99P

[grandfatherd]

In a conversation I was having with friends, the question asked was about the prices of items having a price ending in 99p.
When one looks at prices of all types of products, the majority do seem to have an ending of 99p,
Can anyone tell why this is? as no one having the conversation has a clue
Danny

[stewey]

No quibble, spoonboy. Just that to my ears, "pence" sounds better than "p" in the same manner as "cents" sounds better than "c".

[Spoonboy]

I see! My mistake.

[tonyav]

I'll reply in a mo, but I've gotta go for a pence first.

[stewey]

No mistake, spoonboy. Grandfathered certainly did start an interesting thread. By the way SB, another reason that I would say "pence" is that I'm old enough to remember the old L.S.D. system, so therefore I'm a little old-fashioned:)

[gingejbee]

Slightly more annoying - those who say "one pence".

[ChuckFickens]

There is (as ever in discussions like this) a hugely overlooked issue.

Is what is spoken widely understood?

If the answer is yes then it's not incorrect in the sense of normal speech, language evolves!

If people want to get pedantic about it the correct term wouldn't be "5 pence", it would be "5 new pence"

[stewey]

ChuckFickens, to get more pedanticer, they're not really "new" anymore are they? I think that you started the decimal monetary system in 1973(?); thats 40 years ago:)

[tonyav]

1971, stewey.

[gingejbee]

Being pedantic... it says "five pence" on the coin itself.

[ChuckFickens]

When are you going to rename "New Brunswick" as Brunswick, or newfoundland as foundland?

(I wish you were American... there's loads more then ;) )

[stewey]

Thanks, Tony. I have a few cased sets of the old and decimal coins; however, so does almost everyone in the UK:)

[stewey]

As soon as we get rid of Quebec, CF:)