A Peculiarly English Maths Problem

[chrishansenhome]

In one of the email lists I have the pleasure of participating in, I was asked the question:

1. Before the Brits revised their currency to a decimal system, we were forced to try to learn to use arcane divisions of the English pound: guineas, sovereigns,shillings, pence, ha'pennies, etc. It is clearly impossible for someone who is not born a Brit to get comfortable with this Byzantine system and it allowed crafty Brits to victimize us in even the simplest financial transactions. By the way, what is a Pound? A pound of what? Gold, porridge, or what?

I answered thus:

A pound sterling, as its full name might suggest, was originally a pound of sterling silver (.925 pure). Successive monarchs debased the currency until one of them had the bright idea of printing "One Pound" on pieces of paper thus allowing him to keep all the silver for himself. The note said that you could exchange it for one pound sterling at the Cashier's Window of the Bank of England, but if you went there and tried to exchange a pound note for one pound sterling they'd just give you another pound note which said exactly the same thing. The cashier was trained to continue to do this until you got tired of asking and went away.

So what's so difficult about 12 pence to the shilling, 20 shillings (bob) to the pound, 21 shillings to the guinea, 1/2 a penny to a ha'penny, 1/4 penny to the farthing, three pennies to the thruppenny bit, 2s 6d to the half crown, 5s to the crown, sixpence to the tanner, 2 shillings to the florin?

Here's a maths problem which even a first form child could have solved. If Featherstonehaugh (pronounced "Freestonhew") has a pound note which his mother has given him to get the groceries, and she wanted:

1 packet of Twiglets (8d)
1 packet of Woodbines (2s)
1 box of Swan Vestas (to light the Woodbines) (1s 5d)
1 pint of milk (2s 7d)
1 loaf of bread (2s 3-1/4d)
2 bacon butties for his and his mum's tea (1s 11d each)
1 potato for Dad's (the Old Man's) dinner ( 5d )
1 slice of gammon (ditto the dinner) (2s 6-1/2d)
1 bottle of Bass (ditto ditto) (3s 3-1/4d)

and on his way home with the groceries Featherstonehaugh encounters the neighbourhood bully, who demands a tanner for sweets and threatens to beat him up if he doesn't give it him, then why on the next day did Featherstonehaugh fail his history O-levels exam?

Answers on a postcard, please. My answer is below under a cut.

Snip to diversion (cue the travelling music, played by the maestro on the old joanna:)

"The ragazzo of the Elephant and Castle, that's me." Ya got me there, Chris. Am completely gobsmacked. What does it mean? Inquiring minds wanna know!

I live in the area of Souf Lunnon referred to as the Elephant and Castle, probably named after the heraldic device of someone connected to the area of an elephant with a castle on its back, and not after the Infanta del Castile or some such piffle. It is known for its historic pub named, er, the Elephant and Castle, and for Newington Butts, so named after the area where the local yeomen were required to do their archery practice when the King or Queen wanted to conquer someplace or hold off someone's army while the Navy kicked them in the bum on the high seas. Ragazzo is, I believe, Italian for "boy".

Anyone interested in the answer to the maths problem I set above (questions on exams here are "set", rather than "given" or "asked" or "administered").?

Featherstonehaugh Featherstonehaugh III (pronounced "Freestonhew Fanshaw" as "Featherstonehaugh" is pronounced differently as a Christian name than it is as a family name) failed his history O-levels because he hadn't eaten for almost the whole day because his mum (Frances "Fanny" Featherstonehaugh) washed his mouth out with strong carbolic which left a nasty taste in his mouth and removed his appetite entirely after he called his father (F. Featherstonehaugh Jr.) a "bloody a*sehole" because he caned poor F.F. III as he had come home with no change because the grocery bill had come to 19 shillings and the grocer gave him just one bob as his change and since the bully wouldn't take "I haven't got a tanner" for an answer Featherstonehaugh Featherstonehaugh III had to give the bully the entire shilling thus leaving no change for his mum and dad when he got home and F.F. Jr. accused the lad of buying loose Woodbines to smoke behind the bicycle shed at school with the bob instead of bringing it home.

