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Eh, it's not that complicated. It is just pounds, shillings, and pence. The rest are mostly just terms for coins that existed at various times, roughly equivalent to nickel, dime, quarter. Some of them are even slang terms (quid, bob) similar to buck or two bits.


As mentioned here, you will often see historical prices quoted as £x ys zd ... which might lead to the question "why is a penny abbreviated to d"?

In fact, the £ sign is a stylized letter L, and the system is really Lsd: libra (meaning, amongst other things, pound in Latin), solidus, denarius. This is the Carolingian monetary system and, as the name suggests, goes back to the Holy Roman Empire - as early as the 8th century.

That includes the L 1 = 20 s = 240 d ratio that made its way to pre-decimalization British currency.


No I know. I was being somewhat facetious.

As someone else mentioned, us Brits still use imperial measurements (to some extent) and I get by, just about!




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