Talk:£sd

Untitled 2004 comments

See Talk:Decimal Day for comments on merging content from various pages regarding British decimalisation -- OwenBlacker 21:52, Jun 2, 2004 (UTC)

Link: "Librae" links to the entry for the "Libra" zodiac sign. This doesn't seem right.

(The above comment was unsigned) I was about to change it to Scales but it seems someone has already changed it to point to Ancient Roman units of measurement with a mouse-hover popup of Weight. For now, I have left the article untouched and merely leave a suggestion of changing it to point to the scales page, since that is the most direct translation of the word Librae. EatYerGreens (talk) 12:22, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Pronunciation

The current version of this article has been edited by SimonTrew to state that £sd is pronounced ɛʎ' ɛs' ɖe. (This is IPA, though the article does not say so.) Previously it said that it was pronounced L.s.d. I prefer the earlier version for three reasons:

• "Pronounced L.s.d." is comprehensible by anyone with a basic knowledge of English, whereas most people will have no idea what "ɛʎ' ɛs' ɖe" means.
• I am not sure that it is pronounced "ɛʎ' ɛs' ɖe". The retroflex ɖ and the palatal ʎ may be in use in this expression in some varieties of English, but not in most, and they are certainly not usual in any pronunciation in widespread use in the United Kingdom, which is where this expression has had most prevalence. Likewise the final vowel is more likely to be i than e.
• Even if we were to edit the IPA expression to give a more typical pronunciation, I am not sure it would be advantageous to do so. It seems to me that what is required is to convey the message that the expression is commonly pronounced like the names of the three letters "L, S, D". If you pronounce those letters as ɛʎ' ɛs' ɖe, then that is how you should read "£sd", while, if I pronounce those letters ɛl' ɛs' di, then that is how I should read "£sd". This, I think, is more helpful than specifying the pronunciation used in one form of English.

There are certainly situations where IPA is a good way of indicating pronunciation, but I do not think this is one of them. My inclination is to revert this change, but I will wait a short while to see if anyone has a defense for the present situation. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:22, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree that IPA is not appropriate here and should be reverted. L.s.d. are letters of the alphabet being pronounced, not words with an obscure or irregular pronounciation. Greensburger (talk) 14:41, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

No one has defended it: I have reverted. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:25, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Why not have both? That is a Wikipedia style established by long habit. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 11:09, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Both if you like, but what is the point? Anyone who has a competent knowledge of English knows how to pronounce "L.s.d.". If you do put in an IPA version then please use a likely pronunciation: "'ɛl ɛs d'i:" would be much better. JamesBWatson (talk) 20:05, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

I am happy with the revert, but I read somewhere that in defining terms a pronunciation is preferable. There are always issues with IPA anyway, since different speakers will pronounve it differently (hence your using different symbols from me, I took it from a dictionary or something that uses IPA so perhaps either the symbols have changed or the pronunciation different); nevertheless I should have marked it as being IPA. The wider issue about conversions of the actual unit quantities' conversions is discussed below. SimonTrew (talk) 19:49, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I would be intrigued to know what dictionary this came from. The use of the phoneme ɖ would suggest one of a very limited range of varieties of English: Indian perhaps? ʎ could be an attempt at distinguishing allophones of "l", but if so then it is something of an exaggeration, as ʎ would suggest a much more strongly palatalised version than is used in any version of English that I know of. JamesBWatson (talk) 20:05, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

---

Think the real pronunciation is "pounds, shillings, pence"... AnonMoos (talk) 21:07, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that was the more usual pronunciation, and I have amended the article accordingly. JamesBWatson (talk)

Other l.s.d. currencies.

The pre-decimalisation currencies of many western countries were based on the l. divided into 20s. to 12d. For example, in france, the currency was livre > 20 sou > 12 dennier, but inflation made the dennier rather worthless. The new franc was set to equal the old livre. The system dates back to Charlemaine.

In part it has something to do with reckoning with scores on the abacus (European abacus were just stone-boards, of two rows, one can make the rows of any value: usually 4 and 5 were used.

Prussia used a Rixmark of 30 shillings each 12 groschen. In Austria, the florin was divided into 60 kreuzer. Some decimalisation in Europe is recorded as decimal weights and measures started to affect Europe.

see W.S.B Woolhouse "Measures Weights and Moneys of All nations:" 1890. [this is available as a pdf on the net]

The Haliflax standard for fixing the american currencies to sterling is that one dollar is 5 s. This applies to much of the 19c, and well to the second-world-war. The "instructions for American Servicemen in Australia 1942", rates the Australian pound (16s. stg) at 3$20, US, this makes the GBP = 4$, us (and hence the USD at 5s. stg.

At this rate, we have nickel = 3d, dime = 6d, quarter = 1s.3d., half-dollar = half-crown, and dollar = crown. We see that the US 'grand' of 1000 $, is 250l., while the English style is to talk in hundreds of pounds (0.4 grand).

--Wendy.krieger (talk) 08:26, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I think that some of this would be interesting to add. it shoould be noted also perhaps that 12 is useful because divisble by 2, 3, 4 and 6; and 60s I imagine has no coincidence (athough probably derived separately) form Phonecian sexagesimal that gives us degrees minutes seconds and hours minutes seconds. If you can reference this (as you seem to be able to) I think it is certainly worth adding it, if you could give us the PDF's addy that would be cool. i can't remember off the top of my head what the official rates of exchange were to the US dollar and the Australian pound/dollar, they did vary a bit with the a couple of the adjustment acts to the gold standard etc. It was $4 = £1 at the start of the nineteenth century, I think, and I would *guess* (very much a guess) that whatever the US soldiers were told in the war was a combination of official rates and common sense, i.e. they had the US market (imported stuff for the US military), rationed UK goods, unrationed UK goods, and the black market-- all of course at effectively different exchange rates.

I am assuiming you are not UK because of not typing £ (which is U+0163). I agree the conversion style should be consistent, as per WP:MOSNUM, but also in articles *specifically* speaking of conversions you can take WP:COMMON and mix the unit order if it makes sense. That is not carte blanche, but if it makes more sense to put it different ways around, that is OK to do so.

Speaking of which we could bit to add some {{convert}} templates for historical currencies if you think it worthwhile. For floating currencies that is obviously pointless (or at least unfeasible) but for pegged historical currencies it might be worthwhile– what do you think? SimonTrew (talk) 19:44, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I live in australia, and i am old enough to remember real money (ie l.s.d.). One could easily access the £ symbol in the Windows international keyboard by shift+altgraph+4. However, if one spends a good amount of time reading books from the 19C, one will see the writing of money in the style of 5l. 10s. 6d. (rather than £5/10/6). Interesting to note here that / is in fact, long s, is called the solidus, or shilling. Writing 10/6d is correct as 10s. 6d.

For those wanting to experience the value victorian-era l.s.d, the pound was 113 grains troy of gold, which one could round to 120 grains. This makes the troy oz of gold equal to £4, or 960d. At todays prices, this makes 1d = US$1. The corresponding period dollar is then $50, US, or 4s.2d stg. A wage of 15s per week then corresponds to something like $180 per week. --Wendy.krieger (talk) 08:14, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

http://books.google.com/books?id=oJEBAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22measures,+weights+and+moneys+of+all+nations%22&lr=&as_brr=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Its a books.google.com search on "Measures, weights, and Moneys of all nations" The PDF is a copy of the 1902 edition, but covers much of the pre-decimal european and other measures. One sees that the US dollar does not stray much from the 4s 2d to 5s (rating the $ at 4s 2d (£1 = $4.80) makes the penny equal to US 2c, so "penny for your thoughts" and "my two cents worth" reflect the same value. In terms of pre-decimal currency, the US $ was in the order of 8/- colonial money.

From the victorian era to the end of the world war (1945, Brenton Woods), the world curriencies were either pegged to other currencies, or to the gold or silver standard. The curriencies did drift somewhat but pretty much stayed pegged. The great war (1914-18) put a lot of strain on the system.

The australian currency is rated 4/5 of sterling, eg the AUD is rated at 40p. The few references i have for the US/UK currency gives "crown = 5s. = dollar", and in the "Instructions for American Servicemen in Australia 1942", gives £A 1 as $US 3.20. Since £1 stg = £1.5.0 aus, we see that this gives £1 stg = $4.00 US.

There may be some value in providing something along the lines of "values of old currencies" although there are already several other pages on the wikipedia (Latin Money Union), which do this. For some benefit to readers of older books (such as written pre-world-war-two), one might give some indication that money was worth much more than it is today (as in using 1d=$1, or dividing USD amounts by 50, so "buddy, can you spare me a dime" translates more accurately as can you spare me a fiver ($5.0).

--Wendy.krieger (talk) 11:31, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Article name

This seems like an odd name for the article. Wouldn't it be better as "Pounds, shillings and pence"? --MoreThings (talk) 22:48, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes! If no objections, go ahead and move it. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 11:18, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I do have an objection to the proposed name, as it creates grammar issues (whether or not to include a comma before the last list item), as well as simply being awkward to read; in my opinion, almost as awkward as it already is. The German, Italian, and Hungarian articles on it all call it "Carolingian Coinage", though this seems like a misnomer to me, as I don't see anything about it being rooted in the Frankish Empire. I'd personally recommend renaming it British pre-decimal coinage. Mnmazur (talk)

Almost. For part of the pre-decimal period, pound notes mostly replaced pound coins or sovereigns.

How about British currency (1817-1972)? (That broadens the scope a lot).

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 16:21, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps this is better:

Divisions of the pound sterling (1817-1972) (Or is it subdivisions?)

---Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 16:42, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

I liked your proposal for British currency (1817-1972) alright. Another option, given the concern with the word "coinage", would be to change my proposal of British pre-decimal coinage to British pre-decimal currency. Mnmazur (talk)

Also, I just determined that Pre-decimal British coinage already exists and redirects elsewhere. Mnmazur (talk) Nevermind, I'm an idiot. Mnmazur (talk)

I'd be fine with British currency (1817-1972). I'd probably prefer that over British pre-decimal currency because it's more specific. On the other hand, those are not the first terms that would come to mind when searching for this article, so I think a few redirects would be helpful. --MoreThings (talk) 11:21, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

British currency (1707-1971) is more accurate, possibly. £sd seems to have started in England in the 16th century, and £p came in in 1971; although the article includes a substantial amount about non-British currency systems and refers to the Kingdom of England which predates 1707. "Pre-decimal" is best avoided - the Victorians experimented with a decimal system. Bazza (talk) 13:16, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

British? I thought this was about "L.s.d.", the Carolingian money accounting system. It was prevalent in nearly all of western Europe - France, Italy, Germany, etc. - from the early 9th C. until the French Revolution. The article should maintain its name. Or else call itself the "Carolingian" accounting system. Walrasiad (talk) 02:48, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Kingdom of England?

Why the mention of the Kingdom of England in the lead section? Surely the LSD system was fixed in the Great Recoinage of 1816. Prior to that a guinea was 21 shillings, though English realms had Carolingian coinage systems in Anglo-Saxon times. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 16:15, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

There must be some sort of carryover from the Carolingian system that's missing an explanation here, because (as noted above) the non-English Wikipedias all have local names of "Carolingian Coinage" for the article title. That would account for the mention of England; what it doesn't explain is what that carryover is. Perhaps someone who knows German, Italian, or Hungarian would be able to figure it out from the other articles? Mnmazur (talk)

Writing Conventions - addendum

£14.8s.2d was also commonly written as £14 " 8 " 2 (with the double quote marks centered vertically). 155.225.54.139 (talk) 21:23, 23 February 2011 (UTC)Richard Nelson

Carolingian accounting vs. coins

There seems to be some confusion viz. coins & accounting. Just a quick note of clarification.

• L.s.d. is a currency accounting system, with ratios 12d = 1s and 20s = L.1.
• The accounting system is not necessarily reflected in coins. A coin is a piece of metal, which can be one, or several or a fraction of the accounting unit, e.g. a "Farthing" is a 1/4 d. coin, a "Guinea" is 21s coin (= L.1 1s = 252d.), a "Noble" was 6s 8d coin (= 80d), a Ducat/Florin/Forint a 8s (= 96d) coin, a "Grosso/Gros/Groat/Groschen" is a 3d. or 4d. coin, and so on. The accounting system is not affected by the coins. In the same way US$1 = 100 cents accounting, is not affected by the minting of nickels, dimes and quarters.
• Some coins do indeed represent single units, e.g. the "Sovereign" and the "Franc" were L.1 coins, and most famously, the Carolingian silver "denarius/denier" was a 1d. coin.
• Coins have a value "by tale" (their official value, in L.s.d. accounting) and a value "by content" (their real value in terms of gold/silver content). They don't always match. e.g. a debased denier coin can be 1d "by tale" but only 0.75d "by content".
• Because of this mismatch in tale and content, it was often necessary to use qualify the accounting by the specific coin, e.g. if you sell me an apple for 1d, you may have to specify whether you mean 1d. of "good" Paris coins or 1d. of "bad" Tours coins. Or more precisely, quote me two different prices "1 apple = 1d parisis or 1.5d tournois". However, because of government price controls (and there were a lot of controls) and legal tender laws, this was often illegal: royal rules might decree the apple has to be sold simply at "1d" and legal tender laws establishes that a denier coin is 1d, regardless of whether it is minted in Paris or Tours. Of course, in that case, a buyer would pay 1d. in bad Tournois coins, and save up the good Paris coins ("Gresham's Law").
• All commercial accounting was conducted in L.s.d. Three columns in the ledger book. However, there might be a little asterisk noting what kind of coins you mean - Paris or Tours - to reflect real valuation better. But the accounting system itself, the 12d = 1s, 20s = L.1, is unaffected. You simply specify L.s.d. "in parisian coins" or L.s.d. "in tournois coins", and remain consistent in the ledger. e.g. a bill might state I owe you 4s (= 48d) parisis. That bill can be discharged with 48 denier coins from the Paris mint, or 16 groat coins from the Paris mint. But I can also discharge that bill with the cheaper coins from the Tours mint, you just have to remember the Paris-Tours exchange rate, e.g. 1d parisis = 1.5d tournois, implies that paying you 72 denier coins from the Tours mint will dicharge the 48d parisis debt, and you will enter it that way in the ledger.

I hope this makes sense. In sum, L.s.d accounting is consistent. The existence of groats, farthings, guineas, nobles, ducats, florins, ecus, testons, francs, etc. doesn't change the underlying accounting, which remains consistently L.s.d. The only adjustment you might make is in real valuation, in which case your prices/accounts/ledger will specify the L.s.d. in terms of a particular "quality" mint.

A few more notes:

• The L.s.d accounting system was created by the Carolingians c.800 on the ratios 12d = 1s and 20s = L.1 and imposed throughout the Frankish empire (i.e. France, Italy, Germany, etc.) Non-Carolingian areas (Iberia, Byzantium, Scandinavia) inherited different accounting systems. Britain, of course, was not Frankish territory and indeed was originally pulled towards the Viking "mark" system because of trade, but Offa of Mercia imported the Carolingian system to facilitate accounting with the Roman Church (which used L.s.d.). The only reason it became associated with Britain is because Napoleon forced decimalization on the continent, leaving the UK the only one left maintaining it afterwards. But the system is not "British". It is Carolingian, and was general throughout western European for much of history.
  • Italian states: lira, soldo, denaro
  • France: livre, sou, denier
  • Aragon: lliura, sou, diners
  • German states: pfund, schilling, pfennig
• The Spanish peso is not a pound (as the article insinuates). Aragon (via Catalonia) adopted the Carolingian system, but Castile and Portugal did not - they inherited their currency accounting system from Arab maravedi, with decimal subdivisons.
• a word should be said distinctly that the Troy system of weights for gold/silver, uses similar L.s.d terms, but not the accounting system. In Carolingian acounting, 12d = 1s, 20s = L.1, but in Troy accounting it is reversed, 20d = 1s and 12s = L.1. In both cases, of course, it is still 240d = L.1, and a Troy pound of silver is practically the same as a Carolingian pound of silver. But the fractions are quite different. This is worth pointing out.

Walrasiad (talk) 05:11, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. It sounds like you could rewrite the article, which is mostly unsourced in any case. I wonder if the confusing emphasis on the British Empire comes from the native language of the editors, or is implied by the stylized L (£) in the article's title. Nonetheless, the information on British currency and accounting belongs somewhere, but not in the lead of an article about L.s.d.

What is still unclear is whether L.s.d. derives from Ancient Rome or from Charlemagne and his empire. The article suggests that its sources credit the former.

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 11:59, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Hm. Maybe I should. I think it's fine to refer to the British imperial currency system here - after all, its exactly the same system. The stylized £ was used in other currencies too (e.g. Italian lira). Its just the lead needs to be adjusted a little to clarify that it was not uniquely British, that it was the general European system until the 19th C. decimalizations.

Romans did not use L.s.d. accounting, they originally used a system based on "as" (or "ace"), accounting, with decimal units, e.g denarius = 10 as, quinarius = 5 as, sestercius = 2.5 as, dupondius = 2 as, semis = 1/2 as, etc. The denarius (as a silver coin) did become quite popular in circulation, but most ledger accounting was actually done in sesterci units. Emperors undertook multiple coinage reforms (e.g. Augustus in 24 AD, Caracalla in 215, Aurelian in 274, Diocletian in 293, Constantine in 312, etc.), redefining a pound weight, rejigging the relative values of the coins and introducing new coins & new accounting systems for them (e.g. Diocletian introduced 1 solidus = 10 argentus = 40 nummus = 200 radiate = 500 laureate = 1000 denarius; Constantine created a new solidus as 72s to a new Roman pound, and the accounting as 1 solidus = 2 scripulum = 3.33 tremisses = 4 semissis = 18 miliarense = 24 siliqua), etc. Since most reforms weren't even completed before the next reform began, the late Roman empire had a veritable mess of multiple overlapping systems. Charlemagne cut through the mess by defining a new pound weight, and imposing one system, L.s.d., once and for all, with only three units: libra, solidus, denarius and only one actual coin (the denarius). While the terms "denarius", "solidus" and "libra" came from the old Roman, their definitions and the ratios between them were new and wholly Carolingian. Walrasiad (talk) 14:31, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. I am delighted to read the classical and medieval context of something that appeared to be parochially British despite its Latin name. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 15:17, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

2022

Like every historical metrology entry I notice on Wiki this one is just a mess. walraiad has read very few accounts - nor has anyone I notice trying to contribute to wiki. I have no wish to turn myself into a wiki editor - but am happy to advise if anyone wants to try fix any of the current mess Rob Tye (talk) 07:14, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

[Republic of] Ireland

I note that User:HighKing has removed the "The Republic of" from before Ireland. Since this is such a sensitive subject, I'm not reverting but coming straight to talk for concensus. The problem with The United Kingdom and Ireland is one of keeping Wikipedia to facts as they exist and avoiding political stances. The term "The United Kingdom" is short for "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", so to say The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Ireland is a wee bit tautological. Might I suggest one of the following is selected, both of which seem to be correct de facto even if there is a de jure dispute:

• The United Kingdom and The Republic of Ireland (ie by de facto sovreign state)
• The United Kingdom and Eire (using an alternative term)
• Great Britain and Ireland (by geographic descriptor)

Please remember WP:RF WP:NPOV WP:SOAP and most importantly WP:AGF. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 11:58, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Since writing the above I have come across WP:IRE-IRL which gives Wikpedia policy over the name to use for the state. I would suggest that in this case suggestions 1 & 2 above fall under the purview of MOS bullet point1 (exception): in this case Ireland is being used in contradisticntion to Norther Ireland, and so the ROI form needs to be employed. Suggestion 3 side steps the issue altogether.

