{"id":14919,"date":"2017-12-12T18:26:30","date_gmt":"2017-12-12T17:26:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/blog\/?p=14919"},"modified":"2020-06-01T16:48:46","modified_gmt":"2020-06-01T16:48:46","slug":"hatlings-benders-and-beer-tokens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=14919","title":{"rendered":"Hatlings, benders and beer tokens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In one of the songs we sang at the Welsh session last night, there&#8217;s an interesting word &#8211; <strong>hatling<\/strong>, which means &#8216;mite, half-farthing; modest contribution, all that a poor person can afford&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a word I haven&#8217;t come across before, but from the context I guessed it was term of affection. This is how it&#8217;s used:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Fy <strong>hatling<\/strong> offrymaf dros enaid dan glo,<br \/>\nFy nghanwyll offrymaf yn eglwys y fro,<br \/>\n\u2019R offeren wedd\u00efaf saith seithwaith yn daer<br \/>\nEr cadw ei enaid anfarwol.<br \/>\nMyn Mair, Myn Mair<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Which means:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>My penn\u2019orth I\u2019ll offer for a soul in prison,<br \/>\nMy candle I\u2019ll offer in the church in the vale,<br \/>\nThe Mass I\u2019ll pray earnestly, seven times seven,<br \/>\nTo save his immortal soul.<br \/>\nO Mary, O Mary.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>You can hear the whole song here:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lxnS7Tr4FtI\" gesture=\"media\" allow=\"encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen=\"\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>So it seems it doesn&#8217;t mean what I thought. I can&#8217;t find any information about its origin, but my guess is that it&#8217;s a perhaps a nickname for a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Half_farthing\">half-farthing<\/a>. This is a coin that was first minted in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1828, and used in the UK from 1842. It was worth an eighth of a penny.<\/p>\n<p>Some other nicknames and abbreviations for British coins include:<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong>Bender<\/strong> = a sixpence, known as such because it could be bent, due to its silver content. A one time you could get very drunk for a sixpence, which is the origin of the phrase &#8216;to go on a bender&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong>Bob<\/strong> = a shilling. Possibly related to bell ringing, as a bob can also be a tune played on church bells.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong>Tanner<\/strong> = a sixpence. Possibly from the Romani word <em>tawno<\/em> (small one).<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong>Groat<\/strong> = four pence (fuppence). From the Dutch word <em>groot<\/em> (great).<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong>Ha&#8217;penny<\/strong> = half penny<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong>Tuppence<\/strong> = two pence<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong>Thruppence<\/strong> or <strong>Thruppenny bit<\/strong>  = three pence<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong>Quid<\/strong> = \u00a31<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong>Beer token<\/strong> = \u00a32 (a pint of beer cost about \u00a32 when this coin was introduced in 1998).<\/p>\n<p>Only the \u00a31 and \u00a32 coins are still used.<\/p>\n<p>Do you know of any other interesting nicknames for coins or bank notes?<\/p>\n<p>Sources: <em><a href=\"http:\/\/geiriadur.ac.uk\/gpc\/gpc.html\">Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru &#8211; A Dictionary of the Welsh Language<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ballinagree.freeservers.com\/mair.html\">Ireland, Wales and Europe &#8211; Poems, History and Language<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.royalmint.com\/coin-nicknames-the-british-fondness-for-change\/\">Royal Mint<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In one of the songs we sang at the Welsh session last night, there&#8217;s an interesting word &#8211; hatling, which means &#8216;mite, half-farthing; modest contribution, all that a poor person can afford&#8217;. It&#8217;s a word I haven&#8217;t come across before, but from the context I guessed it was term of affection. This is how it&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,10,77,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-language","category-welsh","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19276,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14919\/revisions\/19276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}