Conference thebay::joyoflex

    Decus et decorum est pro patria mori (old Latin saying).
    
    My Latin was too long ago to produce reliable translations without a
    dictionary, but that was something like "It is worthy and fitting to
    die for one's country".

    DECUS = embellishment (like DECoration)
    TUTAMEN = safeguard
    
    The milled edge is `an embellishment and a safeguard', in that it
    makes the coin look (slightly) prettier and prevents a practice
    that died out several centuries ago - I think it was called something
    like `clipping' - which involved clipping a bit of the edge off a coin
    made of a metal that had the same value as the face value of the coin
    itself.  The milled edge prevents this.
    
    As the metal of a �1 coin is worth less than �1 - although
    the coin itself costs much more than �1 to produce - clipping would
    be pointless. The so-called `safeguard' simply gives the coin a
    serrated edge and makes it wear holes in pockets more quickly.
    
    (I have a feeling this, the Welsh, and Nemo Me Impune Lacessit
    have been discussed in some other note).
    
    b

    Clippings from coins were used by counterfeiters to make coins of
    the same denomination.
    
    They used clippings because the mints had got smart enough to use
    alloys for coins.  Each alloy has its own resonance when they are
    struck.  So using clippings overcame one of the counterfeiters
    problems, namely that using other material gave a coin which didn't
    sound right.
    
    The classic counterfeiting riddle-style joke in the UK is "And then
    there was the ****-man who made 10 pence pieces by filing down 50
    pence coins".
    
    Periodically the UK coinage gets changed, and sometimes it is because
    the scrap value of the alloy increases to the point where it is
    more than the face value of the coin.  The pre-decimal penny and
    half-penny reached this stage.

    Nick

.3�    Periodically the UK coinage gets changed, and sometimes it is because
.3�    the scrap value of the alloy increases to the point where it is
.3�    more than the face value of the coin.  The pre-decimal penny and
.3�    half-penny reached this stage.

    And here I was all along thinking that we went decimal 'cos of EEC
    entry!!! (only kiddin' :-)

- Dave K.

   Re: the title of this note

   "Digitial currency?"  Is that like palming?  Or fingering the goods?


   							Terza

>>>    DECUS = embellishment (like DECoration)
>>>    TUTAMEN = safeguard
    
    It sounds to me like it's talking about a convention of ancient
    Egyptian users . . .
    
    --bonnie

    re: .3
    	Clipping from coins is older than alloys. Back when a pound was a
    pound of gold, and even when sixpenny bits were real silver (I still
    have a few) the clippings had real value. The modern use of worthless
    alloys has destroyed the clipper's art.
    
    	As a related curiosity, a few years ago Italy ran out of small
    change. Enterprising individuals discovered that if they were to take a
    10000L note into a bank and ask for small change then they could take
    the small change to a scrap yard and get more than 10000L for it as
    scrap metal. The coins vanished, and shopkeepers were giving sweets or
    postage stamps as change on small purchases.
    
    	Somewhere I have a German coin with the helmeted head of a Nazi
    soldier on it, but since it is made of iron it would probably be
    difficult to clip. I think this subject has got more to TRIVIA than
    JOYOFLEX, but it is fun.

    	Rather more back in the conference, the Italian "lira", the British
    "L" as used in the Lsd of 20 years ago (Librae, sestercii, denarii) all
    derive from the Latin pounds of gold. On the other hand the "florin"
    (Dutch and British) derives from the name of the Italian city now
    called Firenze by the local inhabitants which originally issued the
    coins.

>    (.....) On the other hand the "florin"
>    (Dutch and British) derives from the name of the Italian city now
>    called Firenze by the local inhabitants which originally issued the
>    coins.

.... as in Hungary (forint). By the way, we only use the abbreviation f or
fl; we *call* it a "gulden": an obvious meaning. Same as the Polish: zloty,
also meaning "gold".

Arie

    All right, Arie, I give up.  What do you call a rathole in Dutch,
    or in Hungarian, or in Polish?
    
    --bonnie

Continuing down the rodent burrow..

re: .7

>    	Clipping from coins is older than alloys. Back when a pound was a
>    pound of gold, and even when sixpenny bits were real silver (I still

Was the pound ever a pound of gold?  I always thought that it was a pound of 
silver (as in Sterling Silver - Pound Sterling.) 

I know that the Spanish for "ounce" is peso; presumably the peso was an ounce 
of gold or silver at one time.  If the peseta of Spain is taken to be one 
one-thousandth of a peso or ounce, it is fairly close to parity with silver.  
(there are about 120 pesetas to the dollar; 1000 pesetas = about $8.00; silver 
is at about $8.00 an ounce.)

Larry

    	Now I think "Sterling" comes from a place name too - something
    like �sterling comes to mind, but I don't have a dictionary. Can anyone
    confirm this?
    
    	Well, this is inflation. It starts of as a pound of gold, then
    a pound of sterling silver, and then a small lump of brass with DECUS
    round the edge.

