IIRC in pre-decimal Britain we used 'pence' a lot in a spoken names for the discrete sub-shilling coins but the names of the coins themselves all had distinct c

IIRC in pre-decimal Britain we used 'pence' a lot in a spoken names for the discrete sub-shilling coins but the names of the coins themselves all had distinct colloquial abbreviations for the amount, notably 'tuppence', 'thruppence' and 'ha'penny' for 2, 3 and half a penny respectively. 'Sixpence' - the half shilling - was pronounced as you might expect. The 3 penny coin (yes!) was colloquially called a 'thruppeny bit'. The pre-decimal abbreviation for a penny was 'd' (denari) rather than 'p' (pence) so you would never say '2p' or '5p' as we would today. Decimal quantities such as 5 or 10 pennies didn't have dedicated coins and there was no special name for these amounts. In 1971, a cheap paperback book was sold for two shillings and sixpence, which was said as 'two-and-six'. Decimalisation [0] was my first experience of price gouging, when the same paperbacks were suddenly repriced at 15p (~three shillings) instead of the 12.5p which was the decimal equivalent of their old price. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_Day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_Day