Friday, March 23, 2018

Money Slang

This lottery poster advertises a potential 5 million Crown payout for the low price of a 20 Kč ticket.  It's a play on words but the payout offers 5 million "ducklings".  Besides kačky, other slang terms for money are škvára (slag), prachy (loot, dough), and vata (cotton).

I've learned the slang for various denominations of Czech money but to be honest they've never really made sense to me.

The 10 Kč coin is called pětka, which means "little five".  No clue at all why a "little five" is a "ten".



The 100 Kč bank note is called a kilo.  A kilo is 1000 grams so I don't know why a stovka is called a kilo.



The 1000 Kč bank note is called a litr.  A litre is 1000 ml so at least that makes more sense to me.

1 000 000 Kč is either megameloun (watermelon), or míč (ball).

In the USA, the two slang terms for money that were most popular when I grew up were bucks and clams.  I'm sure that there are plenty of others.  The names for American coins are as follows. A quarter is 25 cents.  A dime is 10 cents.  A nickel is 5 cents and a penny is 1 cent.

A 100 dollar bill is often called a C-note because "C" is the Roman numeral for 100.  It's also called a "Benjamin" because Benjamin Franklin is on the $100 bill.

$1000 is known as a grand and is sometimes shortened to a G.

In the UK, cash spending money is called dosh.  Pounds are called quid.  A £5 bank note is a fiver and a £10 note is a tenner.

Other than a penny or pence being shortened to p (pronounced "pee") I'm not aware of any slang terms for the coins.  My problem is that even with as many times as I've been to the UK, I still never know the difference between the 5p, 10p, 20p, and 50p coins.

1 comment:

  1. You forgot bura or bůrko for 5 Kč (also 5,000 or 5,000,000 depending on context).

    1,000 Kč is also called tác, hadr, or klacek (more common in plural).

    ReplyDelete