Beckie and Morgan UK

Had to laugh....waiting in the queue at the grocery store and the guy in front was a Brit...he goes to pay and says "Oh I'll just get rid of some of this shrapnel" lady looks at him and says "pardon me" he realises what he's said and he looks at me and I laugh! I wonder how many old sayings I come out with that no one has a clue about!

Oink

They seem to understand when you say it with enough menace.

bats

Shrapnel? Not heard that one before.

mikelincs

Used in most parts of the UK to describe the small denomination coins, usually the copper ones, and by Brits all over the Eurozone to describe the millions of copped cents, that just get everywhere.

Novocastrian

*in the 1950s.

BristolUK

Nor me.
I wasn't around for much of the 50s so maybe that explains why I don't know it.

dave_j

I was around in the 50's and I've not used it before. Nevertheless I would have understood what he meant by the phrase in this context. Extending the meaning of shrapnel to a collection of loose metal coins shouldn't have resulted in a blank face.

BristolUK

What about younger people for whom 'shrapnel' has no meaning regardless of context? There must be some who grew up after war movies stopped playing on TV as regularly as in my day.

Make some comment about the American GI having his helmet straps dangling as he smokes a last cigarette and the knowing look you get from someone over 50 will likely be a blank look from someone under 40

Novocastrian

How do you suppose that a Canadian in 2017 would realise that the shopper's reference was to a collection of loose change?

dbd33

Depends where the "Canadian" came from. I shouldn't think that a huge stretch for Canadians originally from the middle east.

Last week I proposed walking around to the front of the building, rather than walking in through the loading dock, "ooh, the half crown entrance" said my colleague. Now that would be a challenge for a Canadian to unscramble.

Novocastrian

But since the thread is titled "money slang", we, as children in Newcastle in the 1950s, used to call a threepenny bit a "lurgy". Threepenny was pronounced threpenny and the 12 sided coin was worth roughly the same as the new 12-sided pound coin is worth today.

dbd33

A thrupnee bit, you mean, half a tanner?

Novocastrian

Quite.

Novocastrian

...in turn, half a bob.

I think we're on safer grounds here. Even BristolUK remembers bob.

dave_j

Perhaps the word shrapnel isn't in common use in Canada but it should be understood with so many wars being so well publicised. I have never been in the forces or engaged in conflict, but I know what the word means.
Extending it's use to describe any collection of small metal objects in this context probably brought about an instant of misunderstanding, but I suspect that given a few more seconds the assistant would have understood completely.