Talk:Pound sterling

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Dictionary definitions of Sterling and Pound Sterling

Discussion ongoing here Talk:Banknotes_of_the_pound_sterling#Requested_move_28_June_2022

These dictionary definitions are provided for the final rewrite of article "Pound sterling" and they all agree:

• Sterling is NOT THE MONEY of the UK. Sterling is the MONEY SYSTEM of the UK - a mere pointer to consult the rules, denominations, coins & notes. And what do the rules say?
• Cambridge: Pound sterling = money used in the UK. Also: pound = money used in the UK. And finally, pound = unit of money used in the UK
• Oxford: Pound sterling = unit of money in the UK. Pound = unit of money in the UK. Sterling means "system of UK money" and not "UK money".
• Sterling = UK money is an obsolete and deprecated definition. Maybe true for the original sterling silver 1d (penny). But not for all other coins. And already struck out of dictionary definitions! So why use this as Wikipedia definition?

So let's review:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/pound-sterling

• Pound sterling: the official name of the pound used as money in the U.K.
  • 2nd half of sentence: Pound is the money used in the UK
  • 1st half of sentence: Pound sterling is official name of the pound, making it also the money used in the UK.

• Pound: the standard unit of money used in the U.K. and some other countries
  • Hence Pound is also the standard unit of money used in the UK (pound is the money & the unit)

• Sterling: the British system of currency, based on the pound
  • Ayyy, Cambridge does not define sterling as the British money! Sterling is merely the SYSTEM OF CURRENCY - the structure of rules on what's lawful, what's your coins, your notes, your units. Sterling is a mere pointer that says "consult the rules". And what do the rules say? See above
  • Officially: The pound sterling is the money used in the UK
  • Colloquially: The pound is the money used in the UK
  • So Cambridge never said sterling is British money. It only said pound sterling is the money used in the UK

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/pound_1?q=pound+sterling

• Pound sterling: (specialist term for) the unit of money in the UK
• Pound: the unit of money in the UK
• Sterling: the money system of the UK, based on the pound

• • Ouch so Oxford also never said sterling is UK money! Only that sterling is UK money system i.e. sterling means "consult the law on British money".
  • And what does the law say? The pound sterling is the unit of money in the UK.

Other dictionaries agree:

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/pound-sterling

• Pound sterling: the official name for the standard monetary unit of the United Kingdom
• Pound: the unit of money which is used in Britain.
• Sterling: the money system of Great Britain.

https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/pound-sterling

• Pound Sterling and 'GBP' each means the official currency of the United Kingdom
• Pound Sterling means the lawful money of the United Kingdom.

Oppa gangnam psy (talk) 03:54, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

References

So what even is this currency's name?

I have been accused of fait accompli by an incident report for using "sterling" as the currency's name in text (I'm also accused of the same on the Israeli pound's article by changing instances of "lira" to "pound"). I am not proposing any changes to the article or any others whatsoever in making this section, merely asking for opinions on consensus.

I will put my cards on the table and freely state that it seems clear to me that the name of the currency is "sterling", and "the pound", "British pound", "pound sterling", or similar terms are descriptions of the main unit, not names of the currency. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 17:56, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

Here are some citations that show that the BoE routinely uses the word "Sterling" alone as the name of the currency – but it also uses the term "pound sterling".

• Annual amounts outstanding of consortium banks' sterling notes in circulation total (in sterling millions) not seasonally adjusted
• Currently banks with UK private sector sterling deposits or sterling loans over £1,000mn, total assets over £3,000mn or eligible liabilities over £400mn report data on a monthly basis.
• "However, following massive rises in interest rates and intervention in the foreign exchange markets that failed to move sterling from the floor of the ERM, ..."

The word "sterling" is used alone in professional media. See this example from The Economist: "By contrast, there is little doubt that the Bank of England stands behind gilts; no one worries that Britain might leave sterling".

• See also Sterling area, Sterling crisis.

Nevertheless, "pound sterling" is the name used in generalist media and so is preferred on Wikipedia per WP:COMMONNAME.

When a given article is about another kind of pound (for example the Israeli pound or the Australian pound) that was [at least initially] defined by its relationship to the pound sterling then the text has to say that clearly and to use "Sterling" there may sacrifice clarity for technical "correctness".

Nowadays the term "sterling" is a more conceptual than practical: it is a long time since you could walk into the Bank of England with a pound note and demand 240 sterling silver pennies.

So the best answer that I can come up with is "it depends". --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 21:20, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

My personal feeling is that if the term "pound sterling" is used it should be in relation to a specific sum (eg. "the Israeli pound was pegged at one pound sterling") and not things such as "the United Kingdom's currency is the pound sterling" as a definite article when not describing a particular sum of money. In my experience (not saying this is an iron cast citation or anything) generalist British media tends to use "the pound" with no qualifier at all and generalist American media tends to use "the British pound" in the same way it uses "the Chinese yuan", which is a description of the unit's nationality and not its name per se (Egyptian banknotes for example state their denomination as being "Fifty Egyptian pounds"). While sterling is not connected to sterling silver anymore I don't think that lessens its value as the name of the currency; A peso is no longer a Spanish silver dollar, a dinar is no longer an especially pure gold coin. Until 1920 at least the coins were actually made of sterling silver, it has been many centuries since a pound literally weighed a tower pound.TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 06:12, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

My personal view is that "sterling" stands alone as a noun when the currency is referred to in an abstract sense. The Bank of England may be called upon to support sterling, for example, if the exchange rate for sterling falls. If it continues to fall, I might not want a payment to be in sterling, especially if I am venturing beyond the sterling zone.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:53, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

References

Is "pound sterling" actually a compound noun?

In all the instances I have ever seen pound sterling is an adjective, not a compound noun, and if there are pence in the amount cited "sterling" is still suffixed, for example "the exchange rate is at 100 currency A to 1 pound 25 pence sterling", not "1 pound sterling 25 pence".

The Oxford English Dictionary seems pretty confident that it is indeed an adjective to describe an amount as "lawful English money" and not of some other currency.[1] It is cited as a contraction of the statement "pounds [of] sterlings".

The Royal Mint also seem pretty happy to claim it as an adjective [2].

In explaining the origins of the word the numismatist Professor Philip Grierson associated sterling with the Middle English ster, meaning strong, rigid or fixed. And looking to the numismatic evidence, he observed that towards the end of the reign of William I (1066-1087) the penny had become heavier and that, contrary to the variations which had occurred in previous reigns, it had then remained at the same weight for the next two centuries. Consistently uniform at 22.5 grains, this English, or more accurately Norman, penny gained a deserved reputation abroad as a strong and fixed currency; and Professor Grierson demonstrated that the earliest references to sterling pennies in continental documents, all of them significantly post-Conquest, used the word sterling as an adjective in precisely this sense. As the range of denominations grew with the issue of farthings and halfpennies, half-groats and groats, gold nobles and their fractions, so the name sterling came to represent the English currency as a whole. And if this was especially the case abroad, it was also true at home, for both Chaucer in the 14th century and Shakespeare 200 years later provide instances of sterling being used in this way in a domestic context.

I hope this can be a fruitful discussion. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 13:28, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

The notion of "sterling" being an adjective when appended to amounts of money can be seen in this eviction notice from March of this year[3].

The First-tier Tribunal for Scotland (Housing and Property Chamber) (“the Tribunal”) determined that an Order for payment of SEVEN THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FOUR POUNDS AND FIFTEEN PENCE STERLING (£7,554.15) be granted

It doesn't say "Seven thousand five hundred and fifty four pounds sterling and fifteen pence". This is but one example. In every example I have ever seen "sterling" is always suffixed, whether the amount of money ends in a pound, a shilling or a penny (whether old or new pence). TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 13:57, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

[4] states that "pound sterling" is a noun, with "pounds sterling" as its plural. It's unclear at the least, and I suspect "sterling" can be treated as either an adjective which goes against the A-N order normally used in English; or as the second word of a compound noun. I've reverted the simultaneous edit made to the article as there's been no chance to discuss what's written above. Bazza (talk) 16:28, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

I think the difficulty doesn't arise when trying to parse "pound sterling", which is widely accepted either as a compound noun or as a modified single-word noun, and is a common term throughout the English speaking world. However, this dispute arises over trying to apply this to lesser denominations and have, for example, a "penny sterling" or "shilling sterling". See examples here and here. Not only. are these dubious terms, but even if they denote British currency, they probably violate MOS:COMMONALITY since few outside Britain (and not too many there, perhaps), will comprehend it's intended to mean that.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:59, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Whatever the merits of the main discussion, the order N-A in English is not wrong. Obvious examples include pound Scots, Princess Royal, Lords Spiritual, Attorney General are the ones that come quickly to mind. I'm pretty sure that [aaaaa] sterling is an example of this somewhat ceremonial style. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 21:37, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

