Posted by Laurence Monkhouse on September 04, 2003 at 20:09:44 from 62.253.32.7 user Laurence_.
In Reply to: Don't Forget the Farthing ! posted by RichardG on September 04, 2003 at 09:37:40:
The abbreviations £ s d come from LATIN, which is the language any person educated enough to write or engage in finance would have been using in the Middle Ages.
£ = Libra = pound
s = Solidus = shilling
d = Denarius = penny
They descended directly from Roman Empire coinage, so that in 1970 we abandoned 2000 years of tradition.