speaking of british speak -- question re: money

[Geoff Bannister]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "richard_smedley" 
<richard at s...> wrote:

Richard:

> The Guinea was actually a gold coin issued in the 17th and
> 18th centuries. It's value varied with the price of gold until
> it was fixed, early in the 18th century, at 21 bob (shillings).
> A pound coin was called a sovereign, whereas pound notes are 
> referred to as quids.
> 
> A shilling was made up of 12 pence, which meant that money
> used to be so much easier to divide up between various
> numbers of people than this decimal nonsense with which
> we've been saddled :-/

Geoff:
To be accurate pound notes /were/ referred to as quids. The present 
pound coin is sometimes called by this name though, when we want 
someone to help us with money, the common remark would be "Have you 
got a couple of quid?/a quid?" or something similar but this request 
might be met with a handful of smaller change.