MOS:TIES states that an article with "strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the (formal, not colloquial) English of that nation". It is the recognised and established style that amounts denominated in British currency be suffixed with "sterling" as an adjective. Are there any examples at all where an amount of money is cited as "x pounds sterling and x pence"? It is perhaps notable that no dictionaries citing "pound sterling" as a compound noun actually provide any cited examples of use. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 23:07, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Your last comment suggests we should be judging the content of what are otherwise considered reliable sources. I don't think that's the remit of WP. The Lexico link I gave earlier lists "pound sterling" as a noun (and explicitly highlights the plural "pounds sterling" in the same category), so we should accept that it can be treated as a two-word noun. It also lists sterling as a mass noun, not an adjective, for the definition of "British money". It's not clear cut as other references given above may contradict this. I don't think we should be chasing down a specific, unambiguous description if there isn't one: WP's ethos requires us simply to reflect what we find elsewhere. Bazza (talk) 07:58, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

@Bazza 7: (out of time sequence but replying to this point specifically). I'm not sure that Lexico is giving the full story. The ODoE (UK and US English editions) for "Sterling" says noun [mass noun] 1. British money: prices in sterling are shown | [as modifier] : issues of sterling bonds.. The ODoAE (= Oz) says adjective 1. of or in British money: pound sterling. ... noun 1. British money: paid in sterling.. Perhaps it would help if we recognise the word "Sterling" as a disambiguator [which is the reason for its existence in the term "pounds sterling": in Wikipedia style, Pound (sterling), Pound (Scots), Pound (Egyptian) etc? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 15:34, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

"Egyptian" is actually part of the Egyptian unit's name, on the English side of Egyptian banknotes the denomination is stated to be "x Egyptian pounds". The same is true of the Syrian and Lebanese currencies. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 16:31, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

The remit of WP is to record instances of actual use. And in all instances I have ever been able to find when used as part of an actual sentence describing a sum of money the word "sterling" is always suffixed as an adjective. Can you find an example "in the wild" of something like "50 pounds sterling 25 pence"? TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 11:12, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

I gave a link to a definition which states "pound sterling" is a noun. It includes examples of that two-word noun in use, such as ‘The only exceptions to this convention are quotes in relation to the euro, the pound sterling and the Australian dollar. I've also easily found "pence sterling": Googling "pounds sterling pence" returns a list of sites such as [5] or [6]. The last one defines penny sterling as "The penny sterling (GBX or GBP) is a subdivision of pound sterling." You will need to explain your questioning a bit more as I can't fathom out exactly what it is you are trying to achieve. Bazza (talk) 12:01, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

What I'm trying to say is that when the word is included in an amount of money the correct grammar is (for example) "fifty pounds and twenty-five pence sterling", not "fifty pounds sterling and 25 pence" or "fifty pounds sterling and 25 pence sterling". TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 12:13, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Which reliable source states that's the "correct grammar"? Bazza (talk) 12:19, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Basically, this thread is to try to settle a dispute. The Currency Guy recently changed a number of the numismatic articles on obsolete British coins such as the twopence to give a value expressed as a multiple of the "penny sterling" or "shilling sterling". I thought these were either archaic or plain wrong, and in any event confusing to the reader, and we've agreed to see what input we can get on the matter here.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:17, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

I didn't intend them to read "penny sterling", but "penny sterling", as an adjective, similar to the articles on banknotes (eg. "ten shillings sterling", "five pounds sterling" etc). On the half crown article I noted the denomination as "Two shillings and sixpence sterling", not "Two shillings sterling and sixpence sterling". TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 13:27, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

I guess the question is, is this the way best calculated to convey this to the reader?--Wehwalt (talk) 15:25, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

It's certainly an adjective in Sterling silver. — Xenophore; talk 19:59, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

As it is in "a sterling fellow", but so what? The context is money, not grammar in general. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 23:46, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

In reply to Wehwalt's question, to go into that level of detail in the Twopence (British pre-decimal coin) article is WP:UNDUE and fails to WP:think of the reader: it conveyed something to the reader but probably not the intended message. I have been bold and simplified its opening sentence because as written it was nerdish beyond belief. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 23:46, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

TheCurrencyGuy is continuing to add phrasings of "shillings sterling" or "pence sterling", or variations thereof, see here. These are affectations and confusing to the reader. As part of this RFC, I simply propose they not be used, and alternatives (where necessary) such as "in British currency" be substituted.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:25, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Context is everything. In some contexts, the adjective or noun 'sterling' is essential in some contexts and is used as such in the sources, and with good reason. "In British currency" is contrived and very non-standard.

The purpose of an RFC is to establish a clear and long-term guide-line: hard cases make bad law and TCG's rather obsessive 'tagging' with the sterling adjective, irrespective of context or need to disambiguate, should not be the basis for such a guidance. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:36, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Take for example this sentence from Guinea (coin): The name also forms the basis for the Arabic word for the Egyptian pound الجنيه el-Genēh / el-Geni, as a unit of account representing 100 piastres (qirsh in Arabic). 100 piastres was worth approximately 21 shillings sterling at the end of the 19th century. Since two kinds of 'pound' are mentioned in this context, disambiguation is required. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 18:38, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

I affixed "sterling" in that case to make it clear which currency was intended. When the guinea was introduced many currencies used units whose names were typically translated into English as "pound", "shilling" and "penny" (such as the French livre, sou and denier or the currencies of the Italian states: lira, soldi and denari). Not to mention that the guinea was "rusted in" at a value of 21 sterling silver shillings, the guinea was gold, the shilling was sterling silver, it seems fairly logical to me. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 00:29, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

References

Arbitrary break for editing convenience

Speaking as an ex-pat Brit with no numismatic background, I agree with those above who say that adding "sterling" is usually unhelpful to the reader. Certainly "The quarter guinea therefore was valued at five shillings and threepence sterling" sounds very odd to my British ears. I don't think it makes any difference to argue that technically it is correct to append "sterling" to British currency amounts; even if there were unanimous agreement on that, it still isn't effective communication to add it in this way. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:39, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree completely. Unless the context requires disambiguation be made, it is superfluous, confusing and/or annoying to append it. There are very few occasions indeed where that is the case and it is WP:disruptive pov pushing to force it in. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 18:01, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

How else would you suggest disambiguating and including the currency of note? I don't think it sounds odd at all: the quarter guinea was a coin a quarter of the weight of the gold guinea and worth the same as five shillings and threepence in sterling silver coins. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 21:32, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

In most cases (e.g. the example I quoted above) I don't think disambiguation is needed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:01, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Agreed, and as I've said, such constructions as "threepence sterling" are affectations and not helpful to the reader.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:24, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm working on the assumption that the reader comes to pages to learn new information, I'm genuinely trying to offer clarity and accuracy. I don't consider "threepence sterling" to be an affectation but merely an identification. On the pages for the guinea and related coins the disparity between the value of sterling silver coin and gold coin is precisely why a clarification is necessary. The guinea was originally intended to represent the same value as 20 shillings in sterling silver coin, but to avoid the issues associated with bimetalism the rating was changed so that a guinea was worth 21 sterling shillings. I have not identified the guinea and fractional guineas as "sterling" in their headers because they were gold coins worth a rated amount of sterling specie, while the lesser valued coins were sterling specie. Since 1920 "sterling" has just the name of the currency, but in the early modern period sterling literally meant coins struck in sterling silver. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 00:53, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

But you've added "sterling" to coins such as the half farthing as well, which you define as a fraction of a "penny sterling". Leaving aside the trivial case of Maundy money, the penny was never sterling whilst the half farthing was struck. It was copper. Wehwalt (talk) 11:15, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

I will concede on the farthing. However I still stand by my conviction that it is not incorrect to cite the currency in the introduction. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 23:58, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

Wehwalt, I agree completely with your main point. There is no need whatever to suffix the disambiguating adjective to these coins. It is exactly as you say, an affectation and a silly one at that. (Your secondary point is not a good one: these coins were denominations of the currency called "sterling", what base metal was used to strike them is entirely incidental.)