Having looked at the original article a bit more closely, there are two other problem phrases: others, notably Ireland, decimalised only when Britain did and decimalisation in the UK and Ireland. The former is incorrect in employing Britan (as a lazy and inaccurate abbreviation for Great Britain) since the whole state (the UK) decimalised as one; the latter has the same tautaulogical problem as above. Again I would suggest a close reading of WP:IRE-IRL. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 13:30, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

"pronounced as" vs "read"

£14.8s.2d (fourteen pounds, eight shillings and twopence – pronounced 'tuppence' /ˈtʌpəns/ – in columns of figures.

Commonly pronounced as "fourteen pound(s) eight and two")
Commonly read "fourteen pound(s) eight and two")

There appear to be two points to settle here:

• The disputed phrase refers to the way the sum is spoken. I was not responsible for the original word "pronounced", indeed I think "spoken" or "said" would be better. The way any individual actually reads it is slightly subjective, depends upon the extent to which they internally verbalise and I would suggest to you irrelevant in this context.
• "fourteen pounds, eight shillings and twopence" is not the same as "fourteen pound(s) eight and two", the shillings and pence have disappeared, any Briton used to the old currency would silently understand them from the context. I further suggest to you therefore that the "as" is not illogical in your terms. At the risk of opening a can of worms, an "as" would not sound incorrect to British ears before the "tuppence".

I have a feeling that there is an AmE/BrE conflict here, hence my reference to WP:TIES which would indicate that an article on a British currency ought to follow British English. Kwamikagami and myself are clearly in disagreement here, can other editors please review the matter and help us reach consensus. Thanks, Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:36, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Some doubts about the supposed advantage of the £sd system

Hello! The article says:

... 12 pence in a shilling and 20 shillings, or 240 pence, in a pound ... The advantage of such a system was its use in mental arithmetic, as it afforded many factors and hence fractions of a pound such as tenths, eighths, sixths and even sevenths if the guinea of 21 shillings was used. When dealing with items in dozens, multiplication and division are straightforward; for example, if a dozen eggs cost four shillings, then each egg was fourpence.

I've now added a "citation needed" because:

• Could you clarify how divisibility is an "advantage"? I can't realistically think of a situation where (say) 1 Euro has to be divided 3 ways while there absolutely may not be a remainder, for some reason. You'd just say "give me 33 cents, I'll round down as a courtesy to you" because nobody is bothered about a third of a cent. I don't see a disadvantage in that. Having a lot of factors in the number 240 sounds "neat" in an abstract mathematical way, but I'm unclear how that would ever make anything simpler in practice. (Or how it'd outweigh the constant difficulty due to the conversion being "divide or multiply by 240", instead of "just move the dot by two places" for a decimal system.)

• The "guinea of 21 shillings" seems like an odd thing to bring up. The article deals with the situation up to the 1960s, while the guinea coin hasn't been issued since 1799 (see later section). Also, if the guinea is introduced, you gain divisibility by 7 but of course lose 10, 8, and 5.

• If an egg costs 4d, a dozen would theoretically be 48d, which means the dozen would be sold for about 45d. By basic economics, buying larger amounts usually gives rebates.

Thank you. -- 84.130.48.205 (talk) 00:40, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Good comments. Those advantages are far less important now that a pound is only a few minutes wages (in Britain.) In Charlemagne's time, it was worth a lot more. A good citation and explanation would help enormously. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 09:17, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

As Hroðulf says, values have changed. As a lad I could get a portion of chips for 6d, now the smallest portion is £1.40, so 56 times as expensive. Your 1/3 of a Euro would therefore be nearly 19 Euros in today's money - quite a lot to lose "as a courtesy". In practice you never divided or multiplied by 240, instead you used the simple factors 12 and 20; remember the system wasn't £d but £sd. "Moving the dot" is only of use for multiplying or dividing by 10, neither system has the advantage when buying 2oz of mints at 4d a qtr. In daily life you are usually dealing with small numbers for break down or adding up: 2 adults and 2 kids to the cinema, a glass of wine and two pints of bitter in the pub but rarely 400 seats for the theatre.

The guinea as a sum is still in use. The advantage of the guinea was not the multiple of 7, but its use in auction houses. If a horse was sold for 100 gns, the seller recieved £100 and the autction house 100s. Simple. See the link to Tattershalls.

I'm sorry but your last point is specious. You cannot assume that a dozen eggs would be less that 12 times a single egg; 12 is hardly a large, bulk, amount. Eggs are (or were) priced per dozen in any case, and you would not refer to 48d but 4/-.

Neither system has clear advantages once you know and understand it. The decimal system is however far easier to learn, easier for large amounts and to easier to convert between currencies. I well remember the slog of manual arithmetic at school aged 10: try £27/13/7 divided by 63 without the aid of a caclulator! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 10:11, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

One must remember that calculators are only recently widely accessible (late 20th century). If you needed to divide something quickly usually you'd have to rely on mental arithmetic I guess. For example, dividing 2 Euro by 12 (=0.1666...) is arguably more difficult than 2s by 12 (2p). Division by 2,3,4 (and 5,8,10,20,... for the pound) are also simplified with "tricks". Still, more involved divisions (by non-integer or large values) would be complicated not simplified; but I guess that wouldn't come up often in daily routine, and resorting to paper (instead of mental arithmetic) would be expected in any case. With the ubiquity of the calculator I think the overall simplicity of decimal prevails in both situations. 179.113.61.206 (talk) 15:32, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

"Tricks" were learning by heart the basic division of pounds: 6/8 is £⅓, 13/4 is £⅔ for example - "there will be a tables test every Monday" :-( BTW, 2s ÷ 12 is 2d, not 2p. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 15:56, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

On the London Stock Exchange, stock (stock as in interest bearing securities as opposed to shares) was priced per £100 of stock at face value, and that price was quoted in pounds and 64ths of a pound. This might seem odd, but a pound could be divided, by successive halving, into 64ths, each being 3 3/4d (thruppence three farthings), an amount capable of being settled. The halving had to stop at 64ths : it was not possible to tender 1 7/8d because there were no 1/8d coins, so 128ths was out of the question. As I recall, a price of 97 and 55/64ths was written as £97=55, but no doubt someone else can comment more authoritatively. Simon 90.241.238.38 (talk) 18:36, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

---

Advocates of switching to a base 12 numeral system bring up such claimed advantages of divisibility (scroll down on article Duodecimal), and they're probably part of why Decimal time never caught on... AnonMoos (talk) 09:27, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Duodecimal? Lets be bold and go for hexadecimal, it makes using computers so much easier. :-) Martin of Sheffield (talk) 15:24, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

16 has has only one prime factor (2), and is not a Highly composite number, and so does not score high on general divisibility... AnonMoos (talk) 10:15, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Article name again

Essentially all the articles on British pre-decimal currency focus on the coins as such, rather than the currency. When I tried to find the appropriate page(s) to link to for the currency, it was only by already knowing the term and the £ symbol that I was able to track this one down, so I'm here to reopen the matter of renaming it to make it easier to find. I'm not a strong advocate for any particular term, but two suggestions would be "Pounds shillings and pence" (without commas), or "British pre-decimal money" (or currency). Any takers? Awien (talk) 13:23, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

See the discussion above, the LSD system was not limited to Britain, it was used all over Europe at different times. Perhaps you might consider creating redirects from your two suggestions to this page? It would be a lot quicker, simpler, and would save reams of arguments! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 16:41, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Never done redirects . . . Awien (talk) 17:13, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

I started to create a page "British pre-decimal currency" by doing a search. The top of the list was "Coins of the pound sterling" which is a redirect to "Pre-decimal British Coinage", so no point in adding anything there. I then had a look at your other suggestion, but "Pounds, shillings and pence" is already a redirect to £sd. I honestly can't see any point in pursuing this further. Have a read of WP:R or Missing Manual, particularly 2.2. Ultimately all it takes is to create the page you want as the redirect, add #REDIRECT [[Name-of-correct-page]] and save it. For instance the page "UK" simply contains:

#REDIRECT [[United Kingdom]]
{{R from initialism}}

The first line is the redirect, the second an optional explanation template. Regards, Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:56, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your help, Martin. Hopefully I'll have a chance to follow up on this before too long. My problem with the existing redirects is that they mostly lead to articles whose emphasis is on the coins as coins, rather than the money as a system. For the latter, this article appears to be the best, but could use more work . . . . Anyway, thanks again, Awien (talk) 17:19, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

haypence???

The article claims "1½d (a penny halfpenny, three halfpence – note that the lf in halfpenny and halfpence was always silent - they were pronounced 'hayp'ny' /ˈheɪpni/ and 'haypence' /ˈheɪpəns/ – hence the occasional spellings ha'penny and ha'pence)".

I am not myself british, but I find the claims of "hay" respectively /ˈheɪ/ hard to believe. I would have expected something more like a "hah" respectively /ha:/ (my IPA is extremely rusty, so in doubt take my drift from the "hah") based on first principles and my memories of British tv/movies set in the appropriate times.

