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

No.

You can have two pennies' worth of widgets. This is then abbreviated to tuppence worth, and eventually tupp'orth.

Similary, you can have one penny's worth, which can be abbreviated to one pence worth. Pence in this instance being an abbreviation of penny's, not pennies.

RF

My view on why some people now say "one pence" goes like this.
When we had £.s.d if we counted pennies it went something like this:
A penny, tuppence, thruppence, fourpence and so on up to to elevenpence. Then little children, who knew no better, or comedians, who were being silly, would say "twelvepence" but everyone else said a shilling or twelve "pennies" if you were actually counting coins rather than giving a value.

With 1971 decimalisation things went a bit haywire and you could count to 99 pennies without having said a shilling at any point. This was plain wierd and sounded totally wrong.

People became very self conscious of the new money. The symbol for pence had also changed from d to p.

The coins 2p and above were printed with New Pence on them but the new penny was a New Penny, never a new pence.
In conversation people tended to separate the number from the word pence so that you knew they were talking about the new currency rather than the old during the changeover period. So out went tuppence and in came two pence. In saying all these numbers separate from the word pence people started to say one pence.

And now we're stuck with it.

They certainly accumulate in my husband's pockets

>> ..lock limbs with Mars or Venus.. <<

Limblock!

What a wise choice of words. How sensitive.
Had you said 'arms' Mars would have been up in them and Venus would have lost de smilo.


~jwf~

>> Simply put, looks like someone somewhere misheard..<<

Thanks Ictoan, I am starting now to agree that 'balmy' probably does not mean 'barmy' in any sense and it really is just us colonials who misheard and perpetuate the error.

But I still hope for further comment on this because I have invested considerable time in trying to make a logical connection between 'pleasant weather' and 'nutty behaviour'.



~jwf~

I'm not aware of any connection between barmy and balmy this side of the pond. I've always treated them as quite separate.



I've heard the figure of 375 trillion US dollars bandied about.

Noggin

a logical connection between 'pleasant weather' and 'nutty behaviour'
Mad Dogs and Englishmen and the miday sun
or had to be plural

"A simple rule of thumb, if the URL ends in .co.uk then there is no link between balmy / barmy.
If the website ends in .com then it lists barmy as per your findings."

Tireless, dogged and inspired.

Hypothesis and evidence match.
I can't, for the moment, recall a previous occasion with such a conclusive finale.

Good health, Sir.

Not that there can be any doubt, but this is to

~jwf~

"A simple rule of thumb, if the URL ends in .co.uk then there is no link between balmy / barmy.
If the website ends in .com then it lists barmy as per your findings."

Tireless, dogged and inspired.

Hypothesis and evidence match.
I can't, for the moment, recall a previous occasion with such a conclusive finale.

Good health, Sir.

Vestboy,

"the new penny was a New Penny"

The "newest" I can find - 2001 AD is still a New Penny.

When I write a cheque I specify "new penny / pence" and no one ever complains, even though the "new" has been removed from all the coins apart from the lowest denomination.

Has *anyone* ever complained about you writing a cheque?

About the lack of connection between 'barmy' and 'balmy' (!), and though I haven't been there for a long time and might miss the point, I would think that the fact that you see a connection is already a connection.
And I don't say that pedantically speaking, I really mean that if all your life you linked them in your personal dictionary (or whatever semantic archive one has in her/his head), then for you and all those who share your 'mistake' there is some sort of a shared meaning.

Or if you prefer, a semantic link between two words doesn't always come from the real history of these words.

Recumbentman

"Has *anyone* ever complained about you writing a cheque?"

Yes, an assistant in a store with a name similar to Marks & Spencer.
We hadn't seen eye to eye during the selection of the intended purchase and I made out the cheque to (as it were) Marks & Spencer. She said:
"You'll have to alter that to Marks & Spencer P.L.C."
I replied that I was under no obligation to do any such thing.
By this stage she had done whatever people do with cash tills, which meant that it was out of commission until the transaction reached its artisitic conclusion. The natives standing behind me were becoming restless and the assistant (not a new, young, part-time type person) continued to give instructions as to my actions.
I advised her that if she had asked me to make an addition, I should have considered her request but as she hadn't, it was up to her to decide what to do on the store's behalf:
she had my permission to add the missing letters;
she could accept the cheque as it stood;
she could refuse to accept any form of payment other than cash, or
she could find a member of staff who knew which way was up.

With rather poor grace I thought, she chose the last option. She returned with someone else who, after due deliberation, advised her to accept the cheque as it was. We completed the task and I thanked her more politely than is my wont but she failed to wish me "a nice day".

I have never made another purchase from that chain and I see that it has subsequently (despite my delusions of grandeur I do not claim "consequently") experienced a financial reverse.

parklane

Welcome back but be careful with that ash. I've got enough in my keyboard as it is.

I don't have too much sympathy with folk who are too idle to pick the right word, or stick to the words they know.

I'd like all of them to order a taxidermist when they really want a taxi-driver.

Does anyone remember the correct way to write a cheque? Full date, the payee with lines either side of it, the amount in text on the second line starting at the very far left, with a line from that all the way to the pence (cent) part which in in digits? The memo printed in full to fill the line? A full and cursive signature? All in black ink since blue or (heaven forbid) red is unacceptable?

A small rant, but a good one IMHO.

Coming rather late to the p Q, as I'm usually off-line when you are adding your tupporth, everyone I know in England refers to pence as pee. I have never heard "one pence", but were this to happen, my teeth would indeed grate, as they do when "pennies" is used for the plural, unless referring to individual coins.
I certainly remember how to write a cheque, but I can't remember having written one for at least two years.

Aren't the requirements a bit more basic? Just 'pay to x' (I think 'cash' cheques are no longer acceptable) 'the sum of y' (written out in words) with a valid signature & presumably the bank details.

I'm recalling an A.P.herbert 'Misleading Cases' where someone wrote a cheque on a cow.

Though I'm great for, I've a rate for tonsillectomy
Sick and healthy, poor and wealthy, come direct to me.
Oh God bless you they yell
When I send them home well
But they never, no they never send a cheque to me.


Totally irrelevant, but I'm off to cycle up the right hand side of Sweden tomorrow, so ta-ta, bye-bye, cheerio, toodle-oo, talk to you in a month or two.

Yep, the negotiable cow.

Since stamp duty was abolished on cheques, I fancy the rules in the UK are much simpler than elswhere.

Incidentally, the instruction to the bank concerning the amount to be paid is contained in the words; the figures are there merely to assist the bank and do not take precedence.

...but if the words and figures differ, the bank will send your cheque back.

RF