My six year old niece had me help her with her homework this week - they were learning about money. Her task was to get some "nickels" and then decide how many "pennies" they were worth. I am all in favor of teaching kids the common usage lingo, but telling them that five "pennies" (when they say ONE CENT on the back) are worth one "nickel" (which says FIVE CENTS on the back) started getting confusing. It seems that thge powers that be are indoctrinating our kids with bad or misleading info on coins. I also see how foreigners would be lost in coin matters. A five cent piece is universally called a nickel, then there is ONE DIME which is equal to ten cents, and the "quarter" which is 25 cents. I am almost confused myself when I think about it.
JBK,the term 'penny' in the U.S. usage is actually derived from the British & British Commonwealth denomination of that name.I don't understand how it came to be applied to the U.S. 1 Cent coin though. Aidan.
I would be willing to bet that if I told you that it would cost 5 cents, or that it would be 5 pennies, you would automaticaly pull out the right amount and hand it over. Regardless which term is used, the purpose of language is to communicate. Either one will work and therefor, I see no differents which one is used. Why split hairs?
To complicate matters even further,the English word Penny is just an Anglo-ization of the original Germanic word Pfennig.I blame those Saxons:hammer: AND of course,the French:kewl:
The U.S. Mint itself has used the term "penny" when referring to the one-cent coin. And if Frank Sinatra can sing "Pennies From Heaven", well, "pennies" it shall be!
It doesn't bother me as much as some other when the cent is called a penny. There are many items that have a technical name and a popular name in American English. Cents are pennies, automobiles are cars, etc.
common cents? I try to use the word cents, but even the rolls at the bank I get say pennies on the side. We have been using the term for so long, it's hard to say change.
It say's in the Oxford American Dictionary of Current English- Penny /penee/ n. (pl. for seperate coins -nies, Brit. for a sum of money pence /pens/, so it look's like it may have originated from- Pence/Penny. Just a guess
johndo, Good guess but I believe pence is just the plural of penny.."one penny,two pence." Linguistic Origin of Penny: "The origins of the word penny itself are somewhat obscure. Some argue that it derives from an English King of West Mercia, called Penda. Others believe that the name comes from the pans into which molten metal was poured from crucibles to produced coin castings and blanks. The German word "pfanne" meaning pan is very similar to the German word "pfennig" meaning penny. Penge, penninge, pande, and penig are other early north European words with similar meanings."
I am not absolutly certain of this but could the American usage of the term 'penny' is from going to a hardware store to buy nail's? A old english term for the size/quantity of the nail was a (6d) penny's worth, and as a number of your ancesters were from the UK they might well have brought the term with them but of cource they would have been paying in cents hence the term for a cent becomes a penny De Orc :kewl:
Maybe I was trying to make "pence" into "penny" by breaking pence into two syllables "pen-ce" and through the year's it just turned into "penny". I don't know where your from and this may be something you already know, but the American english has been butchered over the year's, (some of the thing's my kids say I can't even understand, have to make them slow down and say it right.) that's where I was trying to go with it. I do see where your coming from though, thank's
All I know is that when I lived in the UK nobody used the term penny or pence, they all said "Pee" and then added the word "love". Damn those crafty French! And BTW Do the French not have the internet yet?! Or do they not bother to collect coins? I never hear from any French coin collectors in the forum.
Moen, Maybe Chris from Belgium can take a peek over the fence and see what's up in there. Back on the topic,the media doesn't help either.As I was typing this post,a commercial came on for Virgin Mobile texting called something like "save the penny".Have you seen it? A bunch of guys in Abe Lincoln masks running around liberating "pennies" from styrofoam cups at checkouts. Even the cup says PENNIES on it.
Congress is just this side of the dumbest people on the planet. If we were to take their word for anything, we'd be in sorrier shape than they have already left us. Congress is just a collection of people that nobody wanted around in the first place and found a convenient way to ship them out of state. Most of them are probably French.
Some topics make no CENTS at times. I've called pennies just that for ever. When it comes to monitary terminology we should all remember this is America and our language is not English, but American. It is made up of all kinds of terms from other languages. Pennies is just one of the many terms that has become accepted. Sort of like "ain't", "booze","cool man". etc. Now what is a "fiver" or "fin", huh? How about "ten bucks". So who started with "C note". And pending on where you grew up there are numerous other terms that have been accepted and manyh have made the dictionary. So why all the concern about pennies or cents?
