BS: A buck and a quid

Subject: BS: A buck and a quid
From: olddude
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 09:15 AM

OK so back in the early 1800's an American dollar was worth a "buck"
that is a male deer ... so my UK friends, what is a quid?

I am thinking that since we have such an overpopulation of deer here, maybe we should pay off the Chinese debt with deer. We would only have to come up with 17 trillion male deer.

Good idea

so how much is 17 million quid?

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: GUEST,999
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 09:39 AM

Seventeen million British pounds (quid) is equal to 27,098,000 dollars US. That is, it would cost you 27 million dollars (US) to buy 17 million quid.

At least it is just now. That will change just a bit either way on a day-to-day basis.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: olddude
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 09:45 AM

why do they call it a "quid"

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Will Fly
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 09:49 AM

My guess is that it comes from "quid pro quo" - Latin for "something for something". Quid is slang for a sovereign/pound, but there's no actual derivation for the slang useage in the Concise Oxford.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: olddude
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 10:11 AM

Thanks Will that makes sense, wondered why it was called that ...

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Charmion
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 10:55 AM

A quid is also a lump of something, such as tobacco.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 12:28 PM

And bucks can also be 'simoleons', 'smackers' and a dozen other local bits of bewildering slang. (a thousand of either makes a 'grand'...etc.)
I'm not surprised people USE clever slang, but I am frustrated at times when they have little idea how to translate into standard-speak.

(American gangster slang is/was full of cute euphemisms )

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Pete Jennings
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 12:58 PM

Common UK phrase, when something costs a pound over 5 pounds: A sick squid.

Anything similar for bucks?

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 01:07 PM

"megabucks" for very expensive items or certain lotteries.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: olddude
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 01:46 PM

Saw buck for 50 cents

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Charmion
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 01:50 PM

Fifty cents? I thought a sawbuck was a ten-dollar bill.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 01:52 PM

?? I always understood sawbuck as ten dollars....


ahhh...yep

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 01:54 PM

explanation of origin

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: olddude
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 02:08 PM

dang had it wrong for 59 years Bill LOL

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: olddude
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 02:09 PM

We use to call 10 or more bills as Fat Bucks

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: olddude
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 02:09 PM

Is a half a quid called a squid?

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 02:12 PM

nawww... half a quid is an 'id'..

*ducking behind my ego*

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Penny S.
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 02:21 PM

Ten bob in old money.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 02:24 PM

so my UK friends, what is a quid?

Notoriously, the Brits have bad teeth. It makes it hard for them to pronounce the initial "s" (and a bunch of other letters).

John

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: olddude
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 02:25 PM

Well I like the idea of pounds, all money should still be physical pounds. Then no one would raise their prices cause no one has the back to load lets say 20,000 lbs to buy a car. Everyone's pants would fall down for carrying the weight of the coins ... that would solve a lot of over spending by Gov right and force people to save their money cause they would be too tired to lift it.

Good idea

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: olddude
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 02:30 PM

Think about it, if we had to pay the Chinese back 17 trillion pounds of anything, the earth would tip on its side. Instead they would say, no no its ok .. no need to pay us back right. And how could they store 17 trillion pounds of anything. How about giving them a 17 trillion pound coin ... I think it would solve all financial problems

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Gurney
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 02:44 PM

Then the horse-racing fraternity have terms for quantities of quids, such as a 'pony,' and a 'monkey.'
When I was young a 'ton' meant a hundred of anything, but particularly in my circle, miles per hour, and a 'grand' was a thousand.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: beardedbruce
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 03:10 PM

Just as "Dixie"comes from the New Orleans bank notes ( seen in the north, esp NYC) with DIX on the backs ( meaning ten).

Land of Dixie means New Orleans... then the South in general.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: olddude
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 03:37 PM

BB I forgot about that, you are so right .. thank you

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: beardedbruce
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 04:27 PM

And I have a 10 trillion Mark note in my collection (10,000,000,000,000 German Marks)

I wonder if I can buy a 992B watch with it?

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: JennieG
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 04:42 PM

"Quid" was also used in Oz, until our currency changed to dollars and cents in 1966. A quid was one pound.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: olddude
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 07:36 PM

BB sure can, I bet we could pay off the debt also with it

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: olddude
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 07:37 PM

So what is a punt?

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: frogprince
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 07:45 PM

Olddude, don't make me tempted to post the one about the guy who wrote the fishing resort to reserve a panoe...