TCG, I advise strongly that you drop this argument. --~~

I'm trying my best, I'm genuinely trying to help to try to improve the site's coverage. I'm sorry if I come across as high handed and such, but I'm really not, that's why I opened this discussion. I will stop pursuing inserting the adjective into the titles of the infoboxes, I am sure I can find another option which is less controversial, just give me a moment, because I think I have found a solution based on some other pages.TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 00:06, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

I took inspiration from the articles on the coins of the United States and moved the citing of the currency out of the top of the infobox and into the "value" section. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 00:27, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

I freely admit I made an error by seeking to include the disambiguation at the top of the infobox and have instead placed it more appropriately. I am extremely sorry for my mistake. I decided to examine the pages for the coins of other currencies, and saw that without expeption they exclusively list the denomination but not the currency in the header, instead placing the currency they relate to after the "value" tag. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 07:23, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

As an aside, I do actually agree "pound sterling" and "penny sterling" etc. as compound nouns are phrases that ought to be avoided, in my edits I useeither "sterling" or "the pound" to refer to the currency generally as is used in British mass media, my use of "sterling" after a denomination is purely as disambiguation in keeping with the accepted grammar, not an attempt to affirm those uses. I hope this is now cleared up. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 07:30, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

I will confess to having hoped whatever changes you made would resolve the issue. I'm not sure that it does. Looking at Shilling (British coin), by way of example, after the changes, the infobox still says "1/–, or 12d sterling" and no alteration has been made to the lede, which says a shilling "was a unit of currency that equalled ⁠1/20⁠ of one pound, or twelve pence sterling." Similarly, double florin, a FA, has been altered to say, not that it is a coin, but is "a unit of currency" and that, in the infobox, it is "4/– sterling" (I've since altered it). I don't see this as a resolution of this matter, but instead a slight rearrangement that ignores the very clear consensus that is emerging: that "sterling" should only follow "pound" or "pounds" in a denomination.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:37, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

I edited Double Florin to say it was a "denomination of sterling coinage", not a "unit of currency", that is dishonest misrepresentation. I don't think this is a "clear consensus" at all. All I was trying to do was place the qualifying adjective in an appropriate place. I initially placed it incorrectly, but I rectified that. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 17:03, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Sorry my mistake. In any event, certainly you do not have consensus for your "sterling" edits.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:12, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

I admit I made a mistake in writing such headers in the infoboxes as "Four shillings sterling", so I moved it to a more appropriate place, after the "value" tag. I cannot understand how one can justify not even including the currency the coin represents in the infobox. Surely the infobox ought to contain germaine information. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 18:53, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

I prefer Wewhalt's version. Value = 4 shillings in the infobox, 1⁄5 of pound sterling in the opening sentence is the right balance. We don't need to buttonhole our readers. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 21:10, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

I am just trying to find the most appropriate means which is simultaneously accurate and discrete. I suspect the right solution is to append only the non-verbal abbreviation with "sterling" (ie. "4/– sterling"), as this is less likely to imply the pitfalls of compound nouns. Most articles on specific coins follow this pattern. Pounds, shillings and pence were treated as discrete units and they were never cited in text as mere fractions. If an amount was not over a pound, only shillings and pence were cited, if an amount was not more than a shilling, only pence were cited. As late as the 1960s small sums could sometimes be given only in shillings (ie. 100/–).

I have a proposal which I hope is a good compromise, in the introduction:

"The British double florin or four shilling coin was a denomination of sterling coinage worth ⁠1/5⁠ of one pound or 4 shillings"

And in the infobox:

Value = 4/– sterling

This completely avoids all compound nouns in prose while still having clarity, as I would like to avoid the forms "pounds sterling", "shillings sterling" etc., in speech it is more evident "sterling" is an adjective than in text. There was infact another four shilling coin issued by a different country, the Gambia issued 4/– coins in the 1960s (the Gambia even issued a completely unique 8/– coin), so a national signifier in the intro can be justified. Especially as the article title is "double florin", there were also other coins completely unrelated to sterling struck with a value of "2 florins", such as the Austrian "shooting thaler" of 1880. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 05:17, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Your proposal would seem to run afoul of the concerns expressed at Talk:Double florin, here. I'm dubious that many people come to the double florin article looking for information on Gambian currency, but if any doubt exists, we can surely do a hatnote. The same applies to the Austrian piece. Given that the first few words of the article make it clear that a British coin is being referred to, there seems little need for your proposal, which is a repackaging of your previous ones and does not address the concerns editors have expressed here. Wehwalt (talk) 12:05, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

All I was trying to say was that someone did take issue with the intro being "The British double florin or four-shilling piece" instead of saying "The double florin or four-shilling piece was a British coin", claiming that "no other country issued a four shilling coin". I'm not exactly sure what the issue seems to be with my last proposal. I think it is a decent compromise, because it removes all of the awkward compound nouns but still appropriately lists the currency the coin was part of. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 12:34, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

I might be willing to compromise on the phrasing of the lead sentence to preface "British" if you'd let the infobox matter go. A google search shows no indication the Gambian coin was called a double florin, but let that go. Wehwalt (talk) 13:16, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Unit = Sterling in infobox of British coin articles

Regarding the latest series of edits, I think having "£(0.0XX)sterling" is a mistake. It's like saying $44 dollars, it's redundant. The issue could be solved by leaving off the sterling.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:38, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree completely and am reverting. Sterling is not a unit, so to use it like this is disruptive editing to push a POV. TCG, you are acting against a clear consensus that the word "sterling" should only be appended when disambiguation is required or at least is in any doubt. If you persist, you leave us no choice but to escalate to ANI. Please stop. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:57, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

All I was doing was moving the "sterling" tag from the head of the infobox to the "value" tag, I thought it was just a minor correction. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 08:31, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

"Value =" in infoboxes for historic sterling coinage

This question needs to held in one place, not n-tuplicated at the talk page of every coin.

TheCurrencyGuy (talk · contribs) considers it "historically dubious" to express the value of £sd coins as a decimal fraction of a pound. (Correct me if that is not a fair summary.)

This confuses two issues. £0.0125 is just a number, but one that is meaningful to a modern and international readership that has no familiarity with £sd counting. That it also happens also to be similar to the post-1971 format of presenting sterling is essentially coincidental. It is not "historically dubious", any more than it is to give the modern SI equivalents of apothecary's weights and measures. It may jar with readers who grew up with £sd but that is not a reason to remove it.

Fundamentally, what does "value" mean? It is common practice to give a direct arithmetical conversion of an old denomination into its modern equivalent. So we would, for example, give the equivalent in euros of a DM100 note printed in 1990 - and I am sure someone from Germany would find that 'frustrating' even though for the rest of us it is just a number. The reason is that what most people understand by 'value' is purchasing power. The purchasing power of a golden guinea was vastly more than that of £1.05 today, which is why it looks 'wrong' in the infobox. It is not arithmetically wrong but it doesn't seem right either. The only way I can see to resolve that issue is to add a footnote that uses {{inflation}} to provide that purchasing power information. To take the value item out of infoboxes solves nothing. John Maynard Friedman (talk) 08:10, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

The values of these coins were never defined as decimal fractions and I believe it would be misleading and confuding to readers to attempt to do so. I did not grow up with the system, I was born after decimalisation, but I do have a very strong belief in accurately representing history. The articles for coins of other non-decimal currencies do not attempt to assign a decimal value to them, because this is historically inappropriate, and looks especially strange when they turn into infinite numbers. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 08:29, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

£⁠1/5⁠ and £0.2 are identical, except that most readers are more familiar with the latter style. They represent history equally well (or equally badly). This to me is not a convincing argument.

Rather more convincing is the argument that the articles for other currencies don't attempt to do this. You remarked elsewhere that we don't give the 'value' in euros of the 1870 Prussian mark, although I think you drew the wrong inference. That it needs seven places of decimal is not [to me] the issue, but rather than it is simply not useful – even misleading. Likewise, today's pound is just as different from the 1870 pound as today's euro is from the 1870 mark: we have distracted ourselves by the fact that the name hasn't changed. This is also why my analogy with apothecaries' units doesn't really apply: in that case, the conversion is between immutable physical quantities whereas here we are dealing with anything but.

I don't like "value=" either, both for the purchasing power reason that I have already explained and also because as it currently stands, it is giving numerical equivalence, which is not the same as value.

As a general principle, it is not a good idea to try to represent complex issues in infoboxes. If something needs more than a few words of explanation and qualification, it belongs in the body, not the infobox.

