Talk:Slang terms for money

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Australia
The bills section appears to be entirely bullshit. I've lived in Australia my whole life and NO-ONE uses any of those stupid terms. Maybe 30years ago when there were no cheques or Cards, but not in the last few decades.


 * I agree that the bills section is bullshit - Never heard a single one of them. Someone should either cough up the citations or delete this crap. Trideceth12 (talk) 02:45, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Speaking as yet another Australian, I don't think any of the terms listed in this section are real (with the possible exception of a 'Lobster' for $20).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.45.117.38 (talk) 05:14, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Note that there is a bot reverting edits that try to clean up the list (e.g.: 14:39, 25 February 2017‎ ClueBot NG)
 * Another Australian here. Agree - 90% of those were nonsense. Dollarydoos is legit a thing I have heard people use, albeit contemporary & not in wide usage: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollarydoo
 * Yet another Australian chiming in - none of these are real and nobody I know has ever heard of them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hurtsville (talk • contribs) 03:47, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

These are just some of the Aussie slang terms for pre-decimal (pre-1966)coinage.

Threepence: tray or trey bit or trey, comes from the french tre meaning three.

Sixpence: zac or tanner.

Shilling: bob or deener or dina.

Florin: two bob or sly.

It's being alleged on the twitter that this entire section is fake. Certainly needs to cite sources https://twitter.com/mjmcmaster/status/887563896323678208 Hmcst1 (talk) 08:53, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Yup, agree. Since been edited down, but the remaining $100 names are a leg-pull, never heard of either. Just made up rubbish from some rubbish source. Any "slang" that needs three words is suss from the start. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.196.169.76 (talk) 22:07, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Another Aussie here (58 years old) and I completely agree most of this is bullshit. I heard "lobster" used by someone about 30 years ago but the context of it was "weird names given to money in the past". I've not heard anyone in my lifetime using these words when just talking about having cash. The citation in this article after "blue swimmer" is to an ABC Radio segment which looked at older names for currency but also had people call in and give names. Callers to a radio show giving supposed slang names for currency, shouldn't be used as a citation or source for this information, particularly as this kind of call in segment is like a rag to a bull for us Aussies making stuff up as a prank. RichKBF (talk) 02:22, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Canada
Similar to the comments about Australia above, I'm suspicious of several of the entries for Canada. Nobody I know there (family and friends, I grew up there) have ever heard a Toonie called a "Santa", or a quarter called a "piece of Santa". Same for "sleigh". And Googling "santa toonie" (no quotes) doesn't find anything relevant other than this page. Same for "litrer quarter", though there are hints that someone sometime somewhere used "litrer" for "quarter", just not in Canada, at least not in this stream. I've never heard "Borden" for a $100, but when I lived there I didn't have many $100 bills, and "Benjamin" wasn't common in the U.S. yet; I'm willing to believe that the kewl kids use "Borden".

Accordingly, I have removed those entries. Feel free to revert or flame me. This is my first edit, so I probably did it wrong :(

U.S. coinage
Dime is not a slang term for the coin itself, but has entered urban slang for someone of unusual beauty. The U.S. 10¢ piece has had the words "ONE DIME" since 1837. It is derived from the Latin term for one-tenth.Bill S. (talk) 15:29, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Bread
I thought this came from rhyming slang - "bread and honey". Opera hat (talk) 11:58, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Bob
in some parts of the country, "bob" continues to represent one-twentieth of a pound, that is five new pence, and two bob is 10p

Fascinating. I didn't think "bob" had survived decimalisation. Do we know where these expressions are used? (Re: Still used in Sheffield, England for example) BTW, half-crown survived crown, because the latter was more recently not in general circulation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.189.103.145 (talk) 16:54, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

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This is 99% bullshit
Just thought you may want to know the Australian section is nonsense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.153.242.162 (talk) 08:47, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Which 99% specifically? Jonpatterns (talk) 16:00, 5 December 2017 (UTC)


 * How on earth do you think "this is 99% bullshit," without details or suggestions, is in any way helpful? This is Wikipedia; if it's bullshit, you can fix it. Felice Enellen (talk) 09:37, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Canada: QE11 for $20
I haven't lived in Canada for a while now, so I don't want to presume to change it without knowing for sure, but I have to guess that "QE11" is either a typo or a misreading of "QEII". I've never heard someone say "Q-E-eleven" in my life, so unless it's deliberately mispronounced as part of some newborn slang, it should probably be changed (by an actual current resident) to "QEII." Felice Enellen (talk) 09:40, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

United Kingdom
A lot of the examples are just fads of the day and not in widespread use as established slang - for example "brown beer tokens".

Terms for money in general, vs terms instead of the name of the currency
Primarily in the US section: Should there be a greater distinction made between slang used for money in general (bread, moolah, dosh) and terms used to replace the name of the currency (bucks, smackers, clams)? People will say "I got 50 bucks", but never "50 bread". (There was the same problem is seen in the paragraph on $1000 notes, all of the terms are replacements for the amount of 1000, not the actual (rare) US $1000 bill. But that was easily changed.) -- PaulxSA (talk) 16:32, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Deutche Mark rounding
"The Deutsche Mark by comparison was approximately worth half as much as the euro (at a ratio of 1.95583:1) and some grocers and restaurants have been accused of taking advantage of the smaller numbers to increase their actual prices with the changeover by rounding to 2:1".

This doesn't make sense. If stores had rounded their prices to 2:1 they would be rounding their prices down – not up. Something that cost 100 Deutche Mark, should have cost €51.13 after the introduction of euro. Rounding it down to the exchange rate 2:1 would mean it costs €50. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Reikiavicensis (talk • contribs) 11:38, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

"honey bun harden"
I have looked for citations and can find none. The few references online all seem derivative from this Wikipedia entry and are invariably trivial in the first place. I'm deleting the line. Please reinstate with a citation if you have one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cb6 (talk • contribs) 22:00, 28 July 2023 (UTC)