Britishisms / thanks / currency (was Knight Bus)

[Rita Winston]

No: HPFGUIDX 18600

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Alexandra Y. Kwan" <litalex at y...> wrote:

> Actually, I'm wondering, how did the Weasleys got to Egypt on
> their vacation?  Flew?  Apparate?  Floo Powder?  Was it mentioned?

I don't recall it being mentioned, but I'm sure they didn't 
Apparate. Besides all the young-uns, even Percy, not having their 
Apparation Licenses yet (Percy had just gotten his at the beginning 
of GoF), QUIDDITCH THROUGH THE AGES says that wizarding folk don't 
Apparate very long distances because it's too dangerous --  IIRC it 
said they used to sail on ships between Europe and the Americas until 
brooms were made sufficiently reliable and sufficiently 
comfortable for such long trips. 

> > All gone with our twelve pence to the shilling and twenty
> > shillings to the pound,
> It's...seven sided?  Huh.  So, wizard money is the same all over 
> the world? That's good.  

Last week I was reading the January 2001 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN (it's 
called ketchup (catch-up)) and there was a Letter to the Editor about 
a humor essay on obsolete units of measurement by a man who owns a 
business that restores antique MGs and therefore deals with 'a 
plethora of obsolete units' (price in LSD, kerbside weight in cwt, 
fuel tank in Imperial gallons, etc) and he said he tortures new 
employees with the question: How many moon units in a hundredweight? 
I know from nothing about 'moon unit', except it's Frank Zappa's 
daughter's given name, so I looked in One-Look Dictionaries and found 
absolutely nothing about moon unit, but found that:

cwt is hundredweight. (I feel stupid. Now that I know, it's obvious 
cwt = Cent WeighT)

hundredweight is 
1) 100 lb (can be called American or 'short')
2) 112 lb (can be called British of 'long')
3) 120 lb (can be called 'old)
4) 100 kg [220 lb] (can be called 'metric') 

It struck me as being a very clear, understandable, difficult to 
confuse unit of measurement (NOT!). The connection to Old Money is 
the 112 - 120 lbs to the 12 pence, 20 shillings. The connection to HP 
- On Topic is that the reply-hook (the statement that I'm replying 
to) is in the same post as an On Topic reply-hook.

little Alex wrote:
> I did check it.  But the book was 2.50 pounds, right?  So, that
> would mean:
> 1 knut = 0.006112£ (snip)
> Which is different from your calculations.  Of course, I could 
> have gotten the "2.50 pounds = 14 sickles and 3 knuts" wrong.  

I think the currency conversion is supposed to be based on 
Dumbledore's statement (in the prefaces) that Comic Relief UK has 
raised 'over 250 million dollars since they started in 1985 -- which 
is the equivalent of over 174 million pounds or thirty-four milion 
Galleons' rather than on the price of the book itself. Very often the 
prices marked on books for US, UK, Can reveal that the publisher is 
charging some country a higher price.

The above conversion agrees with what JKR said in a chat about the 
Galleon being worth 5 pounds (which would be around $7.20). However, 
just some people won't admit that JKR is right that there are 1000 
students at Hogwarts, I cannot believe that the prices that Harry is 
shown paying (e.g. seven Galleons for his wand) make any sense with a 
$7 Galleon. I believe that the Galleon must be worth something in the 
$25 to $40 range -- I believe that the 10 Galleons a week that 
Dumbledore offered Dobby (altho' Dobby forced him down to 10 Galleons 
a month IIRC) is the minimum wage for wizarding humans, which would 
be around $240 to $400 a (40 hour) week, depending on local law. In 
1918, Newt Scamander was paid 2 Sickles a week. Well, how much was 85 
cents a week worth in 1918?