We interrupt this revision to bring you the following complaint:
God, I hate working with non-decimal currency.
It took an irritating amount of math to figure out what £46 13s. 4d. works out to in Elizabethan marks. (Seventy, in case you were wondering.) Doing calculations where there are twelvepence (d) to the shilling (s) and twenty shillings to the pound, and a mark is worth 13s. 4d., is a good argument for modern currency systems.
quoting Gaiman and Pratchett
NOTE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE AND AMERICANS: One shilling = Five Pee. It helps to understand the antique finances of the Witchfinder Army if you know the original British monetary system:
Two farthings = One Ha’penny. Two ha’pennies = One Penny. Three pennies = A Thrupenny Bit. Two Thrupences = A Sixpence. Two Sixpences = One Shilling, or Bob. Two Bob = A Florin. One Florin and one Sixpence = Half a Crown. Four Half Crowns = Ten Bob Note. Two Ten Bob Notes = One Pound (or 240 pennies). One Pound and One Shilling = One Guinea.
The British resisted decimalized currency for a long time because they thought it was too complicated.qu
Re: quoting Gaiman and Pratchett
Exactly.
On the off chance that (a) you might need to do this again and (b) you haven’t already written up a plug-in-the-numbers formula and (c) such a formula might be helpful…
Where x = amount in £ | y = amount in s. | z = amount in d.:
240x + 12y + z
————— = number of Elizabethan marks
160
To convert fractional marks, if any, into d.:
(fraction) * 160 = d.
[may be best viewed in fixed-width font]
Meanwhile, good luck!
See, if I remembered the finer points of basic algebra, I would have thought of that.