Simple, no?

I believe that is the longest sentence I've ever written with no commas, colons, dashes, or semicolons in it.

Comments

[chrisloup.livejournal.com]

whats with the spoken name not being phonetically anything like what its written? they couldn't spell iziit? and when they had to write how it was spoken wrote any old how thing down?

[chrishansenhome.livejournal.com]

Fixed spelling is a feature only of modern language. Shakespeare, for example, spelled his name in many different ways, such as Shakspear.

English also has a history of not being pronounced the way it's spelled. Centuries ago, "through" was pronounced "thruff" (like "enough"). The spelling remains, even though the pronunciation has moved on.

In proper names, Gloucester, Worcester, Leicester, and Keswick are no longer pronounced as they are spelt: "gloster", "wuster", "lester", and "kezick".

There is a Wikipedia page on "counterintuitive pronunciations of English proper names" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_names_in_English_with_counterintuitive_pronunciations) and if you're that interested you can go there and have some fun.

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

that totals £ -/19/- (he said, having added it up before reading your text) I haven't done that kind of arithmetic for a while, but it comes back. You add up all the fractions first (as quarters [farthings], so a ha'penny counts as 2), divide by four and the remainer is in farthings; carry the whole numbers to the pence column, add them all up in base 10, divide by 12 to reduce to shillings (in this case, 60d = 5/- with no remainder), then you add up the shillings (in this case , carrying the 5/- from the penny column) in base 10. If it's more than 20, divide by 20 to get the number of pounds, and the remainder goes in the shillings column. not all that complicated, really. Ah, nostalgic £sd.

though it can be a right pain in the arse, as I know from experience, and am a great enthusiast for decimal currency. Addition is bad enough, subtraction is not pretty, and division is worst.

you probably wouldn't talk about "a one bob coin", the idiom sounds awkward. "just a shilling" or "just one bob".

sterling silver is 0.925 silver, 0.075 copper (usually as the second metal), not .999 silver. And don't forget that silver, like gold, is measured in troy weight; one troy pound is 5760grains, while one pound avoirdupois is 7000gr. only 12 troy ounces to the troy pound, not 16; 20 pennyweights to the troy ounce, hence 240 dwt to the lb, and 240 pennies in a pound. (and English money used some debased number, a "tower pound", 15/16 of a troy pound, up until sometime in Henry VIII's reign, wikipedia tells me. but the rest of this I actually have in my head, having been inculcated while still young, crowding out memory-space I could be using for useful information like postal codes or phone numbers)

[chrishansenhome.livejournal.com]

I have duly changed the .999 to .925, deferring to your superior chemical knowledge (as you say, "Everything is chemicals!"). After some deliberation I changed the "1-bob coin" as you suggested even though I think that "1-bob coin" makes it clear that the grocer didn't give poor little FF III two tanners, or six tuppence pieces.

A Twitter-and-meatspace friend said that I ought to write about how there is no legal tender in Scotland. On reflection and some research, I think I'll pass on that.

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

thank you.

certainly for your story you needed to make clear that he had a single coin (a shilling) in his possession; as opposed to two sixpences (tanners). There were no tuppeny pieces in pre-decimal coinage, though.

I will again underscore how happy I am to have been living with decimal based coinage since 1965. And now off to give some to my local grocery emporium, in exchange for comestibles.

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

OOOPS - not counting Maundy Money of course, which has been going since 1668 uninterrupted. But the last tuppeny coin minted for general circulation was 1797-98. So not seen in circulation before decimalisation.

[chrishansenhome.livejournal.com]

You are SO picky. OK, four thruppenny bits, then, 12 pennies, or 24 ha'pennies. Those are my last offers.