Re: USAGE: Currencies and -s

On Wed, 30 Aug 2000, John Cowan wrote:

>On Wed, 30 Aug 2000, Raymond Brown wrote:
>
>> 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.
>
>Quoth A.E. Housman (1859-1936):
>
># When I was one-and-twenty
># I heard a wise man say,
># "Give crowns and pounds and guineas
># But not your heart away;
Hm. Could you give your heart away if it were engraved _on_
a guinea?

>A guinea, of course, is a money of account worth 21 shillings; I
>don't know when they were last actually coined.
1813. I think they were dumped with the recoinage. There were also
1/2 and 1/3 guineas. What a wonderful monetary system!

Padraic.

>--
>John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
>"[O]n the whole I'd rather make love than shoot guns [...]"
>        --Eric Raymond