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 07:55 PM

OldDude:
A punt was an Irish pound. At one point the english & irish pounds traded at parity (One pound = one punt)but the Irish went their own way, and the punt was no longer linked to the value of the pound.
Norther Ireland retained the English Pound. The South retained the punt (until they gave it up to join the Euro).
Cheers

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: olddude
Date: 18 Jan 13 - 08:49 PM

Thank you wonder why it was called a punt .. hmmm

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: GUEST,Musket sans cookie
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 07:16 AM

I thought it was a buck because people in Kansas have buck teeth. They can't pronounce some words you see....

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 07:29 AM

A punt is the dimple in the bottom of a wine bottle.
Buck and dough?
The £ for pounds comes from the French Livre. This was a unit of French currency. Originally Latin of course 'librae'

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Will Fly
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 08:10 AM

The old term "LSD" for pounds, shillings and pence was from the Latin, "Librae, Solidi Denarii".

That was before Timothy Leary got his hands on it, of course...

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 08:14 AM

To understand the derivation of the term "buck", you need to consider the relative values of a dollar today versus back when the term was coined. A dollar isn't really worth much today, but it used to be much more deer.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 08:27 AM

There's no antler to that statement.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Penny S.
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 08:39 AM

To add a music reference...

"Rule Britannia,
Two tanners make a bob,
Three make eighteen pence
And four two bob"

A tanner being a sixpenny piece or sixpence. Originally silver and the traditional coin for hiding in the Chriatmas pudding.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 09:18 AM

In old Cockney rhyming slang (not so much used now, but not quite dead) a quid could be 'saucepan lid' a 'nicker', or 'lost and found' (pronounced 'lorst 'n fahnd'). A fiver £5, 'Lady Godiva'. It's said that £10 (a tenner) can be called an 'Ayrton Senna' but I've never heard that one. We often called a penny (old money) a 'stiver', as in "I haven't got a stiver", £2 'pair of knickers', £25 a 'pony', £50 'bullseye', £100 'ton', £500 'monkey' £1000 a 'grand'. Funnily enough, five shillings (25p) was always a 'dollar'. That was tons of money to us then, but absolutely nothing now.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Pete Jennings
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 11:25 AM

And two-and-sixpence was "half-a-dollar", or a half-crown. Lovely big silver coloured coin.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 11:40 AM

I think the origin of the dollar name, was in days gone by, an American dollar was worth 5/-.
I seem to remember that I got 7/6d per dollar in exchange for some dollars my late aunt Isobel sent me for a birthday. That would have been around about 1953.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 12:11 PM

Oh John, reminds me of the old Bingo call, "Seven-and-six. Was she worth it?" (Refers to the price in those days of a Marriage Licence.) We had sixpence each (2-and-a-half p) pocket money. It bought a Beano, a Dandy and a liquorice skipping rope. You started on one end, and chewed on and on until you'd read both comics. Those were the days.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 03:36 PM

Eliza: We often called a penny (old money) a 'stiver', as in "I haven't got a stiver
If I recall correctly, this is from the name for a Dutch coin: Stuiver

Cheers

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 04:00 PM

I never knew that Nigel - v interesting. I'd assumed it was Yiddish, or something similar, from the East End.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 07:20 PM

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, "buck" is "...perhaps an abbreviation of buckskin, a unit of trade among Indians and Europeans in frontier days, attested in this sense from 1748."

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 20 Jan 13 - 06:37 AM

And to add to beautifully varied fashions of reference to our money, past and present, there is:-
The guinea, one pound and a shilling, still widely used in horse racing circles.
The "Sov", short for Sovereign, meaning a pound.(Mind you, gold ones now cost an arm and a leg).
The "sprarzy", another name for a tanner.
The florin, two bob.
The "thrupney bit", pronounced just like that.
Any silver coinage appearing at our football team gambling nights was referred to as "snow".
And if you haven`t any of these in your pocket, then you are, unfortunately, "potless".

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Kenny B (inactive)
Date: 20 Jan 13 - 07:52 AM

Whats ?
"tuppence and twapence a groat and three ha'pence a penny a penny and an odd bawbee.

No prize for any one over "21"

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 20 Jan 13 - 09:51 AM

Does this add up to a shilling, Kenny? Do tell, as I'm dying to know!

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Pete Jennings
Date: 20 Jan 13 - 10:23 AM

That's a good strategy, Kenny, no prize for anyone over 21! Is there ANYONE not over 21 on this site??

