The term 'Six-of-the-best'

But it is not divisible by three.
I believe the Babylonians were probably the originators of the 12 , 60 and 360 divisions.

Still so incredibly more dividable than a 12...

Besides, the Babylonians are long gone. The world has moved on to more practical systems and so have the Brits, 100 pence = 1 pound

Still, "bend over! You'll get ten of the best!" doesn't have the same force to it...

I've looked up some info on this counting in twelves thing years ago, because it's so counterintuitive. Most people have got 10 fingers, so why would a culture choose to count in sets of six and twelve? It didn't make any sense to me.

And as was mentioned before, it turned out the number 12 was convenient for trade reasons because it can be divided by 2, 3 and 4.
Also in some cultures (for example ancient Egyptians and Babylonians) they didn't count whole fingers, but finger joints. Excluding the thumbs, that gives you 12 on each hand.


My husband, who like me isn't English, and unlike me rarely reads spanking fic, actually does spank in sets of five, ten, twenty (not with a cane, mind you) like the true continental European he is

It's down to the ancient Babylonians, I'm told, that we have 360 degrees in a circle. They worshipped the moon-goddess Ishtar, whose symbol was the full moon - a circle. Their calendar consisted of twelve months, divided into four seasons, with a holy day between each season, and an extra holy day between each year - 360 days, plus 5 holy days, so they divided circles into 360 degrees - a convenient number that can be easily divided in a number of different ways!

When we went to England in 1981 we were warned about old coins still in circulation.
(960 Farthing = 1 Pound) Did you guys carry a rucksack / backpack with you or use a trolley when shopping?
4 Farthing = 1 Penny
2Penny = 1 Tu-penny
6 Penny = 1 Sixpence
12 Penny = 1 Shilling
Was there a Threepenny too?

The only unfashionable factors are 5 and 100. Important today, not so in the old system.


The French revolution tried to impose an interesting calendar too. The time wasn't ready for a decimal system for time measurements though.

Yes, there was also the threepence (thruppence), worth a whole 1/80 of a pound or 1/4 of a shilling, because math is easy

The children must have been so happy with decimalisation!

Germany had a pound too. Even while Germany still had a monarch we used the metric pound.
1 German pound = 500 gram
The British Empire used the Imperial pound
1 Imperial pound = 453 gram or 14 ounces
1 Imperial foot = 30.5 cm or 12 inches

Decimalisation took all the fun.

All the different factors to convert the measurements. No wonder the cane was retired if you invent Math for people that suffer from Discalculi (dyslexia for numbers)

I am impressed by Moody's knowledge of an antiquated British monetary system. There was indeed a threepenny coin (or thrupenny bit) with twelve sides - supposedly so you could remove it from a dead miser's hand with a spanner! But, for the record, and as far as I can remember, although people would refer to 'tuppence' in conversation there was never a tuppenny coin as such (although there is a 2p coin in the newer decimal system). There was however a half-penny (or hapenny) coin. There is a footbridge in Dublin called the Hapenny Bridge as that was the toll one once needed to pay to cross it. There ends today's dose of trivia.

And just another bit of trivia. It was the only coin that differed in UK and Ireland. The Irish threepenny coin was a small round silver coin, like a smaller version of the sixpence, and featured a hare on the face/obverse side. The UK coin was the twelve sided one with a portcullis on the obverse although I think there were other designs.

Our problem, as school children was not just the currency but all the other units. So we might have a round 10" bucket, a foot and half high full of grain with the price given as £2.10.6.d per ton and we were to calculate the price of the grain in the bucket given that one ton would take up a volume of 3.75 bushels . ( or some such figures).

The metric system and decimalisation couldn't come fas t enough for me

Quite right. Indeed, as far as I can remember, all the coins featured an animal on one side. I forgot two other coins in my previous note: a florin (two shillings) which featured a salmon and a half crown (two shillings and sixpence) which featured a horse.
The old paper money (ten shillings, one pound, etc.) had an interesting feature. The reverse side featured an old guy's face (I think the faces each supposedly represented an Irish river) but as the domination of the note increased the smile on the face grew broader. A nice touch.
Okay, I'll shut up now.