# Question for uk members



## Butterfly (Jan 19, 2015)

I've been binge watching Inspector Morse, a BBC program set in Oxford.  I've got a couple questions:

1.  If a person says (about time) "half seven" does that mean 6:30 or 7:30?

2.  About money -- is a "quid" another name for a pound?  If not, what is it?

3.  One of the episodes, which was about a murder in 1859, refered a lot to a "sovereign" which looked like a big coin.  How much us a sovereign?  Is it still in use?

4.  How many shillings in a pound?

5.  Does Australia use the pound, or do they have another unit of money?

Thanks.


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## hollydolly (Jan 19, 2015)

It means 7.30......( always it will mean 1/2 *past* the hour)...so half-10 will mean 10.30pm 

yes a quid is a slang name for a Pound

No a sovereign is not in use any more not for decades...but it was worth about a £1. 

We don't have shillings any more but pre 1971 ( decimilsation) we had 20 shillings to the pound

I believe Australia uses the Australian dollar.


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## Vivjen (Jan 19, 2015)

1. Half.seven means 7.30.

2. A quid is another name for a pound.
3. Sovereigns are no longer in use....I will have to think about the value...now they are worth lots of money usually!

4.20 shillings in a pound; before we went decimal in.....1972?

5. Australians use the Australian dollar.

i watched a Morse last night; have seen them all before, but they can be good to revisit every so often...and Lewis looks so young!


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## Vivjen (Jan 19, 2015)

Snap, Holly!


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## hollydolly (Jan 19, 2015)

LOL VJ  almost exactly the same answer word for word


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## Laurie (Jan 19, 2015)

However the sovereign, still pure gold, is still minted, and is still bought and sold.

Much used as a christening gift, or on charm bracelets or necklaces.

My wife has two or three.

Technically it is still legal tender for £1, though the current price is about £200 for a newly minted, 2015, one.  Older, and rarer, ones can reach much more than that. The record is over £600k, and even a QEII one from 1953 will fetch over £300k!

Also the shortened version, of the word, "sov" is still used as slang for a pound in Morse country.


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## Vivjen (Jan 19, 2015)

I knew somebody would know more!
i still have an old penny, 3d bit, sixpence, and half crown, and a silvered half-penny.
nice present; a sovereign..


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## hollydolly (Jan 19, 2015)

Yes I have loads of old currency too...the sovereign although not used as currency for many, many years is still bought as jewellery or as collectables.. I have a charm bracelet made from sovereigns.


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## hollydolly (Jan 19, 2015)

I still remember although just barely... seeing things marked up in the shops in 'guineas'..I know it was supposedly 21 shillings...and I remember as a young teen thinking it was a stealth tax, LOL.. ..the way to charge you more for goods and make it sound like less


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## Warrigal (Jan 19, 2015)

I grew up with pounds, shillings and pence and the arithmetic was very tiresome.

We would get questions like "how many three and a halfpenny postage stamps can I buy for twelve shillings and ninepence and how much change will I receive?" It would keep us busy for ages and we would always have to calculate it twice to make sure we hadn't made a numerical error. 

Australia adopted decimal currency in 1966 and  it was the beginning of the process of full metrification of our all weights and measures.
An inspired decision, whoever was responsible. No more pounds, ounces, hundredweights, gills, pints, gallons, miles, yards, feet and inches. Good riddance.


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## Vivjen (Jan 19, 2015)

Funnily enough; although we have decimalised our currency; us older ones, still tend to deal in pounds, (weight) feet, and miles....


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## Laurie (Jan 19, 2015)

"I know it was supposedly 21 shillings."

Not supposedly, it still is in  the racing fraternity.  Horses are still bought and sold in guineas.

Of course, decimalisation was one of the biggest cons ever perpetrated on behalf of big business, major hype with massive profits to be mad at every turn, with prices "rounded up across the board.

Something cost 1/6 in old money, that's  seven and a half pence in new money.  What a silly figure, round it up to 10 for convenience. Put that across every product and every business in the country and try  to calculate the profit.

The only thing necessary for decimation, was to replace the copper coinage and declare that henceforth there would be five pence to the pound.

All other coins remained in use, though no longer  The sixpence was two and a half pence, shilling is still in use as the fivepenny piece, the florin is still in use as the tenpenny piece, the half crown worth 12 and a half pence,  and the ten shilling note as a fifty pence note.


