Fun_People Archive
19 Dec
The Greeks are especially unhappy.

Date: Tue, 19 Dec 95 14:45:06 -0800
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: The Greeks are especially unhappy.

From: bostic@bsdi.com (Keith Bostic)
Forwarded-by: guy@netapp.com (Guy Harris)

From: dickweltz@aol.com (DickWeltz)
Subject: Re: Euro Currency Symbol

> Well the European Heads of Government meeting today have
> finally decided on the name "Euro" for the Single European
> Currency unit.  (To my mind it is a terible name and "florin",
> "schilling", "franc" or even "ecu" would have been better.)

Quite so. And, according to "The New York Times," the Greeks are especially
unhappy, inasmuch as Euro sounds a lot like their word for urine.

[Yes, but don't you see, those other names are already in use for currency?   
And while we can expect the representative from each European government to  
make an impassioned speech supporting the use of his/her country's existing  
monetary unit, nobody takes these suggestions seriously (don't laugh, our  
Congress spends much of its time doing the equivalent).  Obviously the thing  
to do is to find a hitherto unused term that offends just the right people and  
sounds innocuous to everyone else - perhaps "jobbie" (slang for turd in  
Scotland and probably other places) or "bog" (slang for toilet in England)...  
then a big wad of money would be a "bog roll" (toilet paper).  It would also  
make a subtle comment on the value of the currency.  Hmmm! We seem to have  
gotten stuck on the scatological side - sorry, but there's just something  
about money that invites it...  -psl]

© 1995 Peter Langston