Could someone clarify? 80.226.24.10 (talk) 11:46, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Haypny, haypence etc. are absolutely correct, no hah about it. This is the money I grew up with. Awien (talk) 12:12, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Compare also 2½d, 'tupns haypny', or used as an adjective a 'tupny haypny' stamp, the cost of sending a letter for a long time. Awien (talk) 12:19, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Agreed with Awien, for the same reason. IPA would be /ˌtʌpəns.ˈheɪpniː/ /ˌtʌpniːˈheɪpniː/ Bazza (talk) 14:50, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

And confirmed also by the Oxford online, which has a pronunciation guide as well as the ipa. Halfpenny, [1], twopenny-halfpenny, [2], hapence, [3], and so on. Awien (talk) 16:06, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Good work, Awien. (Twopenny-halfpenny, [4] is a nice cliché for worthless. Thanks for reminding me.) The refs belong in the article: I just added a ref from Chambers, but if you change it to yours, it will be easier for readers without a paper dictionary to follow up. It is possible some regional accents may use the pronunciation that the anon user recalls from movies, though I can't think of any. Yet the standard pronunciation, at least in the 20th century, was the one confirmed by the dictionaries. Good question: it improved the article. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 09:10, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Hroðulf. Compare also the American "two-bit" for petty / worthless. Money talks?

Anyway . . . it would be great if you could add the Oxford refs to the article as you suggest. The reason I put them here was in the hope that somebody would, since I'm ashamed to say I haven't kept up with the new way to add refs.

As for pronunciation, the only variation I remember from a childhood exposed to many accents is a more northern 'a', the antithesis of hah. Even in a posh Home Counties boarding school, a haypny was a haypny.

Thanks also ip: ask a good question, get some good answers.

Awien (talk) 12:08, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

To editor Awien: I was not aware of a new way to add references. If in doubt, or a hurry, I sometimes just add a bare url in <ref></ref> tags, and a wikignome or bot will come along afterwards and improve it. Something is always better than nothing, no matter what format. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 12:26, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

To editor Hroðulf: The glory of WP: people contributing what they can. Awien (talk) 13:07, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Plurals

@Imaginatorium: Changing the plural from pence to pennies sounds wrong to me. "12 pennies" suggests 12 coins, "12 pence" suggests an amount of money. See the first paragraph of the lead. As an example consider: "the crisps cost threepence so Jake carefully placed three pennies on the counter". Made up, but it sounds more natural than saying "the crisps cost three pennies" which would have marked you out as a foreigner when I was a lad. I'm not keen on reverting without a discussion so will leave things for the moment, perhaps you could comment here or self revert as appropriate. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 10:22, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Martin, I totally agree. also for the same reason and memory! Denisarona (talk) 11:48, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

I think the business of the two plurals is quite tricky. Apart from anything else, the difference is one of stress: "pennies" is always stressed (in, e.g. "12 pennies" (make a shilling)), "pence" is always unstressed, and normally comes after a number, to make a sum of money (as in "sixpence", or "eighteen pence" (crumbs, even I am unsure about that last example)). I completely agree with Martin from the North of England's examples, but note something curious about the use of "pence": notionally it is one plural form of "penny", but it normally takes a singular verb. "Sixpence is the cost of a sausage roll, and did you know that six pennies weigh exactly the same as ten threepenny bits." I suppose "sixpence" is a "singular" amount of money; but when you are saying how many shillings make a pound, you use the plural form. Similarly, the "12 pennies make a shilling" example, has to be a plural verb, and the "pennies" cannot be unstressed. To me at least, saying "12 pence make a shilling" (stressed 'pence') sounds awfully like a post-1971 neologism (of which there were quite a number). There could well be a north-south difference here, as I come from Gloucestershire. Imaginatorium (talk) 13:50, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

There is quite a bit of difference between "sixpence" and "six pence". The former is a single unit of money, the latter is half a dozen units. Consider the use of collectives: "the cows were ready for milking", "the herd was driven down the road". Taking a parallel from shillings is I feel unhelpful. For most of history a penny (or its fractions) was an everyday amount of money, shillings were untold wealth. It is noticeable that there is no equivalent of the -pence form for shillings. Remember this article is LSD - pounds, shillings and pence! I'm sure there were regional differences (possibly also class differences), but beware making assumptions - although born in Sheffield we lived in the Black Country from my third to ninth birthdays so started school there; and to confuse things even more from the age of 10 was schooled in the "deep south" (Berkshire and Bath)! ;-) Martin of Sheffield (talk) 14:37, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Yes, and there may well be a connection to another grammatical-number curiosity: the way in which unit names are used in the singular. See for example Stone (unit) and search down for "plural" -- I think the statement there is wrong, actually: "stone" is not the plural form (prima facie); it is the singular, used in this context.

I don't quite understand your point about "shillings". The relevant difference between "penny" and "shilling" is purely phonetic, and ad hoc. But actually there is an equivalent form, viz. "Bob". Note how it's "a bob", or "two bob", and never "two bobs".

But anyway, I definitely prefer "pennies". However, a search for the exact phrase "12 pennies/pence make a shilling" produces plenty of authentic looking cites on both sides, so perhaps either will do, with a footnote mentioning the two possibilities. If anyone could put together a brief paragraph on the whole business of the two plural forms, that might be nice. Imaginatorium (talk) 15:13, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

I grew up with £sd, and for me, pence is abstract (the price), pennies is concrete (the coins). Awien (talk) 18:03, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I don't think there is any dispute about the basic distinction -- so for example I agree 100% with Martin's examples at the top of this thread. When stating a sum of money, it's always "xxx-pence"; when counting coins, it's always "pennies". But when saying how many of something there are in something, this falls somewhere in between: it is neither a "sum of money" nor a reference to coins. You cited the OED for "a shilling is 12 pence" but the 1911 Britannica comes up with the "12 pennies make a shilling" quote. Anyway, I am not going to argue about which form is in the article, but I will try to work on a footnote about this, somewhere. (Perhaps in penny). Imaginatorium (talk) 08:12, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Don't bother with the footnote to penny, its first sentence reads: "A penny is a coin (pl. pennies) or a unit of currency (pl. pence) ...". Martin of Sheffield (talk) 12:30, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Just a quote from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (2000 edition) - pennies is used to refer to the coins, and pence to refer to an amount. 12:22, 20 May 2016 (UTC) Denisarona (talk) 12:22, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, that quote would seem to lay things to rest, unless anyone wants to get a very large hydraulic press and indulge in transmutation! ;-) Martin of Sheffield (talk) 12:30, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Just a postscript to this: an oddity you hear occasionally is "one pence", as in "I'm short of change. Would you happen to have the one pence?" Awien (talk) 13:52, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

representation

It seems that there are one character BSI representations for shillings and pence, but I don't know where to find them. I suspect mostly used for computer, likely punched card, data entry. There is also an IBM representation for pence. Gah4 (talk) 16:16, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

It seems that some is in Collected Information on Punched Card Codes, though I don't know the answer above yet. Gah4 (talk) 16:25, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

¶4.4 seems to have the answer. For shillings (0-19) row 11 (IBM) or X is punched for 10/-, so that for instance 15/- would be punched as X-5. For pence (0-11) X is 10d and Y 11d. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 16:52, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

IBM calls the top row zone 12, at least since S/360 in about 1963, but here it is called 10. The IBM PL/I compilers from OS/360 days know how to do this, but don't document the codes, other than call it BSI. There is also a different IBM code for pence. Gah4 (talk) 17:20, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

IBM Operating System/360 COBOL Language page 143, indicates that Sterling is an IBM extension to COBOL. It also describes the picture descriptors. For Pence, there is BSI form and IBM form, which exchange the meaning of the 12 and 11 punch rows. IBM uses two digits for Shillings, BSI uses one, as noted above. What I didn't consider above, though, is that 10 shillings is just the 12 punch, not 12 and 0. Decimal fractions of pence are also allowed. Gah4 (talk) 05:39, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

3p coin

No 3p coin was issued (other than as part of Maundy). Monetarily it could neither replace the 3d bit (1.25p) nor the tanner (2.5p). Please stop adding reference to this illusionary coin. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 15:26, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

And there's loads of other anecdotal stuff being added by the same user, all unreferenced. I've tagged the section. Bazza (talk) 15:29, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Use of decimal point in £sd

I don't recall ever seeing the decimal point or full stop used in old money (e.g. £14.8s.2d in our article). I would have used spaces or solidi. Have I forgotten this usage because of decimalisation. Was it common? Dbfirs 19:03, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Unusual, but IIRC not unknown. Probably best not to call it a decimal point though, it's more a case of using a full stop as a separator. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 20:19, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

The full stop was used after the abbreviations s. and d. but I regard it as very unusual after a number of £. Does anyone have any objection if I replace it with spaces in the article? Dbfirs 20:46, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

I wouldn't use spaces. Remember that most money amounts at that time would have been hand written or typed and the risk of confusing £11 8s 2d with £1/18/2 or of confusing £14 18s 2d with £141/8/2 was very real. Personally I always used the solidus, but then as a youngster I rarely met pounds outside maths lessons. You could argue that a solidus separating pounds from shillings is etymologically unsound, in which case use central dots (£14·8·2), hyphens (be ready for the EmEn brigade) or the centralised '"' sign if you can find it on a computer. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 21:12, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Central dots would be even worse because that's where a written decimal point went. You are correct that the usage does appear in old documents occasionally. What about adding a space after the dot to reduce possible confusion? (£14. 8s. 2d.) I used to use a long dash on cheques so that nothing could be inserted. Dbfirs 21:24, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

That's much better. I've just been reading a set of 13thC city accounts and the transcriber included things such as £1 17s. in a list. It is incredibly easy to misread that when scanning the list for the most significant items. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 07:59, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

The Drury Lane price list photo at £sd shows both solidus and hyphen in use. The hyphens are so short, though, that they could be mistaken for interpuncts. Given the choice, I'd opt for (IOOP) £14/8/2, £14-8-2, £14·8·2, or £14.8.2. Nice images at [5] show dots in various imprecise positions being used for handwritten amounts, including the satisfying 7321.6.11⁄4. Googling for images shows a varied set of options depending on units needed: £14-8-2, £14/8/2, even £14:8:2. For a lesser number of units, 8/2, 8/2d, 8/2^D; single units generally showing a suffix 8s, 2d, 2^D. Most often a hyphen was used for signifying absence 8/-. Bazza (talk) 09:22, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

The full stop, when used, simply denoted that the "s" or "d" was an abbreviation, so should be followed by a space. There should not be a full stop after the pounds amount (nor after the £ symbol). Spaces were usual, although I do seem to recall full stops sometimes being used as separators when there were no 's's or 'd's, as in your £14.8.2. The oblique stroke should only appear after the shillings: where there were no pence, it was often written "/=", as in £2 8/=, or a 10/= note. Someone suggested that the oblique is a corruption of a long S, which has a certain plausability. I note that in the Drury Lane board shown, the obliques are dropped when pounds are quoted, decoratively replace by somethinglike inverted commas. Simon 90.241.238.38 (talk) 19:15, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Interest Rate on £sd

How was an interest rate advertised/quoted on bank deposits during the £sd era? Was it as a percentage per pound per year as it is today?