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## hollydolly (Jan 19, 2015)

Yes I know Laurie...One of my first jobs after leaving school was working in a Jewellery shop and I remember the tedious and very confusing job of having to change all the price tags from £SD to decimal..


Did you know also when livestock are sold in Guineas...the extra shilling (5p) in every pound  is the auctioneers commision?


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## Vivjen (Jan 19, 2015)

I did that too Holly....but in a chemists shop!


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## hollydolly (Jan 19, 2015)

Ha...we're so similar in many ways VJ..


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## Warrigal (Jan 19, 2015)

We have prettier bank notes now


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## hollydolly (Jan 19, 2015)

Ooooh they _are_ pretty.... not fair..I want pretty banknotes instead of our boring colours


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## Vivjen (Jan 19, 2015)

At least ours are different sizes...


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## Bee (Jan 19, 2015)

I much prefer the look of our notes.


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## Josiah (Jan 19, 2015)

Dame Warrigal said:


> I grew up with pounds, shillings and pence and the arithmetic was very tiresome.
> 
> We would get questions like "how many three and a halfpenny postage stamps can I buy for twelve shillings and ninepence and how much change will I receive?" It would keep us busy for ages and we would always have to calculate it twice to make sure we hadn't made a numerical error.
> 
> ...



The  US was on its way to metrification during the Carter administration until the extreme right declared that it was all a communist conspiracy.


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## Voicemacabre (Jan 19, 2015)

Bee said:


> I much prefer the look of our notes.



Almost forgotten what they look like, it has been a while since any were spotted round here. 
On the other hand if you have a monkey or even a pony to spare we would be ever ' so umble '


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## Bee (Jan 19, 2015)

Sound as if we are in the same boat Voicemacabre.:bigwink:


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## Warrigal (Jan 19, 2015)

Josiah09 said:


> The  US was on its way to metrification during the Carter administration until the extreme right declared that it was all a communist conspiracy.



:lofl: Aussies were suspicious because it was French and therefore "foreign".


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## Warrigal (Jan 19, 2015)

Bee said:


> I much prefer the look of our notes.



Are yours plasticised?


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## Voicemacabre (Jan 19, 2015)

Yes indeed, the grandkids are getting to big and bolshy to go back up the chimneys and there is not much call for tacklers hands these days. Still that nice Mr Squeers has promised the boys a new slate and a single piece of chalk next month.


Someone mentioned about a new candle for the privy but being cynical it were nowt but electioneering chatter, now if we were to get this elec trickery stuff,  bless and save us we would have riches beyond measure. What next free health care ? upon my soul it is all to much. layful:


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## Jackie22 (Jan 19, 2015)

josiah09 said:


> the  us was on its way to metrification during the carter administration until the extreme right declared that it was all a communist conspiracy.



lol


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## Vivjen (Jan 19, 2015)

Sorry, Carolyn; it comes from a card game; it means we put the same thing at the same time....
the card game is often played by children; each player turns over a card one after another: when two match, the first player to say snap wins all the turned cards.
the object is to win all the cards!
good for picture recognition with young grandchildren!


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## Ameriscot (Jan 19, 2015)

I'm glad I didn't move to the UK till after decimalisation!


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## Bee (Jan 19, 2015)

Dame Warrigal said:


> Are yours plasticised?




No! I have seen the plasticised notes and I don't like them, still prefer the English notes and the look of them.


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## Bee (Jan 19, 2015)

Voicemacabre said:


> Yes indeed, the grandkids are getting to big and bolshy to go back up the chimneys and there is not much call for tacklers hands these days. Still that nice Mr Squeers has promised the boys a new slate and a single piece of chalk next month.
> 
> 
> Someone mentioned about a new candle for the privy but being cynical it were nowt but electioneering chatter, now if we were to get this elec trickery stuff,  bless and save us we would have riches beyond measure. What next free health care ? upon my soul it is all to much. layful:



You make I laugh...you make I cry....you make I pee I drawers.:lofl:


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## Pam (Jan 19, 2015)

I'd be quite happy to revert back to pounds, shillings and pence. As for centimetres and centigrade .... could be one and the same thing as far as I'm concerned....lol  I only 'do' inches and fahrenheit.


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## Bee (Jan 19, 2015)

I am ok with pounds and pence but for everything else I work in imperial for weights and measures and fahrenheit for the temperature and I don't intend changing.


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## hollydolly (Jan 19, 2015)

Tips on a coke...? lol...that's a long winded thing to say.  I wonder where_ that_ saying came from?


