In Cedric Mount's one-act play 'The Never Never Nest', Aunt Jane asks Jack:
How can you pay seven pounds eight and eight pence out of six pounds?
I thought seven pounds eight and eight pence meant £ 7.88 pence, because after a decimal point, normally the numbers are spoken separately.
But I am told that my understanding is wrong. It is 7 pounds, 8 shillings and 8 pence.
Which is correct? I hope someone may shed some light on this focusing on shilling and pence details.
Thanks in advance.
Best Answer
Prior to February 1971, Britain had a currency system where 12 pennies ('pence') (abbreviation 'd') made one shilling, and 20 shillings made one pound. The sum of seven pounds, eight shillings and eight pence would be written in a variety of ways, e.g. £7.8s.8d, £7/8/8, £7-8-8. It would be spoken informally as "seven pounds eight [shillings] and eight [pence]". I once bought a tape recorder (from Headquarter and General Supplies in Croydon, if anyone is interested) that was advertised to cost '£4-19-6'. Especially in signs or posters, the separator between pounds, shillings and pence could be any of a number of characters, or just spaces. Here we see colons. The returnable crate (for a baby carriage) was charged at five shillings - 5/-, the dash representing 'no pence'. Sums of shillings and pence were often written with a stroke separator, and smaller sums between £1 and £5 might be written thus, e.g. 59/6 was £2.19.6.