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: olddude
Date: 20 Jan 13 - 11:31 AM

Me I am just wee lad tee hee :-)
so then what is a farthing (sp) how many shilling is that or vise versa

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 20 Jan 13 - 11:40 AM

A farthing was a quarter of an old penny. So 960 of them to a pound.
That's 48 in a shilling (twenty shillings to the pound)
When we went decimal in 1973 the old Florin (2 shillings) and Bob (one shilling) were replaced by coins of the same value (10p & 5p) which circulated side by side for some time as the value and coin size/material was the same (except for Florins/Bobs from before 1947 which actually containe 50% silver)

Cheers

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Bert
Date: 20 Jan 13 - 12:21 PM

Ya didn't go decimal you went centigesimal:-)

more money talk.

A penny was a coal, rhyming slang for coal heaver - stiver (pronounced stever) Ain't worth a coal.

rhyming slang: Threepenny bits - tits
A silver threepenny bit was called a Joey.
Sixpence was a tanner or a sprazie.
A two shilling piece was once called a florin.
Half a crown was called half a tosh.
A crown was an Oxford from rhyming slang Oxford Scholar - Dollar and they would not accept them in pubs.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: olddude
Date: 20 Jan 13 - 12:22 PM

Thanks Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 04:43 AM

Well come on then Kenny, please give us the answer. I'm so much older than 21, but have no idea what it means. Where is it from, a skipping song? A proverb? Time to reveal all!

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 06:29 AM

Eliza;
You got it right straight off. A Shilling:
"tuppence and twapence a groat and three ha'pence a penny a penny and an odd bawbee.
i.e. 2d+2d+4d+1½d+1d+1d+½d = 12d - 1s

As for song/proverb etc. it is more like the old
"How many beans make five?    Two beans, a bean, a bean and a half, and half a bean"

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: GUEST,Branno
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 08:20 AM

In pre-decimal Oz, a quid was, well a quid. Or a rug, a cracker (as in 'not a cracker' for what I haven't got), a fddley (rhyming slang fiddley-did), a flag or a toad or toadskin, or a smacker. Five quid couldabeen a spin or spinner, or a bluey or half-a-brick. Ten quid, well that was a brick, a salmon or a red 'arry and you were doing well if you had one.
Fifty smackers was a good whack when the shed cut out.
Coins: a shillin' was a bob or a deener (Riverina, Murrumbeena) sixpence a zac (Andy Mac, I'll be back) thruppence a trey, trezzie or tiddley, and yeah five bob was 'a dollar'. A penny might be a bronze or a brum, or a sunburnt twobob, a ha'penny, a mock or an oddie.
Lots of lovely moolah, plenty of spondoolicks, oodle, oscar (Oscar Asche) flush. Flash as a rat with a gold tooth. If you had a grand you could call it a winkie.
Or you could be broke to the wide, without a skerrick, having Buckley's ( a Melbourne establishment, Buckley and Nunne) or not having a brass razoo.

I may be getting carried away. Maybe I should be...

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Stu
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 10:27 AM

Lady = Fiver

Ayrton = Tenner

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 11:04 AM

Fiver= Harold Melvin

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Kenny B (inactive)
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 02:54 PM

You win the just o/21 prize Eliza
It is ONE SHILLING or equivilent to a one Bob Bit

On an Aer lingus flight to Boston pre Euro I bought a 1/2 bottle of Poteen which cost 7 Punt 50 pence. I gave the steward a £10 note and he gave me a 5 Punt note as change. I was delighted but still havent worked out the exchange rate but who cares.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 03:51 PM

Thank you for posting the conundrum Kenny, I enjoyed trying to work it out. (Wish I was only 21 again! I could see my knees in those days. Now they've disappeared beneath an enormous tum and bust!)

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 03:55 PM

Kenny:
For £10 you got a 7.50(punt) bottle & 5(punt) change, so you got a total value of 12.50 punt for £10.
The exchange rate was 1.25(Irish) to the pound (sterling)

Cheers

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Kenny B (inactive)
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 03:56 PM

I know the feeling I too have large tum and am presently bust.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 04:00 PM

LOLOLOL Kenny!!