To remove it would be quite a substantial change. I think we need more perspectives first. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 11:23, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

My proposal was initially to define the "value=" primarily as multiples of pennies and shillings, as in many cases the lettering stamped on the coin (half crown for example) was a name rather than a denomination in units of account. The original "gothic" florin did use the lettering "one tenth of a pound", but that lettering disappeared once people became familiar with the coin. I do spend a lot of time reading old documents, so my familiarity with how the units were represented may be strongly biased. The units tended to be defined in relation to each other rather than only as fractions of the greater unit, so a pound would be defined as 20 shillings, and a shilling as 12 pence. I could prepare a draft template noting the coins and their respective values in pounds, shillings and pence to be inserted into each article in lieu of using the "value=" tag. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 15:13, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

I think we need both to deal with the currency in its own terms, and cater for a modern reader who is used to dealing with decimal currencies and is likely to struggle with the notation. So I would fill the value column for e.g. double florin with 4/- (£0.20) or 4s (£0.20). The £ is intended to refer specifically to pre-decimal pounds, so in the case of Irish or Australian or Nigerian coins, for example, it would still give a number in pounds. I don't think there's a policy-compliant way of signalling that to the reader in the British case though. Kahastok talk 20:14, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

A possible solution might be to use the actual pre-decimal notation (eg. £x/x/x.). So the double florin for example could be listed as £–/4/–, with a reference tag including the decimal approximation. This is how each could look:

• Penny: £–/–/1
• Threepence: £–/–/3
• Sixpence £–/–/6
• Shilling: £–/1/–
• Florin: £–/2/–
• Half crown: £–/2/6
• Double florin: £–/4/–
• Crown: £–/5/–
• Quarter guinea: £–/5/3
• Third guinea: £–/7/–
• Half sovereign and 10 shilling note: £–/10/–
• Half guinea: £–/10/6
• Guinea: £1/1/–
• Double guinea: £2/2/–
• Five guineas: £5/5/–

TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 13:05, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

I think we would be better off expressing pre-decimal values in words rather than in figures and notation, though I'd agree re the decimal equivalent. It might be better to reserve the value field entirely for decimal equivalent, whilst using a second line in the denomination field for pounds/shillings pence, doing so only where it is not obvious (a threepence or shilling would not need it). I'd be OK, as a compromise, with an endnote setting out notation, but that would purely be in the interest of compromise, I don't see it as necessary.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:28, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

The Hatter enjoying a cup of tea and bread-and-butter, by Sir John Tenniel. "In this style, 10/6"

TCG, you are still fixated on this £xx/yy/zz notation. It was a shorthand. Nowhere will you find £-/2/- to represent a florin. 2/- yes, but very informally. This has already been explained to you. Please just drop it. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 14:39, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Wehwalt, the reason that this new topic was opened was because TCG thinks that value = £0.25 for a crown is not correct, that it is ahistorical. But mathematically, £⁠1/4⁠, 5s and £0.25 are all identical but for some readers the latter means a 20p plus a 5p from their pocket today, whereas [see above] the purchasing power of an 1870 crown is just over £25 at 2021 prices. So it is "just wrong". So TCG proposed then that we just discard the value= since it is impeding consensus and is not used with units of other currencies. I agree with the proposal, but because equivalence and value are entirely different concepts and the current use of the argument is for equivalence, not value. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 15:00, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

I won't stand in the way of consensus. It would not be difficult to insert a "decimal equivalent" field in the template, though.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:04, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

2/- was shorthand in the same way that 10p is a shorthand. As in, it's basically the standard way a value over a shilling (and less than a few pounds) would have been written in most real-world situations (including, for example, in shops).

As for £-/2/-, I suspect the only place you'd have found it is in something like a ledger book with preprinted columns. Using it as a standalone value looks very strange.

I have no objection to ignoring the field, though I'd prefer something like what I described earlier (possibly using a "decimal equivalent" field). Kahastok talk 15:13, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

I came up with this to propose a solution which uses both the decimal and non-decimal notations, giving greater weight to the one that was actually used. I do think it best to avoid entering a "value" altogether since it seems very difficult to find a compromise that pleases everyone but I thought there was no harm in trying. I agree £–/2/– does not look as good as 2/–, but it is how such a value would be represented in graph charts (I think I still have an old gas meter chart from the 1960s which I found when I moved into my house which uses this format). TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 23:39, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm not trying to railroad it through, I'm just making a suggestion. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 23:40, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Well, to be unambiguously clear, I strongly oppose it. I think it is ugly, meaningless to 99% of readers, contrary to the principle of clear 'at a glance' summary information in infoboxes, and fundamentally innumerate. If your purpose was to show why we should not use the value= option in the infobox, you have succeeded as far as I am concerned. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 23:53, 24 July 2022 (UTC) and I support deletion of existing value= uses and deprecation of any new ones. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 07:58, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

I would have been happy to continue working, but it is over. This website is fundamentally broken due to its schizophrenic attitude to language and pretty much everything. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 21:30, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Table to go somewhere

How does this draft look?

Values of pre-decimal sterling coins in £sd units of account

Coin	£	s	d
Quintuple sovereign	5	100	1,200
Double sovereign	2	40	480
Sovereign	1	20	240
Half sovereign	1⁄2	10	120
Crown	1⁄4	5	60
Half crown	1⁄8	21⁄2	30
Florin	1⁄10	2	24
Shilling	1⁄20	1	12
Sixpence	1⁄40	1⁄2	6
Fourpence	1⁄60	1⁄3	4
Threepence	1⁄80	1⁄4	3
Twopence	1⁄120	1⁄6	2
Three halfpence	1⁄160	1⁄8	11⁄2
Penny	1⁄240	1⁄12	1
Halfpenny	1⁄480	1⁄24	1⁄2
Farthing	1⁄960	1⁄48	1⁄4
Half farthing	1⁄1920	1⁄96	1⁄8
Third farthing	1⁄2880	1⁄144	1⁄12
Quarter farthing	1⁄3840	1⁄192	1⁄16

This template could also be adapted for other sterling-based currencies such as the Irish pound.

TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 15:52, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

I suspect that the entire template is too long and isn't really necessary to state in full for any one article. Almost no one needs to care, for example, about the quarter farthing. A subset of that template might be useful on a case-by-case basis in some articles. But I suspect such articles aren't consulted much by people who do not have a nodding acquaintance with the predecimal system. Incidentally, there is no useful conversion between the 1870 mark and the euro of today because the mark was converted to a new mark in 1924 and 1949, and the old one was in each case demonitised. The pound of 1870 is still the pound, though certainly it won't go as far.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:10, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

First off, I thought we were discussing a proposal to discontinue use of value= in the infobox. How is this table of equivalences remotely relevant? (Sorry but I don't see any value whatever in that table in any case but if others do then then the only reasonable place for it is Coins of the pound sterling, not replicated everywhere. I think that we may assume editors can do simple arithmetic for any arbitrary coin.)

It is certainly possible (though just a thought experiment, of no practical application) to derive mathematically the nominal equivalent of an 1870 mark as a fraction of a modern euro. But it will tell you nothing about its value. I dispute your assertion that "the pound of 1870 is still the pound": yes it is still called a pound but its value is very different: £102 in 2021 prices to be precise(-ish). --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:43, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Some articles on the coins of non-decimal currencies do use tables of values, that is what I was inspired by. It was just a proposal. As an aside the currency probably ought to be redenominated 100:1, but that's a discussion for another time and place. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 17:10, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

A table of coin values doesn't make sense in most coin articles, I think - certainly not one of this size. You really just want to say, sixpence was half a shilling or ⁠1/40⁠ pound. A half farthing is ⁠1/8⁠ penny, ⁠1/96⁠ shilling or ⁠1/1920⁠ pound.

In Britain, you have three basic levels - pounds, shillings and pence - that basically stayed the same for centuries. If you go into some other non-decimal currencies it can get a lot more complicated, particularly somewhere like Germany where there were different systems in different cities, that also changed over time. In those cases you might want to spell things out at bit more so that the reader can follow. Kahastok talk 20:01, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Fair enough, I had actually got the idea from the article on the Greek drachma, but these are good points. I think at this point it might be best to put the values for all three columns in the intros and leave the "value=" tag blank. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 20:18, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

References

RfC planning

I am planning a request for comment over the following two questions:

1. For the purposes of Wikipedia (i.e. not limited to this article), is the name of the British currency "pound sterling", "pound", or "sterling"?
2. For the first mention of the currency in this article's lede, should we refer to the currency as "sterling" or "pound sterling"?

Please do not opine here regarding the two questions: this discussion exists because the RfC page states that "[i]t may be helpful to discuss [my] planned RfC question on the talk page before starting the RfC, to see whether other editors have ideas for making it clearer or more concise." This discussion covers the above two questions themselves.

