h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A quick numerical brainteaser:

2: 10 and 6
3: 7
4: 5 and 3
5: inexact
6: 3 and 6
7: ?
8: ?
9: ?
10: ?

Please provide answers for 7, 8, 9 and 10.

Smiley prizes will be awarded.

Icy

Quick? It'd take me weeks!

10/6d was the price on the Mad Hatter's hat.

7: 3
8: 2 and 6 and a half
9: 2 and 4
10: just over 2 and a penny

My guinea pigs are out on the lawn.

Sorry,

8:2 and 7 and a halfpenny

I'm not even going to try. I suspect this requires arcane knowledge unfamiliar to this Texan.

You are correct, of course, Gnomon, although I'd have said 'inexact' for Q10.

It's arcane in that you'd need to be over 45 to know this at first hand. You'd also need to be British.

It's how you divide one guinea into exact coinage for different numbers of people. 2 people would each receive 10 shillings and sixpence, or as we used to say "10 and 6". Eight people would receive two shillings, sevenpence halfpenny, etc.


The remarkable thing about pre-decimal British coinage was that you could divide an amount of guineas exactly between any number of people up to 10, except for 5 and 10. When we went decimal in 1971, we largely reversed this.


Scoreboard:

Gnomon
TC

"You'd also need to be British." [Icy]

Does mostly British count, but at a 14-generation distance count?

No?

Fine. I'm a quarter German, so invasion is not out of the question.

Thank you for the Hardly deserved, although reading it out loud did lead me to think it was old money.

And, coming from Newmarket, I really should be familiar with guineas.

Yes, you count, Paul. Your guinea-sharing ancestors were mine too.

In fact, during the short period of time in 1971 when both 'old and new money' were legal tender, you could also divide the guinea into 5 (21p) and 10 (10 1/2p).

My family line was traced back to Liverpool. We don;t know if they lived there, or just used the port to sail to Nova Scotia. In any event, they were all seamen who probably didn't send much time on land...

What date have you traced them in Liverpool? Are they on a census record as living there, or just on a ship's passenger roll?

to Gnomon, TC, and Icy

Ship's passenger roll. Way back, probably early 1700s. The New World was a very popular destination back then, except for the poor souls on slave ships.

Early1700s? That's impressively early.

I've got a bunch of different ancestors who landed here in the 1600s.

They did it on purpose, too - which shows that I am descended from crazy people who would willingly get on a leaky wooden boat and eat hardtack to get dumped in a wilderness full of bears and big cats 'n Stuffz.

They even PAID people for the privilege. How nuts is that?

My family name in the Americas traces back to a Scot in the mid to late 17th century. He was the 2nd or 3rd son so he wasn't going to inherit the manor so he hopped on a ship to Virginia where he started a plantation. One of our earliest actual records (that weren't burnt in the Revolutionary War) is a will of one of his sons divvying up the slaves amongst his children.

No point feeling bad about your ancestors' deeds. We are all descended from murderers.

One of my ancestors was some sort of officer in the British army, but was demoted for misconduct and eventually died of "vices".