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Allen in Oz
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 04:32 PM

Dear Branno

Good on you for that information

When I had read it I realised that I was as " mad as a two bob watch "

AD

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Will Fly
Date: 22 Jan 13 - 07:10 AM

Anyone here old enough to have spent farthings in shops? I remember going up to the corner shop in our village in the late '40s and buying a sweet for a farthing.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Stu
Date: 22 Jan 13 - 07:29 AM

For our visiting American brothers and sisters: "going for a two-bob bit" has nothing to do with currency exchange.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: beardedbruce
Date: 22 Jan 13 - 10:27 AM

olddude,


"18 Jan 13 - 07:36 PM

BB sure can, I bet we could pay off the debt also with it"


I can only wish!




Before the war, the highest denomination was 1000-Mark, equivalent to approximately 50 British pounds or 238 US dollars. In earl

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: beardedbruce
Date: 22 Jan 13 - 10:50 AM

sorry...

"Before the war, the highest denomination was 1000-Mark, equivalent to approximately 50 British pounds or 238 US dollars. In early 1922, 10,000-Mark notes were introduced, followed by 100,000- and 1 million-Mark notes in February 1923. July 1923 saw notes up to 50 million-Mark, with 10 milliard (1010)-Mark notes introduced in September. The hyperinflation peaked in October 1923 and banknote denominations rose to 100 billion (1014)-Mark. At the end of the hyperinflation, these notes were worth approximately 5 pounds or 24 dollars."

10 14th power- 100,000,000,000,000 marks- worth 24 1925 USD (-and each of those were worth 1/32nd of an ounce of gold each, or $53 of todays).

I'll take the 992b.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 22 Jan 13 - 11:02 AM

Used to buy individual farthing chews or Blackjacks in the '50s.

And from the days when a marriage licence cost the same as a dog licence:

'It was just six months ago that I
Got married to a woman in Peckham Rye.
But I could not have had much sense,
She cost me seven shillings and six pence.

CH: She cost me 7/6d (x3)
    I wish I'd bought a dog.'

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jan 13 - 11:44 AM

The "tanner" (sixpence) was actually a doubled slang term-
"Tanner" was a shortened version of "Tanner and Skin" - Thin
A "Thin" was a(n early?) Victorian nickname for a sixpence.

The 5/- 'dollar' came about because (I believe) the Crown piece (silver before 1947), was approximately the same dimensions as the silver dollar.

And as for quid:
Will Fly states "..."quid pro quo" - Latin for "something for something". ...", quite possible -it's worth remembering that early coins were in silver (weighed in the Troy system, rather than Avoirdupoirs(?)) in which the pount was divided into 12 ounces each of 20 penny-weight (240 penny-weight to the pound - seem familiar?).
If £1 was the ouriginal value of 1 lb of Sterling grade silver* then silver pennies each of one penny-weight seems feasable.

Just a thought.


* An remember just how far back we are going - probably pre-10th Century

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 22 Jan 13 - 05:14 PM

Oh I well remember farthings. That lovely little wren on them! Black Jack chews weren't very nice, I preferred salad chews for a ha'penny each. Many items were sold in shops for eg 'two and elevenpence three farthings', which of course was just a farthing short of three shillings, but it sounded less. And a penny was a huge coin compared to the 'one pee' of today. We liked to get a bun penny, which had Queen Victoria as a young woman with her hair in a bun.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 23 Jan 13 - 04:45 AM

Why was a penny like 19/11¾ (Nineteen shillings & elevenpence three farthings)


They were both a far-thing from a pound   :)

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 23 Jan 13 - 08:33 AM

When I think of the extremely complicated calculations we did in school involving farthings, ha'pennies, pennies, thrupenny bits, sixpences, shillings, florins, half-crowns to be multiplied, divided converted to highest denominator, added, subtracted, and all this at the age of ten or less, I can hardly believe we mastered it, (and calculators hadn't been invented then). But we jolly well did! And don't even think of ounces, pounds, stones, hundredweights, pecks, bushels, gills, pints, quarts, gallons, furlongs, rods, poles or perches!

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: GUEST,Peter
Date: 23 Jan 13 - 11:39 AM

My father always claimed that mental arithmetic was easier with the old system and that he never needed a calculator before decimalisation.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 23 Jan 13 - 01:19 PM

I must admit that I never had any trouble with imperial measure or pre-decimalisation coinage. There were so many shortcuts available such as a dozen eggs at threepence each are three shillings. I remember feeling relieved when the pound sterling was devalued to $2.40, so 1 penny = 1 US cent. It was only after decimalisation that problems started, and I frequently got the right answer, but with the point in the wrong place, and then I got into IT and had to do everything in octal for quite a few years until we changed to 32-bit and I had to learn hexadecimal!

