You're correct Martin (although I guess they had to distinguish between the different pennies for a while) however my point was that like feet and inches have a different unit name depending on scale - so does money. That's why money was 'decimalised' rather than 'metricated' - ie the rules of metric do not apply - it's more in line with if they decimalised a foot to be ten inches. So there's no kilopenny or megacent (penny and cent being the smallest round unit of currency). To me decimalise and metricate are two very different things. Metric system is decimal in nature - the decimal system is not metric in nature. If that makes sense.
From: [email protected] To: [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: RE: [USMA:46920] RE: The Relationship Between Dollars and Cents. Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 20:52:37 +0000 A cent is a hundredth part of a dollar and a centimetre is a hundredth part of a metre. The British politicians got it wrong (as usual) when they introduced “new pennies” (as if nobody would not notice that one new penny was worth 2.4 old pennies). From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Stephen Humphreys Sent: 12 March 2010 10:11 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:46920] RE: The Relationship Between Dollars and Cents. I think the issue is unit name. That is, a dollar, a cent. Or a pound, a penny. Different names. Note that the usual SI prefixes don't get used (m-, k-, M-, etc). Although sometimes the prefix is used in an 'unofficial' capacity - eg, "Burger flipper wanted, Ohio - salary $20K". > Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:17:26 -0800 > From: [email protected] > Subject: [USMA:46918] The Relationship Between Dollars and Cents. > To: [email protected] > > > Hi: > > The mention about the relationship between dollars and cents got my brain thinking. > > In the discussion about how we "convert" between units of measure, I look at the way we describe prices in dollars and cents. Lets say, we have $9.37. We routinely say "Nine dollars and thirty seven cents". To shorten it simply say "Nine point three seven dollars". In the first example, you take the time to pronounce 8 syllables, but in the second one, you only use 6. > If you are doing an accounting process with lots of money amounts, it could get done faster with the shorter routine. > > In electricity, say you have 9.37 watts. You say "nine point three seven watts". You would never say "nine watts and thirty seven hundredths", but we do that with money. > > Using the shorter price quotation, people may be better able to understand the relationship between our decimal money system and the SI Metric system. > > ....Parker > > Do you want a Hotmail account? Sign-up now - Free _________________________________________________________________ Send us your Hotmail stories and be featured in our newsletter http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/195013117/direct/01/