Thank you and please ping on reply. NotReallyMoniak (talk) 15:29, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

@NotReallyMoniak I would support moving the article to "Sterling", "Sterling (currency)", "British sterling" or "United Kingdom sterling" (the British government sometimes identifies the currency as "UK sterling"). "Pound sterling" is not a compound noun but an adjective clarifying to which currency the "pound" unit pertains, sometimes "sterling" is used instead of "pound" for absolute disambiguation when the amount of money quoted is clearly not in any subunits. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 00:05, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for pinging and engaging in consensus-building. However, I explicitly stated that this discussion is for discussing the questions themselves. If/when I do start an RfC, you are free to re-express this opinion. NotReallyMoniak (talk) 06:01, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Ahh, understood, might have jumped the gun a little there. Though I hope I may have offered some good options to place on the table for a potential new title. This question format seems fine. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 08:51, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

• Comment: Slight edit (change the pronoun in the quote) 15:32, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Request for comment

There are two questions:

1. For the purposes of Wikipedia (i.e. not limited to this article), is the name of the British currency "pound sterling", "pound", or "sterling"?
2. For the first mention of the currency in this article's lede, should we refer to the currency as "sterling" or "pound sterling"?

Thanks, NotReallySoroka (talk) 11:10, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

General comments

• Comment: It was nearly a month after I made the "RfC planning" discussion (as "NotReallyMoniak"), and I received no objections as to my question format. I hope that this RfC can definitely settle the disparity between different possible names of the British currency, and create a clear (both as in obvious, and as in easy-to-understand) consensus to that regard. NotReallySoroka (talk) 11:10, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
• @TheCurrencyGuy: You might want to move your comments from the planning section to the below RfC. I anticipate seeing you participate in building. consensus together. NotReallySoroka (talk) 11:11, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
• @John Maynard Friedman: and @TheCurrencyGuy:: May I move the following two comment threads to the "Survey (Q1)" section, since those discussions are less about the lede specifically, but more about the nomenclature in general?

1. The one starting with a JMF "Comment Perhaps another currency example will help clarify thinking."
2. The one starting with a TCG "Comment: In domestic parlance "pound", "shilling" or "penny" etc."

Thanks, NotReallySoroka (talk) 15:54, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Also pinging CapitalSasha, who commented in the second thread. NotReallySoroka (talk) 15:57, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Sorry but I'm not clear how it will make sense out of context? How much else are you planning to move? Would it work if you just moved Q2 section title down and leave the debate as it is, in the order and context submitted? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:33, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

I am planning to move only those two threads. However, I don't mind moving the "Survey (Q2)" heading immediately above where you said "Another proposal based on NRT's last". (By the way, did you mean "NRS" instead of "NRT"?) Thanks, NotReallySoroka (talk) 20:01, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes, NRS (you). --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:14, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

• I have closed Q2. However, I am uncertain what should happen with Q1. Should we leave it alone, or start a new RfC on the nomenclature? If the latter, should we send it to T:CENT? Thanks, NotReallySoroka (talk) 22:36, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

  I think the agreed-upon wording for the lead summarizes the situation, and further discussion to determine the one true name of this currency is likely not going to lead anywhere. I would just change the lead in accordance with Q1 and let the discussion in Q2 die out. CapitalSasha ~ talk 23:08, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Survey (Q1)

• Saying "the apples cost five pounds sterling" is simply unwieldy; therefore, if we refer to a specific amount of GBP, as in "twenty shilling is worth a pound", we should call it the "pound", not "sterling" (linguistically incorrect) or "pound sterling" (too unwieldy). On the other hand, if we refer to GBP as in "some European currencies include the (pound) sterling, Croatian kuna, and euro", we should refer to the GBP as the "pound sterling" on first mention to both have the reader know that we are talking about the British currency and to include the name of the currency's unit, then "sterling" afterwards for clarity and simplicity. In a nutshell, we should:

1. Use "pound" when referring to a monetary sum: "The apples cost five pounds".
2. Use "sterling" when referring to the currency unit itself: "Some countries once pegged their currency to sterling".
3. Use "pound sterling" on first mention of the British currency, regardless of what it refers to.

Thanks, NotReallySoroka (talk) 11:10, 27 August 2022 (UTC) (edited 11:20, 27 August 2022 (UTC))

• I agree with #1 and #2.
• I do not agree with #3 because "it depends". Yes, in most cases it is valid but in some, the adjective (sterling) is excessive; in others it is essential and in still others it is the word 'pound' that is redundant or inappropriate. [I trust you don't mind my changing the format to a numbered list.] --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 12:00, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

  I appreciate your feedback, and I don't mind you changing the format. Thanks, NotReallySoroka (talk) 12:04, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

I am in agreement with №1 and №2, but I do not agree with №3. I feel most English-speaking readers will already be familiar enough with the general conventions to understand what is being referred to. We can use the same convention as on the renminbi article of using "sterling" on first mention and to refer to the currency overall, while using "pound" (and "shilling" or "penny") to refer to specific sums of money or units of the currency.

My suggestion would be that we should:

• Use "pound" when referring to a monetary sum: "the shares were priced at ten pounds each".
• Use "sterling" on first mention of the British currency and when referring to the currency itself: "the invoice is denominated in sterling".

TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 12:12, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

• I agree butvI suspect that all invoices used in internal trade are priced in pounds, so your example would only apply to international trade (to specify not dollars or euros). Is there a better example? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 12:58, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

  I would cite the example of banking and financial terminology, which uses terms such as "sterling accounts" (not "pound accounts"), "sterling deposits", "sterling bonds", "sterling securities" and so on, all for domestic use. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 18:54, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

• Support "pound sterling" - As the proper term. Grammatically one should see "sterling" used as the collective ("paid in sterling") or "pound" for the individual ("costs 5 pounds"). Colloquially "pounds" or "quid". Although just "pounds" is confusable with other nations also use the term "pound", similar to the United States and Canada both use "dollar". Cheers Markbassett (talk) 15:13, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

  The affectation "pound sterling" seems to be quite rare in actual use. Most sources say either "the pound" or "sterling". As you acknowledge, sterling is the collective term, one has a "sterling account", is charged a "non-sterling purchase fee", buys "sterling bonds", has a "sterling surplus" etc. where different currencies would specify "dollar accounts", "dollar bonds" and so on, thus it appears that "sterling" is the common and official name of the currency itself without regard to specific units of account. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 17:43, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

As said below, not an “affectation” but official language “pound sterling” in the Currency Act of 1982 "The denominations of money in the currency of the United Kingdom shall be the pound sterling and the penny or new penny, being one hundredth part of a pound sterling." Cheers Markbassett (talk) 21:30, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

• Comment: The Bank of England seems to use both terms. They used "sterling" at their exchange rates page ("We publish daily spot rates against Sterling and other currencies on our database."), and "pound sterling" at their UK Notes and Coins page (​"The pound sterling is the official currency in the United Kingdom.") NotReallySoroka (talk) 15:47, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

  @John Maynard Friedman: This comment is also meant to reply to your "NRS, per WP:LEAD" comment below. Thanks, NotReallySoroka (talk) 15:48, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

  Searching the BOE website that page appears to be the only example except such statements as "Turnover value should be reported in exact sterling pounds" TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 17:52, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Look up Homer nods in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

--John Maynard Friedman (talk) 18:32, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

• No hard-and-fast rule. "Pound" and "pound sterling" are both acceptable, and we don't need to enforce one term across the whole encyclopedia. "Sterling" by itself should be avoided in most contexts, as it's uncommon enough that it may confuse readers from other countries (or at least from the US). "Sterling" seems fine in more technical contexts like the history of British currency. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 20:51, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Survey (Q2)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

The agreed-upon wording is:

Sterling (abbreviation: stg; ISO code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and its associated territories. The pound (sign: £) is the main unit of sterling, and the word "pound" is also used to refer to the British currency generally, often qualified in international contexts as the British pound or the pound sterling.