When interest was paid, was it rounded the nearest ¼d? ½d? mdkarazim (talk) 13:36, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Interest is quoted as a percentage per year, not as a percentage per pound per year. Therefore a bank would offer you 5% interest on your deposit, just as today. The only reference book I've got dealing with interest (Dunn's Tables of simple interest, 1821) rounds to the nearest penny. In the early days of computers, all accounts were reduced to pennies internally and only converted to £sd for display. Hence your £6/5/4d would be held internally as 1492d which made all transactions simple enough for a dumb machine. If you don't want to reduce it to pennies, then the maths is simple enough (it was taught to 10 year olds), you just have to lay it out correctly. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 15:04, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Are you sure it amounts to 1492d - surely it is 1504d?? Regards Denisarona (talk) 15:37, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

That'll teach me to use these modern calculators instead of pencil & paper! I grabbed an envelope to do (125 x 12) + 4, saw my calculator and used that. Grr, modern (1990s) technology. ;-) Martin of Sheffield (talk) 15:49, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

So bank accounts were already accounted for to the nearest whole 1d before decimalisation? What amount would the bank record if someone came in with a deposit that included ½d? mdkarazim (talk) 17:51, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

I think in the latter stages of £sd accounts and deposits had to be in quantities of full pennies, just as after D-day ½p was not accepted. The coins themselves were fine, they just had to be in pairs to make full pence. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 17:57, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Per the Royal Mint web site "...in 1672 issues began of the first official copper halfpenny and farthing coins. These were handsome coins bearing on their reverse the seated figure of Britannia, who was to remain a feature of the coins until 1937, when a wren was adopted for the farthing and a sailing ship for the halfpenny.

The farthing gained importance during the Second World War, but never circulated as freely as the halfpenny; minting ceased in 1956 and farthings were demonetised at the end of 1960. The halfpenny survived until* decimalisation, ceasing to be legal tender from 31 July 1969." https://www.royalmintmuseum.org.uk/journal/curators-corner/halfpenny-and-farthing/ I think that the 'until' I asterisked should really be "almost until", because decimalisation was in 1971. The 1/2d coin had gone, but upon decimalisation a (small) 1/2p coin was issued, being a near offer for 1d, but the decimal halpenny was withdrawn in 1984. Simon 90.241.238.38 (talk) 18:51, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Typesetting fractions

The Disappearance of April Fabb mentions “5½d”. This article has multiple mentions of “1⁄2d”, which is optically different and coded differently. If wikipedia has a typesetting preference, what is it? (I prefer the “½”; ʏᴍᴍᴠ.) JDAWiseman (talk) 22:20, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

MOS:FRACTION bans your preferred ½. Bazza (talk) 09:31, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. And ouch. JDAWiseman (talk) 12:26, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

@JDAWiseman: Sorry that was a bit terse! The guideline is unusually explicit — "Do not use..." — and brevity seemed to reflect that. I agree that preformed fractions look better, but I suppose the (unsurprising) lack of symbols for any and all combinations mean that using the template to super- and sub-script the text is the next best option for achieving a consistent result on most displays. Bazza (talk) 12:38, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

The aesthetically optimal solution would be for the wikipedia engine to auto-substitute “1⁄2” with “½”, and likewise for the other unicode fractions. But I don’t know how to ask; and am confident that it would be more of a fight than interests me. JDAWiseman (talk) 16:01, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

There is one slight exception to the standard rule: for chess matches "a precomposed ½ may be used if that is the only fraction appearing in the article". The issue as Bazza mentions is that whilst ½, ⅓, ⅔, ¼, ¾, ⅛, ⅜, ⅝ and ⅞ are all available in the "Symbols" character set, how would you deal with 3⁄16? Consider a piece of plywood 5⁄16" × 3½" × 8". Now that really would look ugly! That's why you'd never win the fight. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 16:46, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

So the rule should strongly insist that pages be internally consistent. Pages about farthings could have ¼d ¼d; pages with things more complicated than eighths, fifths and sixths (⅕ ⅖ ⅗ ⅘ ⅙ ⅚) would use the ugly markup. So I can convince myself that I should win, which of course isn’t at all the same thing. JDAWiseman (talk) 11:09, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Typesetting d

The old pennies, the denarii, is a Latin word, so should be in italic, ‘d’ not ‘d’. Ideally the wikitext “[[£sd|d]]” would produce the italic or oblique. JDAWiseman (talk) 22:28, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

No. £sd were always treated as ordinary type. Some 19C books seem to use 6d, but every 20C one I've seen would set it as 6d. What were you taught in primary school? I was certainly shown it as Roman. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:53, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

I’m just too young to remember using old pence. But in writing a book on Vintage Port, many if not most of the quoted prices, when using old pennies, seemed to italicise the d. But even if that’s so, your opposition is enough to ensure that it isn’t consensus. JDAWiseman (talk) 12:27, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

I think it's a case of familiarity. Who these days would italicise "etc"? It may have originally been an abbreviation for et cetera, but today is virtually an English word in its own right. Likewise if you travelled to Dover via London it would look strange. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 16:35, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

If it’s familiarity, well, nowadays who is familiar with d? Hence must be italicised. JDAWiseman (talk) 18:42, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

It's nothing to do with familiarity. WP works using references. Here are three showing catalogue entries for stamps with non-italicised "d" in the catalogues' text: [6] [7] [8]. And three more for coinage, similarly presented: [9] [10] [11] Bazza (talk) 20:21, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Very fair. Interesting mix of ‘d’ and ‘D’. JDAWiseman (talk) 20:37, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

By familiarity I was meaning how the language and typography changes generally, not my personal familiarity. JDAWiseman: who is familiar? – anyone over the age of 60 which is not that ancient. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 20:58, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

I am familiar with 'd', and I do not recall it ever being italicised. Simon 90.241.238.38 (talk) 18:54, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Rewrite

So, I rewrote parts of the lede and completely rewrote the origins section, to underline its history beyond Britain. I have references to add, and will be adding them shortly. I might also expand the "decimalisation" section to summarize the various competing proposals circulating in the 19th C. Britain to decimalize the currency, but it might overwhelm the article a bit, so I might spin it into a separate article. In the meantime, I want to ask the lede to be revised and shortened, moving some of the content to a different parts of the article, as some of it (particularly the history) is repetitive. I also think the ordering should be revised - decimilisations section should really be at the end, and bottom sections on specifically British usage should be brought up and expanded with material from the lede. Walrasiad (talk) 20:32, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Please consider a section on how it affected the reasoning, ahead of the introduction of the €, of the switch from the national currency units. JDAWiseman (talk) 20:50, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

math doesn't add up

quote "Charlemagne defined the Carolingian "libra", as a new measure of weight equivalent to around 489.6 grams (substantially larger than the old Roman pound of 328.9g). Charlemagne ordered 240 silver units known as "denarius" to be struck from the new Carolingian pound of pure silver, each denarius containing 22.5 grains of silver." - so one new Carolingian libra is 489.6 grams and is divided into 240 denarius then that makes 489.6 g/240 = 2.04 gram per denarius - one denarius "contains 22.5 grains" but 22.5 grains = 1,451496 grams -- so clearly that doesn't work. what is it? both can't be right

mar178.202.247.212 (talk) 17:38, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Hm. You're right. It mixes two different sources, at two different times, with two different pounds. The Carolingian dictate is as above (489.6/240), which would have been a denarius of 31.5 grains. The 22.5 grains of silver refers to the later standardization of the denarius by William the Conqueror. Although the L.s.d. accounting was imported, the heavy Carolingian pound of 489.6 did not last and Anglo-Saxons came up with a lighter pound. Offa's penny during Anglo-Saxon times fluctuated between 18 and 27 grains. After the conquest, Bill ordered it standardized at 22.5 grains. So post-conquest English used a lighter "Tower pound" of 350g. That yields 350g/240 = 1.458333g, which is 22.51 grains (William's 22.5). William's standardization was not really liked at the time, as it was below the Saxon penny of 24 grains on the eve of the conquest which many were used to. So many English dealers and artisans, notably silversmiths and jewelers, eschewed Bill's pound and adopted the "pound of Troyes" (used in Champagne fairs) as their own. The "pound of Troyes", or "Troy pound", was 373g, which yielded ratio 373/240 = 1.554g = 24 grains of pre-conquest times (but with Troy accounting in 'ounces' inverting the Carolingian shilling ratios, i.e. it is 20d to 1 Troy ounce and 12oz. to 1 Troy pound). Walrasiad (talk) 05:10, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Renaming and restructuring

