11

Commonly pounds are called quid,

but I've come across references to pounds as

squid

Is that a typo or actually a common usage?

Example from Football forums:

It is believed they have offered them over a million squid to take on the role and gave them till this morning to give them there decision. Allardyce or O'niell ???.

Uticensis
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JoseK
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5 Answers5

10

This is quite common in the North East, but only among the common (or, let's say the 'down-to-earth', or street-smart, whichever you prefer) - particularly the youth. There are others, too, such as:

  • bin lid
  • nicker
  • cherry

Money-slang also extends to multiples:

  • score = £20
  • pony = £25
  • ton = £100
  • monkey = £500

And so on; I'd put my money on what you saw being intentional, rather than accidental.

Grant Thomas
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    I like this explanation, don't know if West Ham fans fall in this category :) – JoseK May 31 '11 at 14:41
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    Pony, you say? That is very interesting! According to the OED this word was already used for £25 in 1797. Could it be that pony up came from this? – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica May 31 '11 at 14:55
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    And is or was pony used to mean $25 as well? – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica May 31 '11 at 15:05
  • Don't forget Archer = £2000 – mgb May 31 '11 at 16:04
  • @Cerberus "Pony up" for pay (probably) comes from "legem pone" the start of the psalm on the first quarter-day of the year when rents were due. – mgb May 31 '11 at 16:12
  • @MartinBeckett: Yes, that is what Etymonline says; but that etymology might not be certain. See this question: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/23090/do-to-pony-up-and-to-pungle-come-from-the-same-latin-root/23108 – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica May 31 '11 at 16:24
  • @Cerberus, thanks. Although pony/monkey for money are a lot more obscure. Supposedly they come from Indian rupee notes with those animals on them (they are first reported when the British army was in India) but nobody seems to have a picture of the notes. – mgb May 31 '11 at 16:30
  • @MartinBeckett: Oh? Interesting. A pony on a bank note, that sounds funny. I hope that's it. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica May 31 '11 at 16:41
  • It's definitely also London. – Marcin May 31 '11 at 17:12
  • @Cerberus: Yes, pony - I could start guessing the origins and evolution, that is simply all my input would amount to: guesses. There are a number of sources on the internet with back-stories for this, none seemingly linking well with each other. For instance, one man reckons it comes from a time when £25 was the price of a pony or horse, literally. It might be worth noting that many of these slang words (ones here being merely a drop in the ocean, so to speak) could have made it through variations by 'Cockney Rhyming Slang' - nothing comes to mind with this one, but I'm no expert on that. – Grant Thomas May 31 '11 at 18:07
  • @All other input: I can only really kind of reiterate but by spelling out the above - the rhyming slang knows no real bounds; and there's so much of it, and so many of them are rhymes and slang based on existing slang - some might say, for those with the more ambiguous or elusive origins, that your pissing in the wind trying to know exactly. What I would say is that at least each word considered most likely demands a dedicated question. – Grant Thomas May 31 '11 at 18:14
  • @Mr.Disappointment: You're probably right. Good point about rhyming slang: I hadn't thought if that. But I think it may not have existed at the time, pony having been attested from 1797 onwards while rhyming slang emerged only in the 1840s, or so says Wikipedia. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica May 31 '11 at 18:26
  • @Cerberus: Absolutely, I can't dismiss that and wasn't trying to; to be honest, I'm not sure what rhyming slang arose from (whether original, or from another form of 'in-speak', or what, I've no idea), after reading the Wikipedia page you probably know more than me by now regarding that. Maybe the origins are linked somewhere down the line hereditarily, or maybe slang just adopted it. – Grant Thomas May 31 '11 at 18:37
6

I've heard it occasionally as a joke. I don't think it is (currently) any more than that - though it might become so, in the way that "guesstimate" seems to be overtaking "estimate".

Colin Fine
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2

I don't consider it common, but it's certainly becoming more so. Robert Peston, Sunday City Editor of the Daily Telegraph, has used it in print at least a couple of times:

...various bits of a broken-up plane that could be yours or mine for just a few thousand squid. (source)

If there is a few thousand squid to be reclaimed, I should be able to remember that no one at the bank ever warned me that market interest rates might actually fall. (source)

Adam
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1

I've always thought this was a reference to jokes based on 'sick squid' vs 'six quid' as in 'Here's that sick squid I owe yer' etc

peterG
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-1

Squid is becoming more popular than quid. Even sites like fivesquid use squid instead of quid.

Thomas
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