Irish Conversation in the American Midwest #7
Five Pence
-But as I didn’t have a 5p I couldn’t get one
-Pee? What’s pee?
-Pence, like your cents; there’s a hundred pence in a pound
-And what’s that worth in American, 5 pence?
-Well it doesn’t exist anymore as the Euro is now the currency, but back then it was typically about seven cents
-Seven?
-Yes
-That’s a funny number for a coin
-Well it wasn’t seven, it was five
-Oh, it was five cents?
-No, it was five pence
-You said it was seven
-Yes it was worth about seven cents, but it was actually five pence
-But that’s a strange amount, seven. We have numbers like five and ten and the quarter
-So do we. We had five and ten and twenty and fifty, but it’s a different currency so sometimes five pence was worth six cents and sometimes eight cents depending on the exchange rate of the day
-But those are funny amounts too, six and eight, why would you have them?
-They weren’t on the coin; the coin was five pence; I’m just giving seven as a very typical valuation of its worth in US currency
-But seven is a very odd amount for anything, why would you have seven?
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