WHERE YOUR MONEY GETS ITS NAME

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6735, 11 October 1928, Page 9

WHERE YOUR MONEY GETS ITS NAME

If you were,to go to British Guiana you would find coins bearing the inscription “One Stiver’’ in circulation. Furthermore, they are made at the Royal Mint. ; . £

Most of our slang names for coins are of high antiquity (writes David Neville in the Daily Mail). have trickled down to us from-ari era when- currency and exchanges, . were less highly organised, and, providedthe metal and weight were up to standard, it mattered little in what land the coins had been minted. 1

You may see the 'same state of things in Levante to-day. . I remefinber once, in Alexanderecta being given change for an English sovereign in different currencies, including a> tet-' radraehm of a Roman Emperor. . / Therefore you will find the names Of foreign coins living on in popularusage. A hob is the fourteenth Cen-d aury French bobe. " A dollar is the gulden, first coined at Joachmsthaler,’ whose name of “joachmsthaler gulden” was abbreviated into thaler, and corrupted into dollar. “Tanner” came t o •us from India, where tlio East India Company’s troops found the local tanga, the . nearest equivalent to the nimble sixpence at home. ’ • i The ticky (the So. th African name for a threepenny bit) was the coin which Kaffirs'exchanged for the ticket given them in payment for wages., Colour and size play their, part in the allocation of names. A “brown” and a “yellow boy” are as easily understandable as the French blanche monnaie, but it is not everyone who realises That tho old thieves’ slang of “blunt” for gold coin, is 'dcriveii from “blonde monnaie.”

Tho first guinea was coined in 166/3 for the use of the Royal Company- of Adventurers trading on the Guinch Coast of West Africa, so that its name is easily explained. It was not until 20 years or more later, however, that i( became common currency at home. By that time James 11. sat upon the throne, and it was promptly dubbed a “Jimmy.” Those were days when cheques were little used, and for the convenience: of customers banks issued guineas in rouleaux, or packets, of 50. ’

Just about the same time’ the first galloways had been introduced from Scotland, and popular fancy, amused by this half-sized quadruped, called half a rouleaux, of 25 guineas, a pony. The term is still in common use in sporting circles. , Lastly the word money itself is Very old, as old as tho Roman temple of Juno Moneta, the mint from which it takes its name.