What do Brits call their dollar?

Question

like i know its pounds but do they actually say i have three pounds? also what's a shilling? and why is it in some u.k. books they call their money dollars?

Answer 1

In the UK the curency is Pounds Sterling or the British Pound (GBP). We talk amount amounts in terms of pounds and pence such as 'three pounds' or 'seven pounds and 28 pence'. Usually though the 'pence' is omitted so it becomes 'seven pounds 28' just as in the US you'd say 'seven dollars 28'.

In 1971 the UK currency was 'decimilised' so that there were 100 pence in the pound. Prior to that there were 12 pennies in a shilling and 20 shillings in a pound. A shilling in 'old money' is 5 pence in 'new money'. Some people, particulalry those who grew up prior to decimilastaion use the term shilling to refer to 5 pence so if someone says they bought an item for 10 shillings it's the same as saying 50 pence.

As for calling our money dollars this isn's something I've come across. There's lots of slang terms and below is a list I provided as part of a previous answer...

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£1,000,000 - Bar, Bernie (after Bernie Ecclestone who donated £1 million to the Labour party)
£100,000 - Plum
£2000 - Archer (after the politician Jeffrey Archer who allegedly paid £2000 to a prostitute)
£1000 - Grand, Bag of Sand
£500 - Monkey
£100 - Ton, Century, One-er
£50 - Nifty, Pretty Nifty, Bullseye (50 on a darts board)
£30 - Dirty, Bertie
£25 - Pony
£20 - Score, Bobby Moore, Apple Core, Bobby Gentry, Plenty
£10 - Tenner, Wedgy Benner, Paul McKenna, Ayrton Senna, Mother Hen, **** and Hen, Pavarotti (tenor)
£6 - Poorly Fish (from sick squid - ie six quid)
£5 - Fiver, Lady Godiva, Pam Shriver, Deep Sea Diver, Scuba Diver, Rocket (Stephenson's Rocket was on the back of £5 notes), Jackson (after the Jackson 5), Bluey (the colour of the £5 notes)
£4 - Desmond (From Desmond 2 2)
£2 - Beer Token (about the cost of a pint of beer), Double Nugget
£1 - Quid, Squid, Bin Lid, Nicker, Alan Whicker, Nugget, Maggie (after Maggie Thatcher, said to be thick and brassy like a £1 coin)

In 1971 the UK decimalised it's currency. Prior to that there were 12 pennies in a shilling and 20 shillings in a pound. A shilling was 5 pennies. Some people still use the term 'shilling' to mean 5 (decimal) pence. A shilling was also called a 'bob' hence '2 bob' is ten pence, a '10 bob note' was a 10 shilling note (no loner in use but worth 50p). There were several other pre decimal coins with unusual values such as a 3 penny coin (threpence), a 6 penny coin (sixpence) and a half penny coin (ha'penny).

The UK currency consists of £50, £20, £10 and £5 notes. The coins are £2, £1, 50p, 20p, 10p, 5p, 2p and 1p. Here it get's a bit confusing as there are 4 different types of bank notes in the UK. Most are issued by the Bank of England but 3 banks in Scotland also produce their own banknotes. The designs of all the notes are different and some Scottish banks produce £100 and £1 notes as well.

When decimilisation came in there was a half pence coin, 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p and 50p coins. Since then the £1 note has been replaced by a £1 coin, 20p and £2 coin have been introduced and the half pence piece has been withdrawn. The 5p, 10p and 50p coins have been replaced with smaller coins.

Answer 2

No UK book ever calls our currency dollars. You are probably mis-reading it. See below.
John1787 is correct in saying that an old slang term for 5 shillings was "one dollar". That expression came from pre-World War 2 days, when there were about $4US = £1 Sterling. This term is Never used these days.
The 'official' name for coins of that value (5 shillings) was a "Crown". These coins were only issued on special occasions.

Very few people outside London still use slang terms for pounds, if they do it's normally 'quid' (and old Quaker term , but I don't know why).

In 1971 the UK changed currency so that 100 New pence = £1. The prefix 'New' was dropped in the 1980's.

Previously we had 1d (d=denarious, it was derived from the old Imperial Roman currency) which we called pennies or pence (we never called then 'old' pence - obviously).

12d = 1s (solidus, another Roman denomination), which was called a Shilling.
12 pence were used as a mulitple for 1 shilling because 12 has the most divisors.
This made shopping easier in the days when loaves of bread cost 2d and typical wages were about £1/10/7 (that's how we used to write one pound and ten shillings and seven pence) per week (£1.52 in today's money). and such like.

Until the early 1960's there was a silver alloy coin in circulation called the Florin. This was numerically the equivalent of 2 shillings. It lingers today as the 10p coin. Sadly, not made of silver any more.

20s = £1 (£ is a modified L symbol, representing Libra, because it originally related to the value of a certain weight of silver). We call this the Pound Sterling, or just pound.

Additional info if you're interested.
An old medaeval coin called the 'groat' had not been in circulation for hundreds of years until the early 20th century. It was re-introduced for a short time because it was the exact value of a standard London Transport bus fare (4d). It was not popular (possibly because most people don't live in London) so it was dropped.

