Speaking of money

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 87598

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "bluesqueak" <pipdowns at e...> 
wrote:
> :
> > Iggy here:
> > 
> > Can someone name the different levels of British currency and how 
> > they relate to each other?  (Using the pound as a base...)
> 
> Pip!Squeak:
> Well, modern British muggle money is similar to the US system; it's 
> a decimal based system. One pound is 100 pennies. This is the 
> system that has been in use for all Harry's life.
> 
> We don't have names for the different coins, because it's too new a 
> system - I think we decimalised in either the late sixties or early 
> seventies. So they are just called 'fivepence', 'tenpence'. Though 
> you might hear 'twopence' pronounced as 'tuppence' and a penny 
> as 'one pee'.

Geoff:
In the areas which I know well - London and West Somerset - you don't 
hear "tuppence" or "thruppence" (which was the odd sounding one) 
or "fourpence" etc.

There was an attempt to call the new coins "new pence" and we had 
things like 35np on notices for a very short while until the average 
English person decided that pence was good enough. But it is very 
much the norm now to refer to "one pee", "two pee", "five pee" etc. 
for the coins.

We also had a daft half new pence coin, so we had a crazy system for 
about three years where we had 1/2 (written as a fraction) tacked 
onto the end of a decimal figure which made Maths teachers like 
myself foam at the mouth with fury.


Pip!Squeak: 
> The most common slang is to add the -er to the notes; so oncer, 
> fiver, tenner. 


Geoff:
Except we have no one pound note now. In general terms, pounds are 
often called "quids" as in the sort of situation "lend me a couple of 
quid would you?" or "the new DVD player set me back 80 quid". And of 
course a "grand" is £1000.


Pip!Squaek:
> JKR's WW money is based on the old English money system, which was 
> complete bloody chaos. She's made up the proportions (29 knuts to a 
> Sickle and 17 Sickles to a Galleon), but it's close to the original.
 
> The pre-decimalisation money system was what you get when you add 
> coins as you need them over several centuries, with no one ever 
> actually bothering to rationalise anything. ;-)
> 
> The basic unit was the penny, which could be divided into four 
> farthings, or two halfpenny's (pronounced 'haypenny'). Twelve 
> pennies made a shilling. Five shillings made a Crown. Four Crowns 
> (20 shillings) made a pound.
> 
> Instead of the Pound, many prices, fees etc. were calculated in 
> Guineas. That was 21 shillings.
> 
> There were also some quite wonderful coins, such as the half-a-
> crown, which makes sense in terms of being half of a Crown, but not 
> so much sense when you work out that it's two Shillings and six 
> Pence.


Geoff: In 20th century terms, it wasn't particularly chaotic. All you 
had to remember was 12 pence to a shilling and 20 shillings to a 
pound. Farthings went out in the 1950s and crowns were never referred 
to in everyday speech because there were no crowns in ordinary 
circulation. Guineas again had a fairly specialised use in latter 
days very often in such things as art sales or auctions. the name 
still survives in the Newamrket 1000 guineas horse race today. What 
we have lost are the old nicknames -  "tanner" for a sixpence, "bob" 
for a shilling. "Florin" was used for a two shilling piece which was 
introduced in an abortive 19th century plan to go decimal.

Far more chaotic was the Imperial system of weights and measures...
weights: ounce/pound/stone/quarter/hundredweight/ton
lengths: inch/foot/yard/chain/furlong/mile

Pip!Squeak:
> Compared with the older muggle system, Galleons Sickles and Knuts 
> look perfectly rational. ;-)


Geoff:
I have my doubts. 12 pence to a shilling and 20 shillings to a pound 
give you a fairly mathematical 240 pence to a pound. 12 is a very 
handy number base to have in terms of factors etc.

29 Knuts to a Sickle and 17 Sickles to a Galleon gives you a very 
helpful 493 knuts to a Galleon! Try getting Arthur Weasley to convert 
that to USD.

:-)