--NotReallySoroka (talk) 22:27, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

---

• Pound sterling. Despite most people - especially those in Britain - knowing that the British currency is also called "sterling", they would have heard it dubbed the "pound" in daily parlance, as in "The apples cost five pounds", perhaps "...five quids", but seldom "...five pounds sterling". Therefore, we should say "pound sterling", not simply "sterling", in the article lede, lest we start the article with an appellation that is seldom used in daily parlance. What we do afterwards is another matter, which the answer to Q1 can help with. NotReallySoroka (talk) 11:10, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

• Comment Perhaps another currency example will help clarify thinking. In Australia, a person would very happily report that "the apples cost five dollars" in their local store. Unless they were speaking to a foreigner, they wouldn't bother to specify "Australian dollars". So the answer to this one is the same as that to #3 above: it depends on context. In most circumstances, the unit is enough and the specific currency is not needed. [btw, the currency is not "also" called sterling, it is sterling. See Sterling crisis (disambiguation), Sterling area etc.] --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 12:08, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

  @John Maynard Friedman: I am referring to the lede of the pound sterling article, which currently reads "Sterling (ISO code GBP, abbreviation stg) is the official currency"... NotReallySoroka (talk) 12:35, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

  The article as it stands serves two purposes: the currency and its primary unit. There is no consensus to split (nor would it be sensible), so we must take that as a given. So IMO the article as it stands reflects that dual perspective. I guess we could reword it to open with The pound is the primary unit of sterling, the currency of the United Kingdom but it seems a bit contrived to me. WP:LEAD doesn't mandate that the title of the article must appear in the opening sentence., --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 12:49, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

  It is totally contrived, the renminbi article does no such thing, mentioning that the yuan is the main unit of renminbi after introducing the subject. It is difficult to argue that "renminbi" is more familiar to the man in the street than "sterling". TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 18:57, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

Comment: In domestic parlance "pound", "shilling" or "penny" etc. requires no mention of the currency's name. "It costs twenty-five pounds" is unambiguous and universally understood, but if one is speaking to a foreigner one will specify "twenty-five pounds sterling", as one would specify "twenty-five dollars US" in situations where disambiguation is needed. If one is asking how much a sum of a foreign currency is in British currency they would ask "how much is that in sterling?", not "how much is that in pounds?", and certainly not "how much is that in pounds sterling?". TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 12:13, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

It's not so relevant for this article, which uses British English, but I suspect that to most, say, Americans, "how much is that in pounds?" sounds perfectly natural, whereas "how much is that in sterling?" would be met with blank looks. CapitalSasha ~ talk 17:51, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

We cannot assert an assumption not rooted in any citable sources. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 18:55, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

It would be met with blank looks in GB too, where there has been only one kind of pound for 320 years. It might be understood in Ireland, where there were two kinds of pound until 20 years ago but certainly be met with surprise. Who are you, Rip van Winkel? The term is only used of the currency in the abstract: for transactions, only pounds. That, in a nutshell, is why we have one article, not two. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 22:32, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

Is the Office for National Statistics a good enough source? [7]

• Average Sterling exchange rate: Euro XUMAERS - "sterling exchange rate", not "pound exchange rate"
• ESA: CG: LI: FLOW: F.33111, Sterling treasury bills - "sterling treasury bills", not "pound treasury bills"
• The impact of sterling depreciation on prices and turnover in the UK manufacturing sector: 2017 - "sterling depreciation", not "pound depreciation"

TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 09:35, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Looks good to me. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 10:14, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Comment: Maybe we can have this for the lede instead?

"Sterling (ISO code GBP, abbreviation stg) is the official currency of the United Kingdom and its associated territories, whose main unit is known as the pound (sign: £). The currency itself may be referred to by the compound noun pound sterling..."

Thanks, NotReallySoroka (talk) 23:46, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

This avoids the awkwardness of having a one-sentence paragraph in the lead by integrating it with the next paragraph, while maintaining all key facts currently present. NotReallySoroka (talk) 23:47, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

I do not agree that "pound sterling" is a compound noun, it does not appear to be one, it is a qualifying adjective, much as one could describe the main unit of the Chinese currency as "renminbi yuan". TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 09:42, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

No, the currency itself may not be referred to as "pound sterling", irrespective of type of noun. Your proposed statement is simply untrue and you will not find an RS anywhere to support it. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 10:14, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

The statement that the plural is "pounds sterling" is also rather dubious, because if a sum contains shillings or pence "sterling" is always appended after the last unit whichever one is used, whether in decimal or pre-decimal sterling. One says "twenty-five pounds, eighty-nine pence sterling", never "twenty-five pounds sterling, eighty-nine pence". I used the eviction notice a while back as an example of the grammatically correct way to use the word "sterling" in relation to the units. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 12:40, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

True but very footnote. In English grammar, the adjective is not pluralised when the noun is. But on reflection I think that the plural should go in the footnote along with the explanation of the suffixed qualifier, so let's just park this one until we resolve the opening sentence dispute. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 13:27, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

I don't plan to get very involved in this RfC, but to the extent that this comment is intended to back-door the rejected phrasing in various numismatic articles that includes "penny sterling" or "shilling sterling" and variants, I strongly oppose it. Wehwalt (talk) 13:39, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

It is not, infact it is quite the opposite. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 14:40, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

So following this RfC, I won't see any changes to articles to say, for example, that the half crown is two shillings and sixpence sterling? All that is settled and this RfC won't affect it? Wehwalt (talk) 18:48, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

It will not, I am seeking to decouple "pound" and "sterling" except as a qualifying adjective. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 09:15, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Another proposal building on NRT's last:

• Sterling (ISO code GBP, abbreviation stg) is the official currency of the United Kingdom and its associated territories, whose main unit is known as the pound (sign: £). Since historically, many countries have had a currency unit called 'pound': the British pound is traditionally identified as the pound sterling.

Better? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 13:27, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

This is heading in the right direction, my proposal is thus:

Sterling (ISO code GBP, abbreviation: stg) is the official currency of the United Kingdom and its associated territories.

The pound (sign: £) is the main unit of sterling, but the word is also used to refer to the British currency generally, especially in international contexts, where it may be identified as the British pound or the pound sterling, the latter including the disambiguating adjectival form to distinguish from other currencies with a similarly named unit.

I based it on the lede of the renminbi article, adding a few words on the adjectival nature of "sterling" when appended to "pound", "shilling", "penny" etc. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 14:59, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

How about:

Sterling (ISO code GBP, abbreviation stg) is the official currency of the United Kingdom and its associated territories, whose main unit is known as the pound (sign: £). Sterling is also commonly (but unofficially) known as the pound sterling (plural "pounds sterling") or the British pound. One pound is divided...

I think it's just me, but I don't want to have a one-sentence paragraph start the article, and I think that the first two paragraph can be combined into one. NotReallySoroka (talk) 16:17, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

The indication of the plural is misleading, "sterling" is only ever appended as an adjective to the final amount, regardless of whether or not the sum ends in a pound, a shilling or a penny. One would not say "five pounds sterling, fifty-seven pence", that is grammatically incorrect. The plural of "pound" is "pounds", with "sterling" appended as a disambiguating adjective. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 18:25, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

I wish I had never introduced the plural and will now take it back out. The lead is no place for a grammar lesson. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:49, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Coming back to the opening sentence(s): as any good journalist will tell you, the opening sentence should aim to grab the essentials of the story as succinctly as possible. These are the three points we must capture:

1. The currency of the United Kingdom is "sterling".
2. The "pound" is the primary unit of that currency.
3. For centuries, the English pound (later, the British pound) has been distinguished from other pounds (initially Scotland and Ireland, later the colonies) by tagging it as pound sterling.

Does anyone disagree with these principles? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:49, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Not just the Irish and Scots currencies, but European ones too. Until the end of the 19th century all other currencies with a name relating to the Roman "libra pondo" were always translated to "pound". It wasn't until the 1960s that the Turkish lira stopped being called the "Turkish pound" in English language sources. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 17:35, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Disagree, check. None of those seem quite accurate as the discussion has been showing. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 22:20, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

TCG, I'm afraid that your version misses the succinctness criterion – you are overloading it. Give subsequent sentences of the lead something to do.

NRS, you are still trying to push the idea that "pound sterling" is an alias for sterling when that is just not true. To say otherwise in the opening sentence would destroy the credibility of the rest of the article sight unseen. I could believe that there are many people who believe that "pound" is the currency of the UK but not that there are significant numbers who believe that of "pound sterling" – adding the qualifier means that you already have some idea of the background. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:49, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Is this slight edit succinct enough?

Sterling (Abbreviation: stg; ISO code: GBP) is the official currency of the United Kingdom and its associated territories.

The pound (sign: £) is the main unit of sterling, but the word is also used to refer to the British currency generally, especially in international contexts, where it may be identified as the British pound or the pound sterling.

TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 09:20, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

[edit conflict, inserted in logical sequence rather than strict chronological] That works for me (but I guess Wikipedia:Mandy Rice-Davies applies ) except that [[Pound (currency)|pound]] should not be in bold and the word 'sterling' (in the ultimate "pound sterling") should not be in italic (per MOS:ITALIC and it just looks weird).

