off topic-uk money?

[Carl E. Anderson]

> alright now i may be the only one not to know but how much is a quid?
> more than a pound? and what the hell is a pence? your monetary sysyem/slang
> is confusing to this alabama boy. please can someone explain -this has
> been bothering me for a while-

        Luckily, there is a 'yank' here to translate ;)
        A 'quid' is to a pound like a 'buck' is to a dollar, if you
take my meaning .... 'Pence' is the plural of 'penny', ie. one penny,
two pence.  (I could digress at this point, and discuss the survival
of Old English plural forms in 'pence' as opposed to a -(e)s plural in
'pennies' by analogy with with other nouns of that form, but will try
to restrain myself ;)
        For about the last quarter century English money has been decimal,
ie. 100 pence = 1 pound. ('Pence' is abbreviated 'p', so 10p = 10 pence.)
Before that, there was a really fabulous system parts of which date back
to Roman times in which 240 (!) pence = 1 pound, and there were various
systems of shillings and things in between that which I don't remember
well ... 20 pence to a shilling and 12 shillings to a pound?  There were
other weird relics lurking in that system as well.
        I, personally, mourn the loss of the ha'penny (=.5p) which got
phased out about a decade ago .... ;)  Plus, sometime in the last 10 years
the Enlish have changed the size of their 5p coin, which I discovered when
I showed up with the _wrong_size_ 5p piece (perish the thought)!

        Another interesting note on English money for 'yanks' is that
one pound coins, first introduced when I was here in '84, have long since
completely replaced paper 1 pound notes.  This is somewhat confusing when
one first arrives and suddenly finds oneself mixing ones pound coins in
with one's loose change as opposed to larger denomination paper notes
(as one would with dollar notes)--but actually it works quite well an
it gives one a strange feeling of satisfaction to actually be able to
buy _real_things_ (as opposed to, say, gumballs) with _coins_.
        I personally, am ready to ditch paper money in favour of 5, 10,
and 20 pound coins as well :)

Right, enough of that ...

Cheers,
Carl