Pound of flesh

BRIT-THINK: How are the mighty fallen! The pound is permanently pegged in Brit-minds at $3 or so (the old guinea) when the average Brit earned around ten of them a week. There was no such thing as inflation or currency fluctuation, and the world was a far better place.

It is a cliché to say so, but the concept of one pound sterling still has for Brits a physical reality; visions of bags of silver, enough to satisfy Nelson Bunker-Hunt. They cannot rid themselves of the notion that a pound is a lot of money, and that OAPs should be able to live comfortably on three or four of them a week. Successive Brit-governments have saved huge sums by perpetuating this eco-anachronism, with the result that most elderly people now suffer real hardship, 20,000 leagues beneath the poverty-line. Today’s pound will scarcely buy a round-trip tube fare across central London, but Brit-minds and Brit-flation are wildly out of sync.

This explains an aspect of behaviour which often appears odd to Yanks ... a Brit’s compulsion to preserve every coin as if it were his last, and to insist that Yank tourists do the same.

There is still immense pride in the pound, of course. For a start, it has a picture of the Queen on it. Second, it is measured in sensible ones or twos or fives, and you do not require 10,000 of it to buy a lamb chop, like some currencies Brits could mention. Finally, notes are paper promises to ‘pay the bearer on demand the sum of x’; and everyone knows that a Brit’s word is his bond. Especially if you have it in writing.

Time was when Brits would accept no other currency. Today, there are lots of things they’d rather have than pounds. These are, in descending order:

1. Mega-bucks;

2. Big bucks;

3. Bucks

…plus a handful of Brit-change to put in parking meters.

Comprehension

Exercise 1.Make up 7–10 true or false statements about the text to check comprehension.

Exercise 2.Sum up the main points of the text in your own words.

Language practice

Exercise 3.

a) Find words and phrases in the text that can be used as synonyms of the ones below and comment on their possible difference, stylistic and otherwise:

effusive / inseparably / soppy / mistake, n / to revel / grand / to dig / to fix at a particular level / happening at a different time

b) Choose 3–5 more items of advanced vocabulary from the text and explain your options. Comment on their register and expressiveness and suggest synonyms of various degrees of formality. Think up appropriate contexts with them.

Exercise 4.Idioms Practice

What do the following common idioms stand for? In which speech situations can they come up?

They’ve made it! / I’ve had enough! / You’ve had it! / That’s torn it! / Now you’ve done it! / She’s arrived! / He’s lost it! / You’ve got me there! It’ll throw you! He is in a fast lane.

Exercise 5.Identify the cultural information in the text, comment on it and think up 4–5-questions to check if your classmates have got it right.

Exercise 6.Complete the chart by working out the values using the proportions in the left-hand column:

Proportion	OLD UK MONEY	NEW UK MONEY	US MONEY
1/1	£1 = 240 Pence	£1 = 100 Pence	$1 = 100 Cents
1/20	Shilling =	Shilling =	Nickel =
1/10	Florin =		Dime =
1/4	Crown =		Quarter =
1 1/20	Guinea =	Guinea =

Exercise 7. Fill in the blanks

1. The new money system was introduced in the UK because they had to go … in the early … 2. Among the old money units, which are largely a collector’s items today, are a ‘…’, which was worth a quarter of a penny, a … which was double that amount, and a … which was a gold coin worth a pound sterling. 3. Another name for a sixpence is a … 4. Five-pound … and five-dollar … are often referred to as ‘fivers’ or ‘fives’, for example in a sentence: ‘Can you break me a fiver please?’ 5. Likewise, ten-pound … and ten-dollar … are called ‘…’ or ‘…’. 6. An informal name for a pound sterling is a ‘…’, and for a shilling – a ‘…’. 7. ‘…’ and ‘…’ don’t have plural forms, so for six pounds sterling people say ‘six …’, and for six shillings – ‘six …’. 8. A largely American informal name for a thousand (dollars) is a .., which also has no plural, e.g. ‘six …’.

Exercise 8.Make up a list of advanced topical vocabulary on the subject, explain and practise it with your classmates.