NRS, per WP:LEAD, the lead should summarise body content, so where in the body is there some text that says that "pound sterling" may be seen used to refer to the currency generally? (I was trying to find a citation.) --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 15:36, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

• Initially use "pound sterling" - as best serving MOS:FIRST "If possible, the page title should be the subject of the first sentence." After first use things should vary, but 'sterling' or 'pound' seems a grammatical shortening and not an alternative name that should be in the initial lines. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 15:25, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

• MOS:FIRST says "where possible" because there are cases where it would be contrived: terms have to be defined first. There is zero requirement that the title be the first three words. By changing a full stop to a semi-colon in TCG's latest proposal (slightly modified per my comment) we get it in the first sentence:

  Sterling (Abbreviation: stg; ISO code: GBP) is the official currency of the United Kingdom and its associated territories; the pound (sign: £) is the main unit of sterling, but the word is also used to refer to the British currency generally, especially in international contexts, where it may be identified as the British pound or the pound sterling.

Hozzzattt! (Yes, I know, contrived to jump through a hoop to make a point). --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 15:36, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Don't think so - I don't think "where possible" is an issue here, and placement in the first line actually seems the clearest and simplest way. One could simply start "The Pound sterling (GBP) is the official currency of the United Kingdom and its associated territories.". By the way, for a claim it is "official currency" the cite should change from a generic dictionary to a GOV.UK document, such as the Currency Act of 1982 "The denominations of money in the currency of the United Kingdom shall be the pound sterling and the penny or new penny, being one hundredth part of a pound sterling." Cheers Markbassett (talk) 16:29, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

The Currency Act, 1982 was an amendment of a prior act, the Decimal Currency Act, 1969. All the 1982 act did was change the name of the centesimal fraction of the pound from "New Penny" to "Penny". Sterling's official status is as per the principle of time immemorial, defined in law as AD 1189 TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 17:19, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Checking other acts, they exclusively use "sterling" to refer to the currency generally, using "pound(s) sterling" to refer to specific amounts of money, or in the case of the 1982 act, the division of a specific unit of account. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 17:31, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Specifically, it is absolutely not the case that "The Pound sterling (GBP) is the official currency of the United Kingdom". Sterling is the official currency of the UK (and before that, Great Britain; and before that, England - and back to Anglo-Saxon times when nobody outside the Treasury ever even used the term). The pound (today) is merely its primary unit. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:39, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Back when sterling was established as England's currency there were not even any coins above a penny (denier as the Normans would have said) in existence. A "pound" was an accounting convenience; a (tower) pound of penny coins struck in sterling silver. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 17:46, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

As is all explained in the article (see, for example, Pound sterling#Etymology). This is really basic stuff. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 18:28, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Interesting - but I seem the only one who gave a GOV.UK cite which supports the other way, and need to see something official about “pound sterling” to serve WP:V in the lead line cite. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 21:41, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Support - looks fine to me! TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 17:34, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Arbitrary break for editing convenience

I would start a new sentence at the words "the pound", and also bold the word "pound" (i.e. ... territories. The pound...), to avoid the semi-colon, and to draw attention to the name of sterling's main unit. NotReallySoroka (talk) 19:59, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

To introduce the currency first and the unit next is more natural but I guess we could have something like The pound is the primary unit of sterling, the currency of the United Kingdom. The term pound sterling distinguishes it from other currencies with a unit called "pound". Rather awkward, but it's a start. Improvement welcome. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 21:17, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

It just seems very awkward and forced. is "sterling" genuinely less familiar to English-speaking readers than "renminbi"? TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 14:39, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

This was my suggestion:

Sterling (Abbreviation: stg; ISO code: GBP) is the official currency of the United Kingdom and its associated territories.

The pound (sign: £) is the main unit of sterling, but the word is also used to refer to the British currency generally, especially in international contexts, where it may be identified as the British pound or the pound sterling. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 14:46, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately it appears that your proposal does not enjoy consensus support. There is nothing to be gained by reiterating it. Clearly we wouldn't be in this mess if "sterling" were indeed familiar to most readers. It doesn't even seem familiar to many British readers so you can forget about anyone else.

So my new suggestion is trying to meet NotReallySoroka and others half way but still gets the basics right: it affirms that sterling is the currency and the pound is [just] its primary unit. It just inverts the order of presentation. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:40, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

I was just stating that NRS seemed to be affirming my proposal. Note that they included the final word of the first sentence "territories." TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 20:51, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

We really need to bring this debate to a close. So let me restate my proposal formally. I believe that this reflects both the concern for accuracy that TCG and I have expressed as well as the concern for familiarity that NRS and others have identified:

• The pound (sign, £) is the primary unit of sterling (ISO code: GBP, abbreviation: stg), the currency of the United Kingdom. The terms pound sterling and British pound are sometimes used, especially in international contexts, to refer to the unit, the currency or both.

If we are to get this RFC wrapped up, the opening sentence will need to be concise and unambiguous, so complications like its use in Crown Dependencies and historically in former colonies will have to go to subsequent sentences. The same applies to questions over what is 'correct' usage (which really belongs in the body in any case).

@NotReallySoroka:, as instigator of the RFC, can you accept that this is as good as we are going to get and close it so that we can all move on? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 11:19, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

I just think it extremely strange to force this here when no such thing is done on the renminbi article. Therefore I oppose this wording. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 20:52, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

The parallel doesn't hold good. This article is not just about sterling, it is about the pound and about sterling. But it is more about the pound than it is about sterling. The nearest equivalent article is Yuan (currency) which reads The yuan (/juːˈɑːn, -æn/; sign: ¥; Chinese: 圓/元; pinyin: yuán; [ɥæ̌n] ) is the base unit of a number of former and present-day currencies in Chinese.. There is zero prospect of splitting this article in the same way but you can try another RFC after this one is concluded. -John Maynard Friedman (talk) 22:24, 2 September 2022 (UTC) revised --22:32, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

I do not intend to split the article, there is already a page at pound (currency) (which probably needs some expansion). This article is about sterling, the currency in general, how it interacts with other currencies, the denominations issued (which include amounts that are not "a pound"), inflation rates etc., not about the etymology or history of a specific unit of the currency like pound, shilling, penny or new penny. I would argue the parallel holds up completely. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 01:43, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

I see the parallel ("pound" is to "yuan" as "sterling" is to "renminbi"), but I think that generalizing it to other currencies (that has a different name for its unit) would need a separate discussion. NotReallySoroka (talk) 06:01, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

@John Maynard Friedman: I would like to disagree with closing this RfC. For instance, TheCurrencyGuy had opposed the proposed wording, and this RfC only had me, you, TCG, and two or three commentators. I think that the first sentence of such a prominent article would benefit from a more thorough discussion. NotReallySoroka (talk) 06:00, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

I quite agree it needs further discussion.

The "pound" article definitely needs some expansion. It is little more than a stub with some lists attached at the moment compared to similar articles like dollar, franc, mark etc. I'll see what I can do with it. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 06:17, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

@NotReallySoroka:, this discussion has meandered for a month without really progressing. People are saying essentially the same thing in different ways. No-one new has contributed meaningfully in weeks My last draft was a final attempt to reconcile the different perspectives but has not succeeded. I see no real alternative to asking for dispute resolution but with embarrassment because the dispute seems so trivial. The underlying cause of friction is a fundamental difference in perspectives (see next). You have contributed nothing to move us forward: when it seemed like we were close to a solution, rather than debate it you just made a new announcement [start of this sub-subsection]. Your latest contribution just amounts to filibuster. How, credibly, is anything going to change by extending the RFC? Is there really any editor left with the knowledge and interest in the topic?

@TheCurrencyGuy: The reason those other articles are so big is that there is no distinction between the name of the currency and the name of its primary unit. Sterling+pound and Remnimbi+yuan are the only exceptions to that worldwide norm. No matter how much you want it to be and try to make it so, this article is not Sterling (currency). Your arguments are based on that false premise and thus invalid. You will not be allowed to develop the pound article into a WP:fork of this one, so as to achieve a split by stealth. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 09:31, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

I don't think you quite understand what I meant. You have already agreed that sterling is the currency, and this article is about the currency, not about "pound" as a unit of currency. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 15:44, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

I think I know exactly what you mean and it is not correct. Yes, sterling is the currency and the pound is its primary unit. BUT this article is not just about the currency, although you have tried in various ways to make it so. It is about both terms and it will stay that way unless and until a "request to split" has consensus. This RFC has happened because of your attempts to force your perspective. It is evident that others see it as being just about the pound (largely, I believe, because no other OECD country has this distinction between its currency and primary unit, so the distinction is too fine to see).

