coins. The best I can find is this.
Clockwise from top left, it shows an old 5p (pre-1990), a pre-decimal shilling (=5p), another old 5p, and a new 10p (post-1992, almost same size as old 5p). In the centre is a new (post-1990) 5p.
Huh. My memory is way off, then. I thought the original shilling was 7 to the pound, or something. I do remember that the coins were the same size, though, although I thought the shilling was 10p, not 5.
Fun fact: Euros are also called yoyos in Ireland, by de kidz.
Nope, twenty shillings to the pound and twelve pennies to a shilling. Not that I’m saying it makes much sense, of course. 
That’s . . . painful. 