An Archer, £2,000

'A reference to the libel case involving the novelist Jeffrey Archer. The term is slang for the sum of £2,000, a reference to the amount that Archer allegedly offered as a bribe which was the basis of the case.' https://inews.co.uk/light-relief/offbeat/the-most-confusing-...

I'm British and have never heard any of these before except "grand".

I always thought Bag of Sand as Scouse, we live and learn?

Cockney rhyming slang. The custom is that you take a two-word phrase whose second word rhymes with the target word, and then you just use the first word.

So "Plates of meat" == "feet", but you just say "me plates are cold". Scousers don't do that.

[Edit] There was a cafe off Haymarket in London, called "My Old China". That was another kind of plate; a "china" is a "china plate", which rhymes with "mate". So it's "my old mate".

Also (possibly only amongst bankers in London):

- "Yard" - £billion (derived from the french "milliard")

Milliard was the standard British word for 1,000,000,000 until some point in the 1970s.

Then there was the British billion, which was a million million. The US version has taken over completely.

Same in German.

From Numberphile, "How big is a billion?" (2012):

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-52AI_ojyQ

Also "buck" and "bar", which I think are one and two million. Not uniquely British, but certainly used here.

£5 and its multiples: Lady, Ayrton, Commodore, Score, Pony.

Sadly, I think these are dying out due to the move towards a cashless society.

The most common use for any of these (for me) was to ask someone to lend me a bit of cash when I'd left my wallet at home.

Translation - more rhyming slang, although not necessarily 'cockney' Lady Godiva - 'fiver' (£5) Ayton Senna - 'tenner' (£10) - obviously a more modern idiom.

I have not come accross a Commodore before so am going to guess because of where it sits in the list as £15

Score - £20 (as in three-score-years-and-10 and all that) Pony - £25 - some latin root in there - that is an old one.

I don't think they are dying out, in that paying a pony is still £25 with cash or with a card.

Commodore - Once, twice, three times a lady...

As in "Lend me a tenor"?

Born and bred Londoner, never heard nugget in my life. TIL!

It’s a bit outdated tbh, as it was a reference to to gold colour of the pound coin (as shown in the article).

To be used as follows:

Bredda, set me a nugget. I’ve only got 50p and I’m feeling that Junior Spesh [1]

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6pbZLiLt30

I use(d) it a lot. Specifically for pound coins, rather than the value of £1.

e.g. you would ask, "Can you swap us 5 nuggets for a Lady?" If you wanted to go and get something from a vending machine, but only had notes.

Even more so than other terms, I think this is being lost to cashlessness.

And as well as Ton and Pony there's:

- "Score" - £20

- "Nicker" - £1

Or if you want to go full cockney "Deep Sea Diver" or "Lady Godiva" £5 (fiver), and "Ayrton Senna" for £10 (tenner)

My desktop host name is fiver after the character from Watership Down (and it’s a 5k iMac), so the VM I run on it is Godiva.

Funny, mine is "fivek". I bought that machine the first week it was available, I'd been waiting and waiting for a large hires screen so the name fell right out.

Nugget is realtively newish. Never heard of a Red until now, or a bill, a £100 was sometimes called a ton. Monkey comes from Indian currency, I think the 500 rupee had a monkey on it. Never heard of a Bag. A common one in my time was a Jackson for a £5, as in Jackson 5.

I didn’t realize grand for 1000 was slang. That one made it to the USA too.

I think it probably crossed the atlantic in the other direction; I'm pretty sure that "grand" for a thousand didn't originate here.

Americans also say “large” for $1000, and “grand” is French for “large” so the travel might have been in the opposite direction.

score == 20GBP

for 50 quid, I've heard "reddies" quite a bit too, but my personal favourite -- an "Ayrton" for 10GBP (rhyming slang: Ayrton Senna -> tenner)

Anyone know what a hundred “large” might mean?

I believe it’s a hundred thousand

Jacks: fiva: £5

Also used to denote weights of certain herbs circa 2000:

Jacks: £5

Ben: £10

Henry (I.e 1/8): £20

*the best herbs :))