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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Troodon, post: 325333, member: 4626&quot;]What you don&#039;t seem to understand is, the meaning of a word is not a fixed thing set in stone.&nbsp; It can change based on the way people use it.&nbsp; As an illustration of that, there are many words that mean compelte different things in American English as they do in British English.&nbsp; After a while, as the convention changes and people continue to use a certain way, it takes on that meaning.</p><p><br /></p><p>People have been calling a 1 cent coin a &quot;penny&quot; for more than 200 years.&nbsp; The convention stuck.&nbsp; In the US, that is what the word &quot;penny&quot; has come to mean.&nbsp; The word has changed its meaning... it is not a case of a word continuously used incorrectly but a case of the conventional meaning of the word changing over time.</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;Cent&quot; is <i>a</i> correct term for a US coin worth 1/100 of a dollar.&nbsp; But based on the common convention, so is penny.&nbsp; <i>Both</i> terms are correct, based on the common usage.&nbsp; A word means what it does because how it is used... if a small minority use a word a certain way, you can argue that it is being used incorrectly... but the fact is the <i>majority</i> of American English speakers use the word penny and you can&#039;t argue that the usage of &quot;penny&quot; is not conventional... and conventional equals correct if the convention holds for long enough of a time.&nbsp; As this convention has held for more than 200 years now, I&#039;d say it&#039;s safe to say the convention has been firmly established.&nbsp; Like it or not, it&#039;s both a &quot;cent&quot; and a &quot;penny&quot; now.&nbsp; Feel free to use &quot;cent&quot; if you like but deal with the fact that &quot;penny&quot; is also correct.&nbsp; As someone has already pointed out, even the US Mint uses the word penny now.</p><p><br /></p><p>As for the &quot;official&quot; name being the cent, please also note that &quot;official&quot; and &quot;correct&quot; do not necessarily mean the same thing.&nbsp; For example the &quot;Gateway Arch&quot; is the common name for what&#039;s officially called the &quot;Jefferson National Expansion Monument&quot; but I doubt many would argue that &quot;Gateway Arch&quot; is an incorrect name, just because it&#039;s not official.&nbsp; (I also doubt that anyone but a park ranger would have any idea what you&#039;re talking about if you asked where the &quot;Jefferson National Expansion Monument&quot; is, even in St. Louis lol...)[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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