Reply to Thread

Message:: [QUOTE="Troodon, post: 324837, member: 4626"]There is no official governing body on the English language.  What determines what is and is not proper grammar boils down to conventional consensus.  I can guarantee you that nobody in this country would have any confusion as to what you mean when you use the word "penny."  By conventional usage, the term is correct.  The word "penny" means what it does because of the way people use it, and in this country people use it as a word that means a coin worth 1/100 of a dollar.  It is no more or less correct to call a coin worth 1/100 of a US dollar a "penny" than it is to call it a "cent," based on conventional usage. Interestingly enough although in Britain a "penny" used to be worth 1/240 of a pound, since 1971 when the decimalized the currency, it is worth 1/100 of a pound.  I suppose they could call it a "cent" there if they so desired and be just as accurate.  However I doubt the conventional usage is any liklier to change there than it is here. It's really a silly thing to get worked up about.  If the vast majority of people insist on calling it a penny, guess what, that's what it is.  Words mean what they do because of a consensus to use the words that way.  Look up the word "penny" in a dictionary and I guarantee at least one of the definitions will be "a US coin worth 1/100 of a dollar, or 1 cent."  Deal with it.[/QUOTE]