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Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 1
stranger
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OP
stranger
Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 1 |
I am an American currently living in Sweden and I have just used the expression, "He counts every single penny he has." I said this even though there are no pennies in Sweden and I was actually talking about Swedish money, the Kronor. My Swedish friend had a problem with the word "penny".
Just as Americans have a generalized term for the 100 parts a dollar can be broken down into (cents), a Swedish Kronor can be broken down into 100 parts called an "öre". After explaining that Americans have little "nicknames" names for all of the coins that can make up the dollar: penny, nickel, dime, quarter, etc... (are there more? What's a sawbuck?), my friend said that there aren't such nicknames for the different coin demoninations for (and of) the Kronor. There exists a 1-öre (not in circulation anymore since it is about the same value as a tenth of a penny), 50-öre, 1-kronor, 5-kronor, and 10-kronor coins. Not one of them has a nickname like the nickel, dime, etc...
My question is: Where did these names for American coins come from? I could easily be convinced that the nickel became the "nickel" since (at one time?) it was cast out of the metal nickel, but where do the others come from? Ok, ok a quarter is not so difficult to figure out either. So I guess that my question really is: Where do the words "penny" and "dime" come from?
-john
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
I don't know the answer to your question, but it will be enlightening to read the comments that come in. However, I do have this to offer:
Christmas is coming;
The goose is getting fat.
Please to put a penny
in an old man's hat;
Please to put a penny
in an old man's hat.
If you've no penny,
a ha-penny will do.
If you have no ha'penny
then God bless you.
If you have no ha'penny
then God bless you.
That is such a pretty little round to sing with a group of fairly good singers.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Mostly not slang:Penny probably from an old word meaning a piece of cloth
it's been in the language as a coin name since before
the beginning
Nickel As you suspected, from the metal
Dime It means one-tenth, from Latin decimus
Slang:
Fin Five dollar bill, from Yiddish finf, five.
Sawbuck From the Roman numeral X, the shape of a sawbuck or sawhorse.
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
Hi, wonnderboy, and welcome aBoard.
"Penny" has been in Englsih usage as the basic coin for a very long time indeed - long before we started to colonise the New World. My guess is that the word came over with the colonists and became stuck in the language.
The other possibility is that it has evolved from the German "pfennig" (it has a common root with penny) but I think the first is the most likely
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
more slang,
2 bits-- from spanish pieces of eight, that were cut into 8 peices! so 2 bits is = to 2/8th or 1/4 or a quarter!
those same peices of eight, gave use the term dollar..
(spanish gold coin was used by many trader/people, and was used in many states both before and after independance, for the first 20 years or so. )
C note = $100--from roman numeral C for 100
and are we sticking to "proper" slang for coins?
if not:
moolah
scratch
loot
green stuff
folding stuff
dead presidents
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
- - and, of course, "bread", from the cockney rhyming-slang, bread-and-honey
(The King was in the counting house,//counting out his money,// the queen was in the parlour,// eating bread-and-honey,// ...")
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
Aha! I knew I just read this somewhere. I've been reading back issues of Take Our Word For It, where they did an article about coin names: http://www.takeourword.com/TOW132/page1.htmlAnd here's the relevant bit (although I suggest you read the article; it's pretty good): This name goes back to Anglo-Saxon times when the Old English word for "money" was pening. Ta-da! 
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
That's a great article, bean - it has clarified all sorts of things I half-knew and added a load that I didn;t know at all.
Many thanks.
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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
ok, slight diversion from this interesting thread:
how do you prounounce the ha in ha'penny? is it haypenny or hahpenny or ha(as in hat)penny? is it a regional thing? has it changed over time? I sing this carol regularly, and I'd like to get it right! I've always sung(and been taught), haypenny.
formerly known as etaoin...
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
I've always sung it haypenny. Pretty word, that.
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