this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2026
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ShowerThoughts
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Sometimes we have those little epiphanies in the shower.. sometimes they come from other places. This is a home for those epiphanies.
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I wonder if Roman currency and units of measurement were intentionally so bad. For a very long time, UK had a similarity complicated system, and switching to decimal money was pretty radical.
Fun fact!
The £/s/d system comes from Charlemagne in the 8th century to unify currency in his Frankish empire, not Roman times! A Carolingian pound of pure silver (libra/pfund, about 408g) was divided in 20 shillings (solidus/schilling), themselves divided into 12 pennies (denarius/pfenning). Only pfennings were actually minted, the other two were accounting units.
If I recall correctly, all of these convoluted units still trace back to the Roman Empire. Sure, the UK didn’t get it directly from Rome, but the connection is still there. The Romans invented this mess, and other countries just inherited it.