Digging through my latest issue of TAG Magazine and I saw this little tidbit. As it says here, “this photo shows an R&D department in Vietnam where they’re putting the finishing touches to a prototype of a new 125cc air-cooled SYM. Tisk-tisk (shakes head). I guess it just doesn’t pay to innovate any more. I wonder what Piaggio would have to say about that.
Oh, and what’s the difference between a Pence, a shilling, a Pound and a Quid? I just don’t get UK money.
Didn’t we just post something about Vespa moving production to Vietnam? It’ll be easy now… they can just rebadge these SYM knock-offs.
29. May 2007 at 7:22 pm
Pence is plural of penny, the existing unit smaller than the pound.
A quid is slang for a pound allegedly derived from the Royal mint at Quidhampton, Hampshire.
A shilling was originally one-twentieth of a pound, slang for which was bob.
Way back when, there were 240p in a pound. Way back when there were 12p in a shilling. I won’t even get into further sub-units of farthings and such.
This all ended January 1, 1971 with decimalization. Now you will find 100 “new pence” to a pound. Shilling coins are worth 5p, but the convention of “shilling” is less common today.
30. May 2007 at 3:16 pm
Thanks for the education. And do people still use “Pony” and “Monkey”?
I feel bad for anyone visiting the USA trying to decipher a cent from a penny, a dime a quarter a dollar a buck, clam, greenback, so on and so forth.
Found a good money word resource here:
http://www.fun-with-words.com/money_words.html
31. May 2007 at 8:45 am
So it’s 1008 farthings to the guinea? How many crowns does that make?
Over here we have to buy our cloned scooters with smaller American dollars, which makes them more of a bargain. In Canada, it’s no contest.