Re: French liaisons (was something else)

On Sat, 7 Feb 2004, Costentin Cornomorus wrote:

> --- Tristan McLeay <zsau@...> wrote:
>
> > The only fractions we use of dollars is cents
>
> Quite. US monetary law is a bit odd in this
> respect. Officially, our denominations are
> "cent", "dime", "dollar" and "eagle". 1c of
> course is a penny; a dime is 10c; a dollar is
> 100c and an eagle is 1000c. There was a proposal
> once upon a time for a "union" at 10000c, but
> that never really came to be.
Does anyone actually commonly and-not-self-conciously use eagles? or
perhaps I should say, what's the set that 'a quarter eagle' is
understandable in? Do your $10 notes say 'eagle' on them? You Americans
needlessly complicated your money with your pennies and nickels and dimes
and quarters and half-dollars and eagles...

> > (our coins come in 5, 10, 20
> > and the octagonal 50 cents (collectively
Actually it's 12 sides. More sides than it needs, at any rate.

> > silver) and $1 and $2 (collectively gold)).
>
> Good on yer for getting rid of the penny and two
> cent piece!
One and two cent pieces (collectively copper; pennies went with shillings
and pounds in the 60s, silly Americans-with-confusing-names-for-
everything) went out in 1991, the dollar and two dollar notes became
coins starting 1984. Our first plastic note was a special $10 note for the
bicentennial in 1988, but by now paper notes are something to be awed at,
old and special.

> What happens if you call em florins? ... Nn, no
> that's 20c Australian. Half florins? Shillings?
> :)
Yeah, shillings'd make sense. In the sixties when we decimalised our
currency there was a time when prices were things like $2.50 (25/-), or
such is the evidence from Melways edition 1 (1966, the year of the
conversion). Maybe we should just go full circle and revert to shillings
(but with no sub/superdenomination). OTOH, shillings are probably a wee
bit too British, too, or at least old-fashioned. OTTH, I'm sure Mr John
"Let's all go back to the fifties" Howard would quite like it.

And perhaps if we just have shillings on their lonesome, it'll discourage
people from pricing things like 19/- instead of 20/- (or should it be 19s.
and 20s given the (proposed) absence of pence?). Silly people, what's
wrong with round numbers! But I doubt it. Nothing will make them give up
their annoying habits I imagine.

And there are probably psychological problems with say changing the price
of petrol from less than a fundamental currency unit a litre to almost 10
of them.

*Sigh*. Some people don't know a good idea when they hear it. But I have a
really good way of filtering good ideas, guaranteed no false-positives: If
I say it without implied or explicit disclaiming, it's a good idea :)

> > > LOL and to an American "two dollars fifty"
> > > sounds like someone putting
> > > on airs and/or trying to sound like a Brit!
> >
> > That surprises me no end (why, for instance, a
> > Brit?).
>
> Because they say things "tha??l be two squid
> fifty, guv" and similar. I guess if we REALLY
> want to sound rightpondian, we need to say "two
> dollars and fifty cee".
No? 'tha??u be two squid fi??y, guv'?

> > It probably doesn't
> > help that we say /dOl@z/ either, does it? :)
>
> Sounds perfectly Merkin! Somewhere in NE, anyway.
> Only don't tell yer dimehating mates! ;)
_ya_ dimehating mates, ya mean. (Stressing an inherently unstressed word?)

-------------------------------------------------- <- a ray [hehehe]

Adam Walker says:
> Because Brits are forever saying funny little ungramatical things like
> that just to make Americans snicker.  Don't you watch TV?
Not that frequently, no :) And while the Brits are certainly the source of
most funny little ungramatical and other silly things, Americans aren't
exactly innocent of it either :P (But most of yours are pronunciation ...
'guard' for 'god' and so forth.)

--
Tristan

Replies