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Slightly tangential but since it appears near the start of the article: As an American I recall being very surprised the first time I traveled to England and r
by burlesona 5y ago
Slightly tangential but since it appears near the start of the article:
As an American I recall being very surprised the first time I traveled to England and realized that “pence” is literally the same as “pennies” - just a different way of pluralizing it. As a kid I just thought it was some obscure division of numbers like “fortnight” or “score.”
I imagined it worked something like “four farthings to a pence and twelve pence to a pound” or something. :)
- sealjam 5y agoI always think of pence as 1/100 of a £, but pennies as multiple penny (1p) coins. I’m not sure whether it’s just me.
- OJFord 5y agoNo I agree that sums it up well - I can't think of a sentence that would sound natural (as in, sounds like a native BrE speaker said it) and have the same meaning with either one or the other.
- PebblesRox 5y agoSounds like cents would be the American equivalent in that case.
- ThePadawan 5y agoBoth are correct! Before the pound was decimalized, 12 pence were indeed a shilling, and 20 shillings a pound.
- dbcurtis 5y agoOf you go back far enough, I think it is true that at one time they were three currencies that floated against each other.
- siltpotato 5y agoHuh? How does that work?
- Symbiote 5y agoPence is the usual plural for an amount of money, although it's often replaced with "p" ("pee") when speaking informally. Pennies means 1p coins, sometimes 2p coins too: "Mum, I need sixty pence for the train, I've only got pennies and the machine doesn't take them." "Pennies" without an amount means a small amount of money. "It's only pennies with the amount we use it." (JK Rowling missed a trick. It should have been one bronze knut, two bronze knuts, and a price of four knets or something.)