I have moved this article from £sd to Carolingian monetary system because, despite the former being slang anyway, it mixed up the British £sd system with the Carolingian monetary system from which it was derived. Europe did not have the British £sd system, but vice-versa i.e. both Europe and the UK had variants of the Carolingian system. Anyway I've clarified that in the lede and reorganised the old text mostly within a new history section. Inevitably, because the article is UK-centric, the UK section dominates, but there is at least as much if not more that could be written about the European variants of the system. In due course, both could be spun off as separate articles with this article providing the overview, but we're not there yet, especially as there is work to do to find sources for much of the text. HTH. Bermicourt (talk) 16:27, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

"Carolingian monetary system" gives the idea that it was something in remote past, more than a thousand years ago, while the basic 240:12:1 ratios were used in the UK as recently as the 1970s... AnonMoos (talk) 15:21, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I remember doing pounds, shillings, pence at school. Of course, the word "pound" goes back to Charlemagne and the abbreviation "L" even further to the Romans. Most of us are oblivious to these things and so Wikipedia is doing its job. The British system is referred to as "Carolingian" though in the literature e.g. Wisely (1977), A Tool of Power: The Political History of Money: "In Britain that Carolingian monetary system was retained until the introduction of decimal coinage in 1971"; Weber (1979), "the English monetary system - base on pound, shilling and pence - was a last expression of the Carolingian monetary system"; Gunnarson (1983) Monopoly Trade and Economic Stagnation, "This was the basis of the Carolingian monetary system which England, France and Imperial Germany inherited, the ratio between the lowest unit and the highest one being 240:1"; Walker (1961), The Growing Storm "Thus the Carolingian monetary system of 240 pennies to the pound was adopted by King Offa of Mercia towards the end of the eighth century, and it has lasted longer in England than in its original home"...

Perhaps there should be a section on the "Pound, shilling, pence system", as it seems to be commonly called, which would include Britain and other countries that implemented it. Once that's in good order and cited it could form a separate article. Bermicourt (talk) 16:25, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm sure you have some scholarly support on your side, but the title "Carolingian monetary system" still has strong musty medieval connotations which aren't too compatible with disco music and white polyester leisure suits... -- AnonMoos (talk) 13:13, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Poorly titled. This should have remained at "£sd", the accounting system, which is what this article is specifically about. You seem to mistakenly think "£sd" is a "British" term, but it is not. It is an abbreviation used in any country which had this accounting system. They all denoted it that way. There is nothing "British" about it. They wrote "£sd" in French, Italian, German, etc. accounting books.

The current title just makes it murkier, and less recognizable to casual readers. "Carolingian monetary system" makes me expect discussions of mints, foreign exchange rates, other extant accounting systems in Carolingian times, and the article to end c.900 CE. There's plenty of things in European history that derive from innovations that were set in Carolingian times and remained extant for the next thousand years, e.g. titles of nobility, structure of the Catholic Church, feudal land-tenure, writing conventions, educational curriculum, school systems, etc. Indeed, practically every institution in western Europe before 1789 stems from some Carolingian decree or other. But it wouldn't be useful to readers to have article titles like "Carolingian nobility titles" or "Carolingian church organization", "Carolingian feudalism", "Carolingian inheritance laws", "Carolingian education system", "Carolingian writing system", "Carolingian monasticism", etc. unless you're actually specifically referring to the Carolingian era. You really shouldn't have moved the page this way. It should have been put through WP:RM. Walrasiad (talk) 19:39, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

If the article had been purely about the British system, I would agree. However, as written it suggested that all monetary systems going back to Charlemagne were, in fact, "£sd" systems. Wrong - it's the other way round. And so the title was chosen based on WP:RS, some of which I've quoted above.

BTW other languages don't call them "£sd" systems. Certainly it's not found in German - not a single hit on Google Books, for example - and other Wikipedias almost all call it Carolingian monetary system e.g. Catalan: Sistemes monetaris de tradició carolíngia, Danish: Karolingiske møntsystem, German: Karolingisches Münzsystem, Italian: Monetazione carolingia, Lithuanian: Karolingų pinigų sistema, Lombard: Monedazion carolingia, Hungarian: Monedazion carolingia, Dutch: Karolingische muntsysteem. Only Spanish Wikipedia uses "£sd" in the wider sense, but it seems to have been translated from an earlier version of the English £sd article. As I've said above, we can always spin off a separate article, called "£sd" if you like, about the British system and its derivatives. Bermicourt (talk) 07:57, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

This is not about British or non-British. There is no distinction. It is about a money accounting system that prevailed in most of Western Europe before the 19th Century, and continued in Britain and the British empire until the late 20th Century. The specifically recognizable feature about this accounting system is "£sd", i.e. £1 = 20s = 240d. In all languages. Go look at actual pre-modern account books or manuals. Their accounts, columns and notation are designated "£sd".

That "£sd" happens to be particularly recognizable to English-speakers does reflect the happenstance that many English-speakers happen to live in countries which had "£sd" accounting systems until recently. That may be less so for non-English speakers, who come from countries who abandoned "£sd" a couple of centuries earlier. But this is English-language Wikipedia, and these English-speakers are a large and significant part of our audience. And they are not an audience on other Wikipedias.

This accounting system is known or heard of by many English-speakers. But very few people are recognize it as "Carolingian" or are even aware of that origin - indeed, until I wrote up that whole historical section about it last year, it had gone basically unmentioned in this article for the previous fifteen years. That this accounting system has Carolingian roots is a historical curiosity. Interesting, but not necessarily well-known or recognizable. We could equally call it the "Medieval Monetary System", or the "Pre-decimal European monetary system", or the "Ancien Regime monetary system" or whatever. None of those options would be as clear and recognizable to common readers as simply "£sd".

Don't assume the audience knows what "Carolingian monetary system" refers to. The term "£sd" needs to be in the title for recognizability. Walrasiad (talk) 11:40, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

British or non-British. I'm afraid it is. The British (and Empire) monetary system is a subset of the Carolingian one as the sources indicate.

£sd in account books. Actually no, for example, German account books are in gulden, thaler, groschen, pfennig and the like. They never used £sd.

£sd is obviously recognisable to natives (like me) of countries that used the British system and I totally agree we should use it for those monetary systems.

The fact that most English readers are ignorant of the system on which £sd is based is not a reason to misname it; otherwise Wikipedia just becomes another Internet source of misinformation. We go from WP:RELIABLE SOURCES and that way we can contribute to sum of human knowledge which is what we're about. But do feel free to cite RS that state European countries used monetary systems commonly known by them and us as "£sd" systems.

The bottom line is we don't use titles that are incorrect, however recognisable they are. There is a potential article entitled £sd but it isn't this one. Bermicourt (talk) 14:10, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Coin accounting is not a different accounting system, but accounting of convenience in local coins. Gulden, thalers, groschens, are coins, not accounting denominations. They don't have stable relationships to each other, but vary over time, location and content. While it is common enough to express payments and account in domestic coins (as noted in the text), they are not units in themselves, but represent denominations of £sd, and are convertible (and converted) to £sd accounting units, e.g. gulden = £1, groschen = 1s = 12d, thaler = 24s = 288d, etc. It's like doing accounting in nickels, dimes and quarters rather than dollars and cents. But a nickel, quarter and dime represent specific number of cents, the underlying accounting system is unchanged.

English readers are ignorant of the particular historical roots of a commonplace accounting system. It is placing far too much emphasis on its historical origins, than its actual content. Historical roots are a curiosity, worthy of a section, but not the main topic and not how that topic is recognized. Just as I am sure most Catholics are ignorant of the Carolingian roots of their church, or even their statement of faith (the "filioque" which distinguishes Catholic from Orthodox faith has its origins in a Carolingian decree). Should we change "Catholic Church" to "Carolingian Church"?

As to your justifications, evidently we disagree. You should have discussed the change of title first here or set up an WP:Requested Move and gathered consensus, rather than moved the page yourself. Walrasiad (talk) 16:03, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

________________

I have looked over your edits, and find them rather wanting.

• The lede is poor. The previous one was poor, but this is even poorer. You just copied a small part of the historical section and do not explain what the rest of the article is about. It puts an absurdly large amount of a weight on an obscure historical era which is better explained in the historical section. And it practically ignores the rest of the article entirely.
• Why did you use modern vernacular German terms for Carolingian units? Carolingian language is Latin, it is how they wrote and recorded things. The Carolingian pound is "Libra" (not pfund), the coin is "denarius" (not pfenning). Libra-solidus-denarius is the original Carolingian system. Local terms were later applied to it in different languages. But the original Carolingian system was Latin! Ergo L.s.d.!
• 794/95 is an estimate. There is no actual certain date, so that really shouldn't be emphasized in the lede.
• The general consensus is that the Carolingian pound was about 489.6 grams, not 406. Again, one of those things that should be in the history section.
• Your opening with a table of countries makes no sense. It has multiple errors on so many levels.

- Why are you linking to modern nation-state pages like Italy? It had long abandoned the system before it came into existence. Or modern France, for that matter. It makes no sense to link political states, unless you're going to list them all. And the list is huge - from the Kingdom of Galicia to Ragusa to Nigeria.

- Since when is modern German the language of the "Holy Roman Empire", an entity which includes also Italy and Burgundy? Why are you identifying modern languages with historical political entities at all? Historical political entities used a variety languages - Latin, Occitan, Anglo-Norman, Ligurian, Old German, etc.

- Since when is the "Holy Roman Empire" "the original system"? The original system was Carolingian, that is Francia - an entity which includes France, Aquitaine, Brittany, Catalonia, Low Countries, Italy, parts of Germany, Hungary, Croatia, etc. The "Holy Roman Empire" did not exist until two centuries later, formed by Conrad the Salian in 1034, and covers a different range.