The name 'dollar' for currency probably derives from an old Spanish coin called the Taler. It would have been the first coin to be in circulation in places like California, eventually being corupted into Dollar and finally developing a life of its own as the US Dollar. A few other countries (confusingly I think) adopted the name Dollar for their currencies but they are not naturally tied to the US dollar.

Answer 3

We never call our money dollars, it's pounds and pence. Yes, we do ... actually ... say pounds. At the minute, until payday, I have about six pounds .... not good.

A shilling was an old unit of money as in pounds, shillings and pence. In 1971 (I was five and only remember the tanners - sixpence ... two and a half new pence), decimalisation came to Britain and whereas there used to be something like 240 pence (don't quote me on that) in the pound, it became a standard 100. A shilling was worth 12 old pence and became the new five pence piece.

I may be wrong here, but I'm sure I remember some five pence pieces with 'shilling' written on them. If I can just correct 'J', you can't say 50 pee. Pee is the singular of pence so now the only 'pee' is the one pee piece. One niece in particular refuses to believe that we once had a half pee piece - she found some that had been hidden away and thought they were play money ... until I showed her an old catalogue and she saw a dress for three pounds, ninety nine and a half pence (spelling it out for our asker so she can see how we speak about our money).

I hope that is of some help.

Answer 4

fifty pence (say "fifty pee") -or there abouts depending on the exchange rate.

yes we do say I have three pounds, usually when it gets to the front of the supermarket que.

A shilling is an old coin which is no longer used. Dont know how much it was worth in its day, I wasnt alive then. (I am 25)

we never call our money dollars. never ever. If we did it'd not be worth the same amount. The rate of exchange says they'd be worth only about half as much and we'd lose money. Who would do this??! Whom ever says the pounds are dollars is either trying to be american or is secretly american and has let the phrase slip.

Answer 5

The Pound is sometimes called a Quid, your reference to the Dollar is the 5 shilling (Crown) which when the Dollar (US) was 4 to the Pound was sometimes referred to as a Dollar which made the Half Crown a Half dollar. that is the only time any English/British currency was referred to as a Dollar.

Answer 6

We usually say "pound", but informally often we say "quid". There used to be 20 shillings in a pound up until the early seventies, so a shilling is worth about 5p. Any UK book mentioning dollars will be talking about either the US, or some other country that uses dollars as its currency.

Answer 7

That's a huge question - first of all, which books have you read where we refer to our currency as "dollars"?

The pound is a pound. It currently consists of 100 "pence" (or pennies) because some time ago our alleged government decided we all needed dumbing down a bit so we could descend to their level.

Prior to that, a pound consisted of 240 pennies (go figure). twelve pennies was a "shilling" (which is standard unit of some european countries, unless they've been stupid enogh to join the "Euro" mentality).

simple arithmetic will reveal that there were twenty shillings in a pound. Twenty-one shillings was a guinea.

Five shillings was a "crown". Some Scandinavian countries still use the crown as their base unit of currency, such as Denmark and Norway, bur they call it "Krona" or "Krone" - say the name of a well-known mexican beer with a wedge of lemon in the neck of the bottle to keep the flies in, then you'll be able to say "crown" in Danish (If you say it REAL QUICK)

Answer 8

we do not call our dollar anything as we do not have the dollar. we have an equivelent that of £ pounds and Pence p.
normally writen in the format:
£1.99 never £1.99p you never mix pounds and pence on one price tag or form as in £.p. you can write 199p (means the same as £1.99 (just a sum for an example).
up to the late nineteen sixties or early 1970s we in the UK used to have, Pounds shillings and pence.
one shilling was equal to five new pence (new pence = post currency change) sorry i forget the actual date it was either before or in my first year or so of life. so ten shillings = 50p (pence) (£0.50 (50p) roughly $1 at the last exchange rates i saw a couple of weeks ago)

and yes some people do say I have £3 pounds or whatever the actual sum may be. though that is rare to hear it. though in that example £3 would be made up of any number of coins and not notes (paper).
paper cash is normally refered to as say £5 = fiver (smallest English Bank note)
£10 = a tenner and £20 would simply be a twenty and £50 note refered to as a fifty. (main smallest levels (common) bank notes in the UK.
as for the books you are talking about i can not speak of those because i have never come accross any of those books or any reference anywhere that refers to Pounds Sterling as Dollars.
may be the books you have read are attempting to attampt to simplify international currency by refering to international currency in terms of your ow currency and so it makes it a little easier (or not) to understand. But as i said you will have to contact the publishers of that book or books that you are talking about.

Answer 9

Perhaps you mean How the Brits call their money or currency...

Their basic currency is call GBP or Great Britain Pound or Sterling Pound in coins.

Yes they say that, they have 5 or 10 or hundred pounds.

One pound is equivalent to 100 pence.
5pence is equivalent to 1Shilling
20 Shillings equal 1 Pound.

Answer 10

Pound is singular; pounds is plural. Quid is slang for pound and does not have a plural. Some English dialects (and in sloppy English when not speaking these dialects) will drop the 's' when required when saying 'pounds'.

A lot of English authors, mainly those discussing investments (which have a heavy US influence) and those aiming to sell in the US market, will use US Dollars in their speech rather than GB Pounds.