Re: USAGE: Currencies and -s

At 1:09 am -0500 30/8/00, Thomas R. Wier wrote:
>BP Jonsson wrote:
[....]
>>
>> And why?  Because in each lg they got their own plural formation.  And
>> besides there was once an English coin called "Crown".  Last but not least
>> that's what the word means(*)
>
>Except that English speakers do not speak about "crowns" with reference
>to currency unless they want to sound like an eighteenth century Enlightenment
>philosopher, so we don't use that term.  :)
On the contrary, we _do_.  When I travelling around central Europe this
summer, the currencies of Slovakia and the Czech Republic were always
referred to as 'Slovak crowns' and 'Czech crowns'.  I never once heard
either the Czech or the Slovak words used in English.

And, hey - what's this with the 18th century?

In places where we kept the old pounds, shillings (20 shillings = 1 pound)
& pence (yes _pence_; 12 pence = 1 shilling, 240 pence = 1 pound), crowns
were still minted in the 20th century!  I have some about somewhere round
the house.

The pre-decimalization crown was, nominally, worth 5 shillings.  It was
minted in the 20th cent. only on special occasions and, although in theory
it could be spent, people AFAIK held on to them.  My daughter, however, has
somewhere a crown minted in the 19th century in the year my grandfather was
born.  It was not minted to commemorate his birth!  It was a normal coin of
the time (and may well have been even at the dawn of the 20th).

And the "Half Crown" (two sillings and sixpence; written 2/6) was in common
usage almost up to the time of decimalization.  It was withdrawn IIRC in
1968, to pave the way for the old Florin to become the new tenpence (10p).
Before that time foreigners often complained about the awkward Brits who
had two similar coins: the Florin (2/0) and the Half Crown (2/6).  The
latter was the more popular coin IME.

Indeed, I remember a short lived campaign at the time to persuade people to
put _two_ 10p coins in the church collection, not one!  Apparently, before
decimalization the Half Crown had been the most popular coin to appear in
church collections and, of course, substituting 2/0 or 10p for it meant a
considerable loss of revenue!  But, alas, the sharp rise in oil prices and
the consequent inflation of the 1970s have changed all that.  All, in all
denominations, are exhorted to give rather more nowadays  ;)

To confuse foreigners even further, while the coin was a Half Crown, we
habitually referred to the he sum of money (2/6) as 'half a crown'     :)
e.g.
"How much do you want for that?"
"For you, son, only half a crown"

One of the slang terms for the 'half a crown' was "half an Oxford".  It was
from Cockney rhyming slang: Oxford <--- Oxford scholar = dollar.  Yep -
'half a dollar' was a common slang term for 'half a crown'.  In those far
off days a pound stirling was worth roughly four dollars - now it's only
about one and half dollars :=(

Oh dear - I think I must stop all this nostalgia for lost youth  :)

Ray.







=========================================
A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
=========================================