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Two cents worth & pounds, shillings & pence

Posted by James Briggs on May 17, 2003

In Reply to: Two cents worth & pounds, shillings & pence posted by Lotg on May 17, 2003

: Somewhere way down through the discussions, I read someone say they were giving their two cents worth. But I have a vague memory (prior to decimal currency being introduced here in Aus) that my parents used to say that. That being the case they must have said something like tuppence worth, or some other relevant term of the time.

: Am I right? Was this term used prior to decimal currency - probably in England too? Was there a non-decimal version?

: And while I'm at it - to all you Aussie forum members... what was the term we used to describe our previous currency? I can't remember. I was only a young thing at the time. All I can think of is 'pounds, shillings & pence'. Was there a generic single term instead of 'decimal'. Our weights and measures used to be called 'imperial', but I don't think our currency did? And I don't think we called it 'Sterling'. Help please? My memory has faded.

It was always 'my two penn'orth' when I was was boy, long before decimalisation of the UK currency. Since we still have pence in the decimal version, the phrase is still very current.

The term for our old currency was 'LSD' - the initials of the Lat*n names for pounds, shillings and pence. I bet it was the same in Oz.

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