No Bathroom Wall out-lets or A/C!!??

[Ninurta]

The idioms of the British are no different from other countries of the world. The US's vocabulary is littered with idioms,
just like many other nations. 'A dime a dozen' -You don't use the pound?!!!

You don't use dimes? What kinda barbaric place IS that! 

Yessir, we do use pounds - or at least we used to, and it has carried over in some idioms such as "in for a penny, in for a pound" meaning pretty much "whatever you do, do it all the way, do it like you mean it". That may be just around here, rather than nationwide, however. We tend to hold on to things longer here in the hinterlands. 

Pennies, dimes, quarters, and dollars didn't really take off as a medium of exchange here until around 1790, and they were patterned after the Spanish dollar - that's why a quarter (quarter dollar) used to be referred to as "two bits". Spanish dollars were often subdivided into eighths -A.K.A. "pieces of eight" or "bits" - and two of those "bits" equaled out to a quarter of a Spanish dollar.

We did have "Continental dollars" here earlier, but they were practically worthless, hence the phrase "not worth a Continental". Most road houses and the like still listed all their prices in pounds, shillings, and pence, and Continental dollars were rarely ever used in reality because of their debased value. Sort of like Confederate dollars a hundred years later. Wright's Tavern in Wentworth, NC (Rockingham County), was still listing their prices in pounds, shillings, and pence into the early 1800's.

As I recall, and I may be recalling wrong - so feel free to correct me here - there were 12 pence to the shilling, and 20 shillings to the pound. My so many greats back granddad was paid "2s 6d" (also noted as "2 1/2 shillings" elsewhere) per day for being a "scout" or "Indian spy" for Dunmore's army during Lord Dunmore's War here in 1774 (As I recall, he drew 16 1/2 pounds total for 132 days of slogging along through the wilderness keeping Indians off the army's flanks. Foot slogger, trigger-twitching grunt soldiers got 1s 6d per day at the same time - "Scouts" were drawing sergeant's pay because their duty was more hazardous) , and that confused me because I still don't understand why "d" was the abbreviation for "pence" - I don't see a "d" in that word anywhere. But that's how he's listed in the handwritten pay ledgers for Dunmore's army of militiamen. 

Maybe "d" really stood for "dime"? 

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