Re: OT: the euro & 01.01.02 (was NATLANG/FONT:)
| From: | Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> |
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| Date: | Friday, December 21, 2001, 8:08 |
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Tristan Alexander McLeay wrote:
> Where did these interesting names for coins in the US come from?
Penny: From the equivalent British coin, don't know origin of that term
Nickel: Coin is (was?) made of nickel (I think today it's an alloy)
Dime: Official name "One-dime piece" (On a dime, it reads "One dime")
Quarter: Short for quarter dollar
> (Do you just have pennies, nickels, dimes and quaters? No fifty or twenty or
> two cent pieces? Or do they just lack names? Or are they too rare for people to
> ever talk about them? Or have I just never heard about them?)
In addition to the main four coins, there are a few 50-cent and 1-dollar
coins. I usually hear them called "Half-dollars" and "Dollar coins".
Those are the only other coins in circulation today, tho. The
half-dollar says "Half dollar" on it, and the dollar coin says "One
dollar" on it.
For a period of something like 3 years in the late 19th century (I
forget the exact years, 1870's, I think), a 20 cent coin (probably
called a double dime or two dime or something) was minted, but
apparently it wasn't very popular and they stopped making them.
US money was set up with more than just dollars and cents. There was a
unit above the dollar, the Eagle (10 dollars), the dime was 1/10 dollar,
the cent 1/100, and the mil (used only for tax purposes) is 1/1000
dollar. We used to have:
Double Eagle ($20)
Eagle ($10)
Half-Eagle ($5)
Quarter-Eagle ($2.50)
Three dollar
Dollar (Gold or silver)
Half dollar
Quarter dollar
Dime
Half dime (silver, later replaced by nickel five-cent)
Three cent (silver, I think) - nicknamed "trime"
One cent
Half cent
Everything smaller than the dollar, except for one cent and half cent,
were silver, everything above was gold. I'm not sure if there were
nicknames for those coins. There's also the "bit", 1/8 dollar (i.e.,
12.5 cents), but I don't think there was ever an actual US coin for
that, altho it was the exact equivalent of the Spanish real.
--
"There's no such thing as 'cool'. Everyone's just a big dork or nerd,
you just have to find people who are dorky the same way you are." -
overheard
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