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## Butterfly (Jan 19, 2015)

Vivjen said:


> Funnily enough; although we have decimalised our currency; us older ones, still tend to deal in pounds, (weight) feet, and miles....



My next question was going to be that I notice Morse usually says miles, not kilometers.  So you guys used to have miles, pounds, feet, etc,?  Funny, I never thought about it, but we must have gotten our miles, feet, etc. from you guys in the first place?

When we were stationed in Germany, everything, of course, was metric.  I got the money figured out OK, the kilometers and speed limits, etc., litres and all, but what drove me nuts was when I was making my daughter's wedding dress, I was using a US pattern she wanted which called for so much fabric in one width or so much in another (because of the way you have to lay the pattern out on the fabric) and I had to convert length and width and then figure out if it would work for laying out the pieces.  Didn't want any mistakes, because the fabric was quite expensive.   A kind lady in a fabric shop helped me figure it out -- I was about ready to just give up, too much math and geometry for me.  I had found the fabric, and had stood there forever with pencil and paper and was just about ready to cry (yes, I cry when I am hopelessly frustrated) and the kind shopkeeper came to my rescue.  So, forever after I went to that shop for fabric.


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## Vivjen (Jan 19, 2015)

We still use miles all the time; although we have gone to litres rather than gallons while buying petrol, (gas), your gallon has always been different from ours.
why, I have no idea!


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## Voicemacabre (Jan 19, 2015)

Holly, perhaps we should just say Jounce or perhaps the third derivative of position, then again not forgetting that,

Momentum equals mass times velocity
Force equals mass times acceleration
Yank equals mass times jerk
Tug equals mass times* snap*
Snatch equals mass times crackle
Shake equals mass times pop  


Oh dear, where is Harry Champion when I need him?


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## hollydolly (Jan 19, 2015)

Yes all our road signs  are in MPH still....and we generally use feet and inches, and pounds and stones, rather than the metric system....however a few years ago when they first brought the metric system in for weights and measures, little retail businesses were getting fined right left and centre for selling a 'pound' of bananas instead of a 1/2 kilo...madness, ..I don't know if that's still happening today, but I always ask for a pound of something from the shop never a kilo..


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## hollydolly (Jan 19, 2015)

Voicemacabre said:


> Holly, perhaps we should just say Jounce or perhaps the third derivative of position, then again not forgetting that,
> 
> Momentum equals mass times velocity
> Force equals mass times acceleration
> ...



ha!...excellent.... Jounce it should be!!


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## RadishRose (Jan 19, 2015)




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## oakapple (Jan 19, 2015)

Somebody posted that 'the sov' [sovereign coin] is still used in Morse country [Oxford] .Not so, although it may still be used in the East End [London]. They used to say it on 'The Sweeney' [an old police programme set in London in the 1970's], Cockney rhyming slang for the flying squad [Sweeney Tod.]John Thaw played the main character in that too.In Cockney rhyming slang, you only say the NON rhyming bit; as in 'Are my minces playing tricks on me?' Mince pies/eyes. Or 'Why have you got a long boat?' meaning a long face [boat race/face] etc.
Anyway, glad you are enjoying watching Morse, it was a good programme.


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## hollydolly (Jan 19, 2015)

LOL oakapple I doubt if sovereigns are used anywhere in the Uk...


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## oakapple (Jan 20, 2015)

hollydolly said:


> LOL oakapple I doubt if sovereigns are used anywhere in the Uk...


 No, not the actual coins, but the term 'sov'.


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## hollydolly (Jan 20, 2015)

Oh yes it's still a slang term for a pound  in places like East London


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## Laurie (Jan 20, 2015)

"Somebody posted that 'the sov' [sovereign coin] is still used in Morse country [Oxford] .Not so, although it may still be used in the East End [London]"

Sorry, I didn't know Morse was set in Oxford, I thought it was London;  I've never watched it!


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## Ameriscot (Jan 20, 2015)

The UK has imperial gallons (rarely used though) which are larger than a US gallon.


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## Ameriscot (Jan 20, 2015)

Bee said:


> I am ok with pounds and pence but for everything else I work in imperial for weights and measures and fahrenheit for the temperature and I don't intend changing.



Isn't that a bit difficult when weather forecasts are Celsius, cookers in celsius, food and drink in grams and litres?


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## Bee (Jan 20, 2015)

Not difficult at all, it is what I am used to and I trust my judgement.


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