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 23 Jan 13 - 02:47 PM

Good gracious Dave! You must be an Einstein to be able to work to base 10, base 8 and base 32! I was always quite good at maths in Grammar School and managed to achieve O Level. And we were always given loads of mental arithmetic by our teachers. They'd point at you out of the blue and ask "Six twenty-fours subtracted from eight ninety-twos?" As you gulped and did frantic sums in your head, they'd use a menacing voice, "Come on, come on, hurry up!" But it kept us on our toes. Imagine youngsters today putting up with that. Many of them would sneer and tell the teacher to f*** off!

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Charmion
Date: 23 Jan 13 - 03:47 PM

In my far-distant youth (circa 1963), I actually learned to add and subtract pounds, shillings and pence, as well as dollars and cents. It was all part of being Canadian and not quite out of the shadow of the ol' Empire yet.

This feat of mental gymnastics helped immeasurably a couple of years later, when the New Math hit me like a fully loaded dump truck. Now, if only the problems had dealt with buying sugar at sixpence a pound and meat at one and fourpence instead of sums in Base 8, I'd have been laughing.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Pete Jennings
Date: 23 Jan 13 - 04:01 PM

Eliza, hexadecimal is actually base 16: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F.

You get used to it after a while. Well, actually I used to work on a petrol station when I was in the sixth form (69-70) and calculating customer's bills in LSD was a doddle compared with octal or hex. Binary was much easier...

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Allen in Oz
Date: 23 Jan 13 - 04:44 PM

If you were prepared to take a risk, it was regarded as:

" In for a penny
In for a pound"

AD

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: gnu
Date: 23 Jan 13 - 05:04 PM

How does one convert hexadecimals to ducks and squids, the system of currency for hundreds of years in Atlantic Canada? Along the coast, at least. Inland, in the fly infested bog country, the system was based on moose, caribou, rabbits, pa'tridge and squirrels. 1 moose = two caribou = 400 rabbits = 1200 Birch Pa'tridge = 2400 Spruce Pa'tridge = 4800 red squirrels. All was well until Virginia White Tailed Deer migrated north with the increased access to their required diet which grew after the forests were harvested. There was a movement which tried to get the inlands on the currency of Maple, Oak, Ash, Cedar, Pine, Spruce, Poplar and Alder but calculating with 48,000,000 fuckin alders was not practical. On accounta most everyone hates fuckin alders... 'cept fer pa'tridge.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: Charmion
Date: 23 Jan 13 - 07:34 PM

I wouldn't mind having an alder in front of my house right now, instead of the emerald-ash-borer-infested ash that the City of Ottawa has marked for removal come Spring.

But that's a whole 'nother load of pocket change.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: gnu
Date: 23 Jan 13 - 08:07 PM

AN alder? AN? No such thing as AN alder. It's alderssssssss and you gotta be a snake ta get tru em or a pa'tridge what can fly so as you can eat tha buds. An they are shit fer firewood... they are like the squirrels of trees... rats! Nasty rats!

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 24 Jan 13 - 04:47 PM

The Irish pre-euro currency was never called the 'punt' unless one was speaking Irish - it was called the pound, or the Irish pound to distinguish it from sterling. While Britain was our main trading partner the two currencies were locked, but as the independent Republic of Ireland traded more and more with Europe the sterling link became a hindrance and we cut free of it.

The coins were designed, as far as I remember, by an Englishman, Percy Metcalfe, and are really beautiful.

When Ireland changed to the euro coinage, we took on the ugly bank notes; on the coins, those issued in Ireland have the national symbol, a harp based on the Brian Boru harp. (The different countries of Europe have different symbols on the coins - the most beautiful is undoubtedly the Greek one, with Athene's owl and olive branch, the Finnish euro has two swans flying over a landscape, the Germans have, guess what, an eagle, and so on.)

As for where 'quid' came from, who knows? Maybe it's the sound it makes as it evaporates in your pocket.

Subject: RE: BS: A buck and a quid
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 25 Jan 13 - 03:01 PM

We were in Tesco's today looking at the vegetables. They had cauliflowers for TWO POUNDS EACH. Two quid for one measly cauli!! Imagine if, in the fifties, a barrow boy had asked two knicker for a cauli. You'd have died laughing and the men in white coats would've carried him off.