American currency is dumb

So the [b]penny[/b] comes directly from our ties to the British, which used to have a coin of the same name. Their coin actually got its name from a Germanic coin called the 'pfennig', which roughly translates to meaning just 'money'.

The [b]nickel [/b]was named for the metal it's made with, even though the nickel is actually 3/4s copper.

The [b]dime[/b] comes from the Old French word 'disme', which literally translates to 'one-tenth'.

The [b]quarter[/b] follows the same principle as the dime, except it's now in a different language. A quarter means exactly what it represents: 1/4 of a dollar.

The [b]half dollar[/b] continues the trend of reminding us how fractions work, and it also continues the trend of American money having no f*cking consistency whatsoever. Why is a quarter just called a quarter, but a half dollar has to specify that it is half of a dollar?

When someone asks for a quarter, it's implicitly assumed that they mean the coin. They're not asking for lodging, they're not asking 1/4 of your sandwich, they're not asking for someone to be pulled apart by horses. They just want the coin. If you asked someone for a half, they'd be like: [i]half of what?[/i]

[b]Bonus facts: [/b]It currently costs about 2.1 cents to make a 1-cent penny and about 8.5 cents to make a 5-cent nickel. At least the rest of our coins are profitable