    The _sterlenge_ was a silver penny.  I think it's the coin the
    Normans brought with them, though I don't remember exactly where
    it fit in the coinage system.  They were supposed to be a certain
    fraction of a pound.  
    
    Somewhat later the term came to be applied to the kind of
    high-quality silver (92.5% silver, the rest copper, I think?) from
    which the _sterlenge_ was made -- sterling silver flatware, for
    example, and then to anything of a standardized high quality --
    sterling character.
    
    I'm not positive, but I think the surname/place name "Stirling"
    has a different meaning and derivation.  I can look that one up
    when I get home . . .
    
    --bonnie

RE:      <<< Note 804.1 by PASTIS::MONAHAN "humanity is a trojan horse" >>>

>   Decus et decorum est pro patria mori (old Latin saying).
    ^^^^^
    
    
    Gee, Dave .... a dozen intervening replies from your nit-picking noters
    (count me among them) and not one has pointed out that the word in
    question in the old Latin tag is not _Decus_, but _Dulce_.
    
    Webster's New Collegiate renders this as:
    
    	 "It is sweet and seemly to die for one's country".
    
    
    Jim   (in_Transition_and_heading_for_Early_Retirement;
    	   _Exiting_this_and_other_Notes_conferences_at_the_end_of_June;
    	   _hence_the_Header)

    re: .13
    	I too would doubt that the place name "Stirling" had anything to do
    with it. The two dots over the "�" were to show that I thought that it
    came from Scandinavia.
    
    re: .14 and above paragraph
    	If you are the (a) the moderator, and (b) used to dealing with
    customer questions you can usually get away with total ignorance and
    bare-faced ...   :-)

    Re .14
    
    Sometimes a rathole gives more satisfaction/spare_time_pursuing_it
    than a pickable nit.  But while we're on the subject, the S in LSD
    (the spendable rather than the hallucinogenic sort) stands not for
    sestercii but for solidii [or maybe `solidi' though I doubt it].
    Come to think of it, this is probably related to the Italian for
    money - `soldi'.  [Now that's what I call a rathole.]
    
    b

	re .15

	Re Sterling 
	Looks like it comes from star. According to the COD, some of 
	the early Norman pennies bore a star.

	Re �sterling
	If there's such a place, you'll have to go East (Germ. �st, �ster)
	to find it. Perhaps not far from �sterreich, the realm of the 
	East (Austria)

	roger

    Star, huh?  That's interesting.  Makes sense, too.
    
    According to Basil Cottle's _Dictionary of [british] Surnames_,
    the Scottish place name Stirling predates the Norman invasion (and
    hence the coin) by several hundred years.  He indicates that
    Sterling and Starling are alternate spellings of a different name,
    derived from some resemblance to the bird called starling.  
    
    The bird was called st�rlinc in Old English.  The bird's name is
    not related to "star" -- the Old English for star is, if I
    remember correctly, steorra.
    
    --bonnie 

    In "The Complete Metalsmith," Tim McCreight says:
    
        Sterling is the alloy most commonly used in jewelry making and
        silversmithing. It was adopted as a standard alloy in England in
        the twelth century when King Henry II imported refiners from an
        area of Germany known as the Easterling. The product they made was
        of a consistent quality and came into usage as currency by 1300
        when is was known as EASTERLING SILVER. [He underlines the string
        STERLING -- jdc]
        
    Want to bet that the Earsterling was probably known by those refiners
    as Die �sterling or something close?
        
        Jon

    	Sometimes my bluffs and vague memories can get close to the truth
    ;-)
    
    	Dave

The folks in Stirling have it that the Sterling (as in the Pound Sterling) came from the 
fact that the royal Scottish mint was in Stirling.  The mint's standard for 
silver was 92.5% pure, (the rest was usually copper) hence Sterling silver.(Bang
on Bonnie.) Perhaps this is folk etymology if the Metalsmith book is right. 

    I wonder if putting the mint at which they make sterling silver
    coins in a town already named Stirling was somebody's idea of a
    joke?
    
    --bonnie

    Tim McCreight is a very smart fellow, but he's human. I'd believe that
    his explanation is well-researched, but that's not the same thing as
    being true.
    
    	Jon

    If you mix the two kinds of Lsd, do you get pounds Serling?

    I haven't found (after only 3 minutes of searching, I admit) any note
    about "Pleidiol wyf i'm gwlad". For those who want to know, this is
    part of the chorus of the Welsh national song and it means "I'm devoted
    to my country". The English version of the song has the words "True am
    I to home".
    
    Ren�.

    Nobody's mentioned that "Nemo me impune lacessit" means "Nobody
    provokes me with impunity"; it's the motto of all/several/some/one
    of the Scottish regiments.
    
    "Pleidiol wyf i'm gwlad": "pleidiol" means "partial" (not in the sense
    of fractional!). The Welsh Nationalist party is Plaid Cymru (note the
    vowel shift - very common in Welsh, e.g. "asgwrn", a bone, "esgyrn",
    bones, "alarch", a swan, "elyrch", swans. The whole thing is
    fascinating).
    
    There's a four-year time delay on this note !