Re: USAGE: Currencies and -s

At 9:06 am +0000 29/8/00, Rik Roots wrote:
>> On Mon, 28 Aug 2000, Thomas R. Wier wrote:
>>
>> >Speaking of weird plurals, what's the status of "pence"? Is that a plural
>> >of penny, or some independent usage?
>>
>> It's the plural of "penny" as a money of account. In other words,
>> 15 pence is a sum of money, regardless of what coins are used,
>> that equals 15p (or 15d before 1970). While 15 pennies is 15 1 penny
>> coins.
Well, yes, when I was a youngster (way _before_ 1968, alas) that was the
way everyone used the terms.   That's the way many of us old-timers still
use 'penny', 'pennies' and 'pence'.  But...

>IIRC "pence" is an invented word, introduced at the time of UK
>decimalisation (1968-70), specifically to distinguish between old
>pennies (of which there were 240 to the pound) and new pence (100 to
>the pound).
Nah - it's centuries old, I'm afraid.  Nothing whatever to do with
decimalization.  The new denominations were distinguished from the old
simply with the word "new"  :)

>I remember people hating the new word - my mother still
>does - but constant official usage over the past 30 years has made it
>the "accepted" plural of penny, in place of pennies.
'twas the accepted _plural_ of penny long, long before either your mother
or I - or indeed my father or grandfather - were born.   It's been in
constant use not for 30 years but for 300 years and more.

What, I suspect, your mother hates is the post-decimalization usage of
'pence' as a *singular*.  Almost from the start one heard things like:
"Is that only one pence?"
"Oh dear, I'm one pence short.  'ere, love, you got a pence?"

When decimalization was introduced we had "new ha'pennies" which were
habitually referred to as 'a half pence'!

This usage has no official status, where the singular is still 'penny'; but
the colloquial use now of 'pence' as an invariable singular or plural is
very widespread.
-----------------------------------------

At 11:58 am +0000 29/8/00, Lars Henrik Mathiesen wrote:
[....]
>Pence were always pence:
>
>        http://www.24carat.co.uk/images/1878sixpencerev.jpg
>
>Coins of five and ten new pence were minted from 1968, decimalization
>was 1971-02-15. The 'new' was dropped from 1982.
>
Quite so.

Ray.



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