[geeks] Now for something completely geek

[Mike Meredith]

On Sun, 27 Aug 2006 19:47:55 -0400, Phil Stracchino wrote:
> Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> > What's funny is how much european currency is really based on the
> > same ancient coinage, so really it really wasn't part of their
> > heritage anyway.
>
> Until Britain went metric in the mid-70s, the symbols used to denote

1971.

> British currency in pounds, shillings and pence were L, s, d.

That's #, s, d. The # is a stylised L but not a real L.

> The actual meanings?  Librum, solidus, denarius.  The names of the
> units of currency have changed, but the symbols used to denote them
> hadn't changed in two thousand years.

Whilst UK currency might appear to be based on Roman currency, it isn't.
The silver penny (the "denarius" although it wasn't called that at the
time) was introduced in 790 ... a gap of some time. The shilling wasn't
introduced until 1548 (or possibly 1487).

The place to look for continuous use of the something based on Roman
currency is Italy (lira derives from librum) or France.