American Customary Measurements: Difference between revisions

The standard unit of American money is called the ''dollar'', presumably from the German word "Taler"<ref>possibly indirectly through the Spanish eight-real coin, called the Spanish Dollar (and occasionally the ''Dollero'') because of its resemblance to the ''taler'' coin. The Spanish Dollars were more popular in early America for their finer silver.</ref> which was used for various now obsolete currencies and is originally derived from "Joachimsthal", a town in Bohemia where coins were minted. It is subdivided into 100 individual units, ''cents''. Each cent is in turn further divided into 10 ''mills'', a unit of currency largely rendered hypothetical through inflation (except in the price of gasoline, although property-tax rates are often expressed in mills), of which there are 1000 in a dollar. Each cent is one one hundredth of a dollar, and comes in the form of a small coin made of <s>copper</s> <s>wax</s> <s>bronze</s> <s>steel</s> zinc with a copper coating.

Other coins are the nickel, five cents; the dime, ten cents; the quarter, 25 cents; the half-dollar (guess); and various editions of a one-dollar coin. The half-dollar lost favor after 1965, and the dollar coin never really caught on. 50-cent pieces don't even fit in most vending machines, though dollar coins are sometimes given as change in the newer ones. Those not accustomed to US currency sometimes find it counterintuitive that the dime is physically smaller than the penny, and all the common dollar coins are similar in size to the quarter. (Dollar coins were larger than the half-dollar prior to 1979, but the half-dollar coin is already at or near the upper limit of how large a coin a person wants to carry around.) The size disparities are the legacy of pre-1965 silver coinage - the dime, quarter, half-dollar, and dollar were made from a silver alloy, and the dime weighed (and still does) 1/10 that of the "silver dollar". The nickel was and is still made of a copper-nickel alloy, hence the name; most dollar coins minted these days are at least intended to look golden. On top of that, the dime does not say "10 cents" on it; it says "one dime", and you're expected to figure out that that comes from the French for "one tenth" - di(s)me.