During the past days I had been
talking about the guinea as payment for hotels, which I had seen during the
early 1970ies while being on a language vacation on the Isle of Wight. This
morning while driving to work I’ve heard about Carl Maria [Friedrich Ernst] von
Weber (* 18th or 19th of November 1786 - † 5th
of June 1826 in London), who had been paid in guineas. So, the question crossed
my mind, if Boris Johnson will reestablish the guinea.
In older times there had been
the halfpenny (½ d), the penny (d), threepence (3 d), sixpence (6 d) , the shilling
(s = 12 d), the florin ( 2 s), half crown (2 s 6 d), crown (2
florin or 5 s), half sovereign (10 s; the note also called 10 bob note), the
sovereign or pound (20 s), and the guinea (21 s). Until 1960 there had also
been the farthing (¼ d). 240 pennies made a pound. A penny weighed 9.4 g; this
shows the British understatement as 240 pennies didn’t weigh a pound but more
than 2 kg or 4 lb and 15.5781 oz (2.256 kg).
Will Boris Johnson reestablish
the guinea? Nay, “suspecting the answer know”. I guess even a zealot like Boris
Johnson, who in my opinion is guiding Britain into the ditch, won’t leave the
decimal system. So I think the guinea won’t come back, “expecting the answer
guess”.
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