- The table seems to suggest these political entities had this system uniformly within them. They did not. For instance, the northern parts of the Holy Roman Empire, especially areas of Hanseatic influence, used the mark accounting system, not the Carolingian Lsd system.

- Why is "Roman empire" included? They did NOT have this system. This system was set up more than three centuries after Roman empire collapsed! Why are you linking to Roman denarius coins and solidus? They are NOT part of the system and have nothing to do with it!

A reminder this is an accounting or measuring system. These are abstract units of account that don't usually have coins corresponding to them. Only the silver denarius was an actually minted coin during much of the Middle Ages. Other coins were multiples of the units, very rarely corresponding to exactly a solidus or a libra. So you're not likely to find coin links to each entry.

Obviously you're not making a comprehensive list of states, so what is the purpose of this table? To show different language terms? Then make it by language, not states!

I am going to remove the table and replace it with a table of terms of languages, not political entities, which seems to be the actual purpose of the table to begin with.

I have also kept them in singular format (to avoid having to deal with plurals, except in unusual cases, e.g. English penny/pence, French sous/sols are not self-evident). They all have the same accounting of 1:20:240, so pointless to repeat it and get tangled in plurals.

I have place them in the order as they would be found in a ledger columns and notation - L first, s second, d third.

		£.		s.		d.
English		pound		shilling		penny (pl pence)
Latin		libra		solidus (pl solidi)		denarius (pl denarii)
Italian		lira		soldo		denaro
French		livre		sous (pl sols)		denier
German		pfund		schilling		pfennig
Catalan		lliura		sou		diner
Spanish		libra		sueldo		dinero
Portuguese		libra		soldo		dinheiro

I will probably reduce the table to make it more confined (takes too much space as is). Different language terms are already mentioned in the running text, so a separate table really not as important as all that. And should be included later, after explaining its application, not at the top. Walrasiad (talk) 11:33, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm not wedded to my changes. Like you, I'm committed to improving the sum of human knowledge on Wikipedia. So perhaps we can cooperate on improving the article, even if we don't see eye to eye on the title (and bear in mind I have suggested splitting out the British system as a separate article anyway). Bermicourt (talk) 07:53, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 31 May 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Consensus favours rejecting the original undiscussed move from £sd to Carolingian. (non-admin closure) — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 07:56, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

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Carolingian monetary system → £sd – This page was moved without discussion. It has been stable at "£sd" for the past fifteen years. It discusses the £1 = 20s = 240d accounting system that prevailed in much of western Europe until the 19th Century, and continued in Britain and the British commonwealth until the late 20th Century. I added a historical section on the Carolingian origins of this accounting system last year, merely as a curiosity. But a user recently decided to move the entire article to "Carolingian monetary system" last week, without any prior discussion. The new title reduces its recognizability, and makes it seem like an archaic or obscure topic about early Medieval history rather than one of more recent 20th Century accounting. "£sd" accounting is more recognizable to casual readers particularly English-speakers, many of whom lived under or remember this accounting system. Request to move it back to its long-time stable "£sd" title. Walrasiad (talk) 16:29, 31 May 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 00:55, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose. However the article started life, it now covers Carolingian monetary systems in general and then dives into detail on the British pound-shilling-pence system. As Ngram viewer demonstrates "Carolingian monetary system" is not only the WP:COMMONNAME for this subject area, but "£sd system" is so rare it doesn't feature (the blue line is "£ sd system" with a space which, if you look up the sources, are nothing to do with money). Meanwhile I have given a few examples of WP:RS for the current title in the debate above. The proposer has produced no evidence that all monetary systems using the ratio 1:20:240 are commonly called "£sd" systems and I can find none. Of course "£sd" is common in books with prices in them or when dealing with the British system and its offshoots but that's not what this article is about. Perhaps the answer is to split them as I've suggested above, so that this article forms an overview of all such systems and the detail of the British etc systems can be covered in a new article called whatever editors feel is the common name for the pound-shilling-pence system. Bermicourt (talk) 17:43, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

[FYI, the commentator above is the editor who moved the page without prior discussion]

"£sd" is an abbreviation for the common notation of the 1:20:240 monetary system. It is not merely British, as you're insinuating here. It is a notation you'll commonly find in any pre-modern European books dealing with monetary quantities, e.g. in Fra Luca Pacioli's famous 1494 Venetian textbook on double-entry bookkeeping, the founding textbook of accounting, open any page, and all the monetary amounts are expressed in £sd notation, e.g.: £.156 s.15.d.3, etc. Of course, there are typographical variations of the notation, depending on the writer or printer's preference, e.g. he might write it L.156.15.3. or 156l., 15s., 3d. or whatever. But the critical and recognizable part is the three part notation, almost always with some form of "L" in the first, "s" in the second and "d" in the third, however you stylize it, which we abbreviate here as "£sd". (we cannot use unstylized "Lsd" in the article title because of the popular 1960s recreational drug that uses that same acronym, other variants are rather long, "£sd" is the best and most compact way to disambiguate). The three part notation is the element that is distinctive, recognizable and commonly known about this monetary accounting system. That some Carolingian king might have made an obscure decree or two about it a thousand years ago is a mere historical curiosity, which very few people are aware of, and is not particularly important for this article. I'll bet 99% of people who used this system were unaware of it, and would not know what "Carolingian monetary system" refers to. The term "£sd" (or if you prefer "L.s.d" or some variant thereof) must be in the title to make it recognizable for our readers. "Carolingian" means nothing to them. Walrasiad (talk) 03:55, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

• Support. I would never have taken "Carolingian monetary system" to refer to anything other than the monetary system in Carolingian Europe. This is not common English usage. I do not know if £sd is the best title, but I think the current title fails WP:ASTONISH for English readers. There are obvious reasons why continental and British practice might diverge on this. Srnec (talk) 13:28, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Are you going to cite any sources or indeed any evidence to support your WP:POV? This is nothing to do with continental practice - that's sheer speculation - it's about what reliable sources use. We should not impose our general knowledge onto a specific topic with which we're unfamiliar and I include myself in that. I know the old British system well - used to use it - but I can see from the sources that Europe didn't derive it's systems from a British notion of the world. So far I've not seen a single shred of evidence supporting the view that "£sd" is a common name used in WP:RS for these monetary systems. It's British slang for our former currency system and an weak attempt to disambiguate from the hallucinogenic drug LSD. Bermicourt (talk) 09:27, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Use to refer to what? Only one paragraph in this article refers to the Carolingians. There's a few more paragraphs about pre-modern Ancien Regime money, rest of the article is about modern Britain & British Commonwealth. Most RS sources don't call it "Carolingian monetary system" - unless they are specifically referring to that era. Since 9/10ths of the article is not about that era, and 8/10ths of it pertains to Britain & British Commonwealth, it shouldn't dominate the title. As to the use of £sd as an abbreviation, it's pretty common and easy to find. e.g., e.g e.g..

P.S. - I don't know if you noticed my comments in the previous section above on your edits and your "table". I'm going to go ahead and remove them. Walrasiad (talk) 15:08, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

• Support. If the rename from "£sd" had been done with discussion and consensus, then I might think a bit differently. We'd've had the opportunity to discuss whether the contents of £sd were off-topic in places, and I'd've supported a new article on the Carolingian monetary system (whatever that is, but it ain't £sd) created and linked from £sd. But arrogance seems to have ensured that didn't happen. The constant referral to £sd as "British slang" is ignorant, and insulting to those people who used it correctly in their lives; and referring it to "an [sic] weak attempt to disambiguate from the hallucinogenic drug LSD" is bizarre. Bazza (talk) 08:43, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Your link to the Royal Mint Museum sums up my point precisely. The title is Pounds, Shillings and Pence and one of the sub-headings is The pre-decimal symbols £sd. The use of £sd as symbols is not slang nor is its use in accounting, but to describe the entire monetary system of Europe since Charlemagne as "£sd" is simply wrong. And since "slang" means "informal use", yes, I'd say it's informal even to call the British system "£sd". Is it even clear to non-British readers?

I think we can easily resolve this issue though, by having 2 separate articles: one covering the Carolingian monetary system - a topic well attested in the literature - and the other covering the British imperial monetary system. I'm willing to work on that if we can lower the temperature and avoid personal attacks. Bermicourt (talk) 09:39, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

My link to the Royal Mint Museum also leads to the statement The symbols £sd were to become a convenient abbreviation for the pre-decimal system of currency used in Britain up to 1971.

I'm glad you agree that a separate article for the Carolingian monetary system is required to hold those aspects of the £sd article which are not pertinent to it. There may be other things which belong in neither article and could be deleted.

Challenging every view made which might not be agreed with is unnecessary. It will be apparent after a while what the consensus is. Bazza (talk) 10:08, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

All fair points. Is it worth running an alternative proposal to split the two topics? Or to let this run its course and then propose that? Bermicourt (talk) 12:14, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

I expect that Walrasiad might be the best person to decide whether to see their proposal to the end or, as you have suggested, terminate it so a split proposal can be made. It complicates things when an existing proposal is expanded or a new parallel one started. I would be in favour of completing this one, renaming the article back to £sd (if that's what the consensus is) then moving non-relevant sections from that into a new Carolingian monetary system article. Bazza (talk) 13:03, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

• Support. I was surprised to find myself here after being redirected from Australian pound. The fact that this accounting topic currently reads more like History of accounting than Accounting is a separate issue, but it took me too long to understand where I was sent. It's safe to assume there will be plenty more confused readers when considering all of the other articles that link here. Moves like this should really be discussed; it's telling that the only pages that refer here naturally are articles that the mover has either created or has been actively working on.  TheArguer  _TALK 06:17, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Moving forward

Now that consensus has restored the name of this article, I'm thinking it would make more sense to create a separate article from the redirect at Carolingian monetary system which would focus on the monetary reform instigated by Charlemagne and its subsequent impact and development into the various European systems. That would naturally include the £sd system, but as an overview only, with this as the main article which I will leave to other editors to improve as they see fit. Let me know if there are any objections, otherwise I'll begin work on that, taking note of the helpful comments above. Bermicourt (talk) 15:41, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Restoration of original article

In light of the consensus to restore the title of the article to "£sd" I've reverted my edits to restore the article to its original state before I began editing it. Cheers. Bermicourt (talk) 13:11, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Breaking out the origins section

Most of the origins section is historical detail about the Carolingian monetary reform of and its subsequent development in Europe from the 8th to the 19th century when the continent decimalised. It was the level of coverage and detail of Carolingian monetary systems in this section and the lede that led me to change the article title. However, since the title has been restored, the article's focus should be on the British £sd system and its derivatives.

