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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/£s…
£sd (occasionally written Lsd, spoken as "pounds, shillings and pence" or pronounced /ɛl.ɛsˈdiː/ ell-ess-DEE) is the popular name for the pre-decimal currencies once common throughout the British Empire. The abbreviation originates from the Latin currency denominations librae, solidi, and denarii.[1] In the United Kingdom, these were referred to as pounds, shillings, and pence (pence being the plural of penny).
Under this system, there were 12 pence in a shilling and 20 shillings, or 240 pence, in a pound.
The penny was subdivided into 4 farthings until 31 December 1960, when they ceased to be legal tender in the UK, and until 31 July 1969 there were also halfpennies ("ha'pennies") in circulation. The perceived advantage of such a system was its use in some aspects of mental arithmetic, as it afforded many factors and hence fractions of a pound such as tenths, eighths, sixths and even sevenths and ninths if the guinea (worth 21 shillings) was used.
(Notice board displaying the entry prices for the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London, around 1946)There were several ways to represent amounts of money in writing and speech, with no formal convention; for example:
£2. 3s. 6d. (two pounds, three shillings and sixpence), spoken, unless there was cause to be punctilious, "two pound(s), three and six". Whether "pound" or "pounds" was used depended upon the speaker, varying with class, region and context.
1/– (one shilling), colloquially "a bob"; the slash sign derives from the older style of a long s for "solidus", which is also one name for the sign itself; the '–' is used in place of '0', meaning "zero pence").
11d. (elevenpence)
1+1⁄2d (a penny halfpenny, three halfpence). As spoken, the lf in halfpenny and halfpence was always silent; they were pronounced "hayp'ny" /ˈheɪpni/[11] and "haypence" /ˈheɪpəns/[11][12] – hence the occasional spellings ha'penny and ha'pence).
3d (three pence), with reference to the above, this became thruppence, commonly referred to as a "threepenny bit".
6d (six pence) known as a "tanner" or half a shilling.2/– (two shillings, or one florin, colloquially "two-bob bit")
2/6 (two shillings and six pence, usually said as "two and six" or a "half-crown"; the value could also be spoken as "half a crown", but the coin was always a half-crown)
4/3 ("four and threepence", the latter word pronounced "thruppence" /ˈθrʌpəns/, "threppence" /ˈθrɛpəns/, "throopence" with -oo- as in "foot" /ˈθrʊpəns/, or "four-and-three")
5/– (five shillings, one crown, "five bob", a dollar)
£1.10s.– (one pound, ten shillings; one pound ten, "thirty bob")
£1/19/11+3⁄4d. (one pound, nineteen shillings and elevenpence three farthings: a psychological price, one farthing under £2)
£14. 8s. 2d. (fourteen pounds, eight shillings and twopence – pronounced "tuppence" /ˈtʌpəns/ – in columns of figures. Commonly read "fourteen pound(s) eight and two")