"Jaldhar H. Vyas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Tue, 28 Jan 2003, Pigeon wrote: > >> OK, Just to make things more complicated British money changed around >> 1970 from 1 pound = 240 pennies from 1 pound = 100 new pennies, ie. >> the value of the pound stayed the same but the penny changed. The >> 1/240-pound sort of pennies are now called "old pennies", but of >> course they were just pennies at the time. >> > > Some more wacky fun facts about British money. > > The d abbreviation for penny comes from the Latin denarius which was the > standard coin of the Roman empire. > > [ ... ]
Here's some more: The "s" that's used for shillings in the "old" system does not stand for the word "shilling"; rather, it stands for "solidus", which is another Roman coin. The solidus was valued at 12 denarii, just like a shilling is valued at 12 pence. One opinion of the derivation of the word "shilling" is that it came from the teutonic root "skell-" meaning to ring or resound; in other words, it was a certain type of coin whose quality was demonstrated by how well it sounded when it jingled. Another opinion is that it derived from the teutonic root "skel-" meaning to divide, and that it represented a segment into which an amulet of fixed weight was divided for use as money. In any case, by the time of the Normans, the value of the shilling had been set to that of one solidus, which is where the equation of these two terms derives. The word "Sterling" in "Pound Sterling" came from the fact that around the 11th or 12th century, there used to be a silver coin of the value of one denarius (i.e., one pence) that was called a "sterlingus". This weighed exactly 1/240 pound, and hence, a quantity of 240 of them was called a "pound sterling", meaning a pound of these sterlingus coins. It's possible that the name "sterlingus" derived from Norman coin which was probably called a "steorling" in Old English, because it had a star on it (the Old English word "steorra" meaning "star"). It's also possible that the word derived from the Old English word "staer" meaning "starling" (the bird). This is because there were some coins that Edward the Confessor issued that had four birds on them (usually called "martlets", but sometimes also "starlings"). The "steorling" (from "star") explanation is more likely. These "sterlingus" pence were generally of good quality and were therefore circulated through Europe and valued highly. This reputation for high quality is what led to the fact that the term "Sterling Silver" means a specific, high grade of that metal. There used to be an expression "as good as the sterling" which was a positive comparison to this highly prized coin, and which came to mean high quality in general (such as "he has a sterling character"). So, even though in recent history the word "sterling" came to be associated with the British pound (and sometimes has been used as a short form of the name of that currency denomination), the term originally meant a single penny. -- Lloyd Zusman [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
