From: Asmus Freytag (asmusf@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Sun Oct 26 2003 - 23:56:02 CST
At 09:30 PM 10/26/03 -0800, Doug Ewell wrote:
> > I can't speak for the whole of the last two centuries, but certainly
> > current American bills and coins do not use either symbol. The bills
> > in common use say ONE DOLLAR, FIVE DOLLARS, TEN DOLLARS, and TWENTY
> > DOLLARS; the coins say ONE CENT, FIVE CENTS (the name "nickel" is
> > informal), ONE DIME, and QUARTER DOLLAR. The bills are also marked
> > using digits.
>
>In my limited experience, that word DIME has done more to confuse
>furriners than anything else about the U.S. and Canadian monetary
>systems. The dime is the smallest coin in the set physically, weighing
>less than half as much as a nickel, and made of (apparently) the same
>material, yet worth twice as much. The etymology tracing the word
>"dime" back to Latin "decem" ("ten") is lost on those who have not grown
>up with the system, and obvious to those who have.
Many monetary systems have coin sizes and weights that are based on
the traditional precious or semi-precious metals once used. The nick-
name for the nickel gives that away, associating it with a different
metal than the (presumably once) silver-based dime/quarter/silver dollar
based series.
You are correct that often the different series use metals of different
color, such as the post-war German Mark, which had a 50 pfennig piece
that was smaller than the Groschen (10 pfennig), the former being silver
colored.
For users of many others systems where this apparent 'inversion' of the
size/value relationship is part of the system, the only confusing thing
is the color of the nickel - but once you learn its name, it all makes
sense.
A./
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu Jan 18 2007 - 15:54:24 CST