Can anyone explain English money, please?

Question

I have been watching Corontation Street as long as I can remember, and I still haven't figured out what a shilling is.
In Canada, we have penny = one cent
nickel = five cents
quarter = twenty-five cents
fifty-cent piece (rare)
loonie = one dollar
twonie = two dollars
five, ten, twenty, fifty and one hundred dollar bills

is there still such a thing as a ha'penny or a sovereign?
is the pence the lowest denomination?
is it one one hundredth of a pound, like our penny is to our dollar?

Answer 1

I'm surprised a Brit hasn't jumped in yet to answer this. I'm American but maybe I can help.

Today the unit of currency is the pound, which is divided into one hundred pence. Simple really.

I think you are asking about the old system, which changed in the 1970's (?). The basic unit was the pound which was made up of twenty shillings. Each shilling was made up of twelve pence. A price might be quoted as "five pounds four and sixpence" meaning five pounds, four shillings and six pence.

There are lots of nicknames which I'm not real clear about. Nicknames for a pound include bub (or is it bob?) and quid. I believe guinea used to be a separate denomination but now is a nickname for a pound. I'm sure there are many more I'm forgetting. Half a crown is half a pound or ten shillings. Tuppence is two pence, thruppence is three pence and a ha'penny (pronounced hay penny) was half a pence. As you might guess, no one really uses or needs these denominations any more. As there used to be twenty shillings to the pound today people use the term shilling for five pence (one twentieth of a pound).

Please don't jump on this Bloody Yank if I have some of the details wrong, just tying to be helpful.