So my proposal is to move the bulk of the origins section to the new article as suggested above and reduce the section here to an overview except where the historical detail relates to the £sd system itself. The section will be headed by the usual main article hatnote. This would also enable the lede to be reduced, addressing one of the tasks in the "multiple issues" hatnote. I am entirely happy for other editors to undertake the work here if anyone wishes to offer to do that. Bermicourt (talk) 16:39, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

I don't understand where you're getting this fantasy that they're different systems. They're the same system. I do regret writing that historical section though, to see you so confused and misusing it like you have. Walrasiad (talk) 08:38, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

This article has been a mess for some time judging by the discussions above and the hatnote about its "multiple issues". And curiously, despite joining the clamour of objections to my recent renaming it to Carolingian monetary system, you yourself suggested in 2011 that it could be called the Carolingian accounting system (see above). Whatever you call them, it's quite clear that there are two topics here worthy of an article: one is the overarching one that covers the history of all instantiations of the Carolingian monetary system and the other is a British and Commonwealth focussed article on what editors are insisting we call £sd, although reliable sources seem to prefer "LSD system". Of course, one is a subset of the other, but such a large subset that it merits a separate article. Much of your excellent historical section is at Carolingian monetary system, allowing both topics to be developed without one dominating the other. So please don't throw out accusations of fantasy, confusion or misuse. Instead, why not improve this article and resolve its multiple issues. I'm willing to help providing that can be done constructively and without personal attacks. Bermicourt (talk) 15:33, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

In case you haven't noticed, I am semi-retired. That means, I have stopped contributing content to Wikipedia. Indeed, I have not contributed content of substance for many years. I learned, after much pain, that in topics of history, it just takes a petty nationalist with only a weak fraction of knowledge and a chip on his shoulder to twist my words to make traps for fools. I kept running into that on Wikipedia, wasting a lot of time and effort dueling stubborn nationalists, so I vowed not to contribute content of substance to Wikipedia again and went into semi-retirement. I breached my self-imposed exile to add a brief historical section here, because the original historical intro was simply very wrong and my corrective comment had sat in this talk page for nearly a decade and nobody took action on it. In retrospect, I regret it. It's obviously not well-written, otherwise it wouldn't have caused such confusion in you. I suppose I could revamp it - content is easy (got plenty of it), but it's simply not worth the drama or disappointment, if even just the basics are not being conveyed or understood. Walrasiad (talk) 05:08, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

I share your frustration with small bands of determined editors with an agenda, but limited understanding. Sometimes that agenda is nationalist, sometimes its enforcing their regional spelling conventions on others, having skewed the rules in their favour. Either way I've felt like you. In this case, though, I simply came across an article with an excellent historical lead-in about the whole breadth of Carolingian monetary systems which then fizzled out into focussing on only one of its numerous examples: the British and Commonwealth coinage system. In my view, the former deserves its own space. I'm not an expert in this field, but I can contribute German translations skills hence the numerous articles on German coinage I've recently created. If this is your area of expertise, I'd be grateful for an eye on those to ensure the translations make correct use of English terminology. Bermicourt (talk) 08:02, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

This is about the monetary accounting system. This is the parent page. There does not need to be another. There's not really anything more to say on the topic than isn't already contained here.

That you insist on inventing some sort of differentiation between "Carolingian" and "British" tells me you have a very poor grasp of the topic, which I blame myself for. That there are £1 = 20s = 240d is not a national thing, it is not different. It is the same. That was the point of the introduction. Obviously that didn't make it across.

Evidently that point didn't make it across during the RM either. You are now trying to fabricate a different parent page, when it already exists here. You are trying to construct a WP:POVFORK.

£sd is the Carolingian monetary system.

This point seems to continue to elude you. It is one and the same thing. "Carolingian monetary system" should re-direct to this page, not some other. That we opted to use "£sd" in the title rather than "Carolingian monetary system" was for recognizability. Do you still not get it? Walrasiad (talk) 16:01, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Please refrain from continual personal attacks; they add nothing to your argument. I completely understand that, for you, "Carolingian monetary system" = "£sd monetary system". I disagree however that this article is the last word on the topic - otherwise it wouldn't have the hatnote implying that it's a pretty poor piece of work. Even if we assume that there is only one topic, then the article was completely unbalanced because it is clear as crystal that 1:20:240 monetary systems cover every monetary system in the world using that ratio from the time of Charlemagne to now. And yet the bulk of the article is focussed on the British and Commonwealth versions of it. So much so that editors in the discussion above appeared not to know there was anything else. Of course, we could create a better balance by expanding the history and adding subsections for every other monetary system of the type, but that would result in an enormous article. So yes, there is a differentiation between the Carolingian system and the British system; the latter is a subset of the former. As was the French system. And the Italian system. And so on.

As for any fundamental distinction between "Carolingian monetary system" and "£sd monetary system", my reading of the sources is that the former is always used for the whole gamut of systems and never to refer solely to the British system; whereas the latter is frequently used with reference to the British system only, albeit some sources do use it generically as well. Either way, the former is way more common in the sources which means if we are equating them, the former should be the title at this page per WP:COMMONNAME. However, that debate has been had and editors have gone with the familiar instead.

I think we'll have to agree to differ and pull stumps on this one for now. Bermicourt (talk) 18:31, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

You're insisting on the same stubborn error. It is evident either your sources are poor, or you're just not understanding them.

This article is about a specific system of monetary measurement, known popularly as "£sd" - libra, solidus, denarius. It is not British. It was the universal system of measures in western Europe in the pre-modern era. There is no "gamut of systems". It is only one system. There are no national or regional varieties of it. It was universal - the ratio is £1 = 20s = 240d everywhere.

There is no version in "France" or "Italy" or whatever other nationalist nonsense you're imagining. It is the same system across countries. Sure, different languages may use different terms. French-speakers will use the term "livre" - but that is not a specific reference to French crown currency but the French language term used to refer to all pound units - to English pounds, Milanese pounds, Bavarian pounds, etc. All are pounds, all of them are referred to in French texts as "livres". An Englishman writing in French would also call the English pound a "livre", if he was writing in German he'd write "pfund". It's the same thing. It's not a different system, it's just a translation of the same term in another language. (Indeed the modern English pound is still translated today as "livre" and "pfund", e.g. French wiki, German wiki).

The simple observation that different languages used different terms for the same units does not require a separate article. It requires a mere sentence in this article. Or a little table like I wrote above.

There is not much depth to the "history" of this system beyond the introductory paragraphs. It did not evolve, it did not change. it was 1:20:240 at the start, and remained 1:20:240 through to the end, a thousand years later. There's not much else to say about it.

This is the article about this system. This is the "£sd" system. There is no other. And there doesn't need to be another. Your WP:POVFORK has no content that isn't already here, and will add nothing to it. Your aversion to the term "£sd" is simply petulance, and has no basis. Your misguided attempt at moving the page was reversed by RM, and now you're trying to do it by other means.

That 75% of the article is dedicated to Britain is because that system persisted in British Commonwealth until the late 20th Century. So that is how most people are familiar with this accounting system, and there is a lot of material referring to it. That is all.

Yes, this article merits improvement and organization. But certainly not the way you did it, not by imposing the unfamiliar "Carolingian" on the title instead of the more familiar "£sd", and certainly not now with your fabricated false differentiation between "British" and "other systems". It is the same one system.

The current historical introduction is sufficient. It explains the origins of a currency measurement system which many modern people mistakenly assume was parochially British. But this article is not about "British system", it is about the accounting system period, of which Britain happens to be the most notable and persistent example, the one most recent, which people are most familiar with and associate with it. It consequently takes the lion's share of the article. As it should.

"£sd" is and should remain the parent article. There's no reason for a WP:POVFORK. There is nothing more to add about the pre-modern accounting system in Ancien Regime Europe that isn't already contained in the historical introduction. Links to "Carolingian monetary system" should redirect here.

If giving the British example such a large share of the parent article annoys petty nationalist sentiments, so be it. Walrasiad (talk) 23:57, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

The basic 1:20:240 ratio is an accounting fact, but it does not seem right to describe it as a "monetary system". Or as the article current does: pre-decimal currencies once common throughout Europe. There were plenty of coins minted off these ratios and many times when no coin corresponding to the shilling or pound even existed. To me, "Carolingian monetary system" can only refer to the monetary system prevailing in the Carolingian kingdoms. Its use as a term for the £sd system inherited from the Carolingians is not terribly common in English. I think two articles is fine, so long as the new one keeps to its lane: stick to the Carolingians, go beyond Charlemagne. One thing that would help immensely would be to define the £sd system as "currency measurement system" or "monetary accounting system" as you have done on the talk page rather than as a set of currencies (which does not seem correct to me). Srnec (talk) 23:10, 4 July 2022 (UTC)