Coins

Penny, Nickel, Dime, Quarter

Why don't they go by 1 cent, 5 cents, 10 cents, 25 cents ?

No wonder the kids in school here have lessons on each of these coins in Math starting from Grade 1 - learning what value each of these coins is, so that they can speak in terms of penny, nickel, dime too.

I've always been confused about the nickel and dime, and remember the times when we were going on long distance drives and we would be approaching the toll booth. The hubby would say - give me 45 cents. I would get all panicky and say - tell me in terms of how many big coins you want, how many medium and how many small.... since I had no clue which one was a dime and which one was a nickel. Plus the 5 cent coin is bigger than the 10 cent coins, just adding to the confusion....

Nowadays I try to remember the order in which the coins are, from a movie I saw years back - I think it was a movie with Danny De Vito, and he was lining up coins saying "Penny, Nickel, Dime, Penny, Nickel, Dime,....). That's the only way for me to remember which coin comes after Penny and hence has a value of 5 cents.

It must be so easy in other countries - where a 20 cent coin (for eg.) has 20c written on one side of the coin - nice big and bold - and is also called 20 cents....

And then there's 50 cent - which is not even a coin :-) .... but then again - if it was it would have a confusing name to go by, wouldn't it.....