Loonie!

Another slice of Canadian life:

The Canadian one-dollar coin (Canadian and American coins all have the same names, but more on that later.) has a picture of a loon (a type of bird) on it. Not long after it was introduced, folks (people) started calling them "loonies" and it stuck.

The funny thing is that while the loon is a bird, a loony/looney is a crazy, insane or very foolish and silly person. Crazy money!

You'll never guess what they started calling the two-dollar coin when it appeared: a twonie/toonie!

Affordable?

Many of you will be thinking about planning your summer holiday [AmEng vacation]. One thing that inevitably comes up at a time like this is money, you know, dosh [BrEng], dough [AmEng], cash, readies [BrEng], green stuff [AmEng], moola [AmEng], scratch [AmEng], brass [BrEng]. This brings me to a very common word that in my experience is hardly ever known by students: "afford", which means something like have enough money to do something.

"Afford" is usually found with the auxiliaries "can" and "can't", most especially "can't", I think because when we use the word, it's often because we DON'T HAVE THE MONEY!

Just this morning, one of my students was telling me that she was going to Portugal on holiday. Where she'd really love to go is either London or Rome, but they're so expensive that she can't afford to go. I've been to both cities, and I'd definitely have to say she's right, they're really very expensive for a student, but still well worth a visit!

Things I want but can't afford:

• to visit my aunt in Australia.
• that pair of wonderful Dolce and Gabbana boots I saw in a shop window last winter.
• a summer house by the sea.
• any house in Madrid.
• to fly home more than once a year.
• to have my brother squatting in my house in Scotland and not paying me any rent.
• to use taxis.
  

What's on your list?

Money: . & ,

One of those odd little differences that aren't really linguistic is that when writing numbers in English we use a full stop (AmEng period) where Spanish uses a comma, and we use a comma where Spanish uses a full stop.

For example, let's look at a very big amount of money:

€23,256,945.46

In English this is said:
"23 million,
two hundred and fifty-six thousand,
nine hundred and forty-five euros
and forty-six cents".

Notice that essentially, saying large numbers in English is exactly the same in Spanish with one small exception: the "and" that we put betwen the hundreds and the tens. Most of the time you can hardly hear this "and", as it sounds more like 'n' when we speak normally.

Also note a few other things about writing numbers and amounts of money:
-- The euro/pound/dollar symbol goes BEFORE the number. $198, €53, £4,500.
-- When we write numbers from 21 to 99 (except for the tens, 30, 40, 50, etc.), they are hyphenated: twenty-one, thirty-five, seventy-six, ninety-nine.