Per WP:STATUSQUO, failure to agree a compromise wording means that the the article revers to the version as it was before your disputed editing: The pound sterling (symbol: £; ISO code: GBP), known in some contexts simply as the pound or sterling, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Gibraltar, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, the British Antarctic Territory, and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence (singular: penny, abbreviated: p). The "pound sterling" is the oldest currency in continuous use. Some nations that do not use sterling also have currencies called the pound. Is that really what you want? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:51, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Then I have no idea what the article is supposed to be about if not the currency of the United Kingdom and associated territories. You seem to have done a bit of a 180 in your position on the matter.

The article pound exists to describe the history and etymology of that name of a unit of many different currencies. Would you also wish to mash together dollar and United States dollar? Or franc and French franc? Because the core principle is exactly the same. Your last proposal did not appeal to anybody, whereas NotReallySoroka seemed to be agreeing with my proposal which you rejected out of hand because you misinterpreted their initial statement. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 23:08, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

@John Maynard Friedman: If by "a new announcement", you mean my comment where I said "I would start a new sentence at the words "the pound"," then I would like to clarify that I agree with your suggested lede (the one immediately above where you said "Hozzzattt!"), with the sole exception that I would like to see the semicolon gone.

I have no desire to extend this RfC beyond the standard 30 days, unless (and only unless) the closer decides to extend it. Moreover, WP:RFCCLOSE states that "[t]he RfC participants can agree to end it at any time", although I prefer to keep it open until TheCurrencyGuy and us can settle on something.

While TCG must follow Wikipedia:Consensus, if they make a move/merge request on sterling-related articles and argue "But this RfC says so", that's their right as long as they seek consensus first. I would argue, however, that renminbi/yuan is WP:OTHERSTUFF and should be discussed separately. NotReallySoroka (talk) 00:18, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

I also support JMF's "hozzzattt" suggestion, with or without semicolon. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 02:45, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

The semicolon is required to make grammatical sense. Splitting the sentence (at the semicolon) is an alternative. Bazza (talk) 09:08, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Good grief, Charlie Brown! I think we have a consensus! Let's quit while we're ahead!

@NotReallySoroka:, thank you, I had forgotten about the 30 day rule. We should aim now to make it clear to the closer that we do indeed have a substantial consensus. Would you care to summarise (essentially, I think, replicate my proposal – with a full stop instead of a semi-colon)? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 15:20, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Current proposal

• The current proposal, based on John Maynard Friedman's "hozzzattt" suggestion, is:

• Sterling (Abbreviation: stg; ISO code: GBP) is the official currency of the United Kingdom and its associated territories. The pound (sign: £) is the main unit of sterling, but the word is also used to refer to the British currency generally, especially in international contexts, where it may be identified as the British pound or the pound sterling.

NotReallySoroka (talk) 05:22, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Comment: I have fixed the indent of the green text. NotReallySoroka (talk) 05:28, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Reminder that this lacks an official cite for WP:V support. (It also still does not follow the MOS:FIRST guidance). The cites to GOV.UK and BoE given in discussion supported “pound sterling” as the proper term, not seeing anything for the collective “sterling” or colloquial and enumerated “pound” and “quid”. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 06:33, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

You will note that I pointed out that the result from the BoE was literally the only instance on their entire site. You are being deliberately misleading. You gave a single example from 40 years ago which was easily explained. I cited many examples from gov.uk. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 00:38, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

I support this wording. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 00:39, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

@Markbassett:,

• per WP:LEADCITE: it is not required (and may just add even more clutter) to cite statements in the lead that are fully cited in the body, as is the case here.
• re MOS:FIRST: we have already discussed this but let me set it out again even more clearly.
  • The term "pound sterling" is not a WP:COMMONNAME outside foreign exchange and import/export contexts. (All the .gov.uk cases that I can find are in that context, except some old sources at the National Archives when there were many more 'overseas' pounds such as the Australian pound.) Common usage in the UK is just "pound", unqualified – as indeed it is in most Anglophone countries. So we have to design the opening sentence to match the expectation of most readers, not of ForEx traders who don't need it anyway.
  • MOS:FIRST does not require that the first phrase in the sentence is the title of the article, it recommends it. (If possible, the page title should be the subject of the first sentence.) WP:Ignore all rules recognises that there will always be cases where the general rule does not work and local consensus may over-rule it. (Another topical example is Brexit and the Irish border – an excellent name for the article but rubbish as an opening phrase.) The proposal as given has the words pound and sterling in immediate succession in the same first sentence and the second sentence has the phrase pound sterling given explicitly. So the opening sentences are very close to compliance with MOS:FIRST and so clearly accord with its spirit if not precisely its letter. The contrived MOS:FIRST-compliant version I wrote (to prove a point) has no support, not even mine.

So rather than rely on wp:wikilawyering to make your case, would you please give cogent reasons why the proposal is not valid and, more importantly, propose an alternative. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 13:52, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

• LEADCITE begins “The lead must conform to verifiability” and there is no such cite that I see. I invite you to state what GOV.UK cite you think is in the body which supports the first line statement as to “official currency”. Meanwhile, my pointing out that the cite on the first line does not state that and as an online dictionary is not authority to say so remains a valid issue of V failure.
• MOS FIRST guidance is simply guidance, and I point out that not following it the article has poor writing. There is nothing to ‘require’ the article to do convoluted poor writing. That the “Pound sterling” article starts by going on with parenthetical interruptions about ISO codes, abbreviations, alternates usages, yadda yadda, before negatively defining a “pound sterling” is just not as clear a direct statement about pound sterling. In particular, note MOS FIRST guidance explicitly states

The first sentence should tell the nonspecialist reader what or who the subject is, and often when or where. It should be in plain English.

Try to not overload the first sentence by describing everything notable about the subject.

Be wary of cluttering the first sentence with a long parenthesis containing alternative spellings, pronunciations, etc., which can make the sentence difficult to actually read; this information should be placed elsewhere.

If possible, the page title should be the subject of the first sentence. (Except for things not applicable here - descriptive titles, ‘list of’ articles, and disambiguating specification.)

Cheers

Markbassett (talk) 22:02, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

If you take a cursory glance at other currency articles, they all begin by citing the ISO code and any relevant abbreviations or symbols in parentheses immediately after giving the name of the relevant currency.

Almost all the currency articles also state that the currency in question is "the official currency of x country or territory" in their initial sentences. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 10:57, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

• Well (a) they typically start with the article title phrase form, such as "Pound sterling", and "currency" not "official currency"; (b) this is a little offtopic of the RFC but yes vastly most (but not "all") also have the code and such which is poor narrative and odd because it is redundant with the info box immediately to the side. I have indeed taken a cursory look at List of circulating currencies and a few others such as the French franc and Deutsche Mark and Japanese yen. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 23:03, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

  So your complaint is a far more general issue with the format used, and this is inappropriate to bring up in a discussion relating to a specific article.

  The New Franc and the Deutschmark are not currently circulating, so cannot be used as a direct comparison. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 08:11, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

  No. My complaint is that it fails WP:V, with a follow up sentence on how the cites are not sufficient. That it also does not follow MOS:FIRST is a literally parenthesized remark about an additional issue.

And my “not all” was referring to both current and recent past - you were overstated things with “all” at “other currency articles, they all begin by citing the ISO code”. I did your suggested cursory look and reported factually that it seems most do, but not all. Markbassett (talk) 17:03, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Pause for reconsideration of sources

Although I have argued strongly for "sterling is the currency, the pound is its primary unit; the long form 'pound sterling' is used when needed to distinguish from other kinds of pound" because I have always understood that to be the case. But here is the problem: I have been unable to find a WP:RS that says so in unequivocal terms. On the other hand, we certainly do have an unequivocal headline statement at the BoE site "The pound sterling is the official currency in the United Kingdom." Yes, there are hundreds of examples on the BoE site of where the term "sterling" is used to mean the currency, but there are others where the term "the pound" is used in the same way: this may suggest that either is simply a shorthand version of the long form. So, unless anyone else can find even one equally unequivocal statement that supports my original belief, I will have to withdraw my proposed wording. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 10:37, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

What is it that you are withdrawing? Support for the phrase "pound sterling"? TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 10:04, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

The wording given above at #Current proposal.

because if we can't find countervailing citations, the only option is The pound sterling (symbol £, ISO 4217 code GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom. This long form name is usually abbreviated as pound (domestic transactions) or sterling (foreign exchange).

Examples of use do not make valid citations. But this one is instructive: Both the pound and Britain’s government bonds, or “gilts”, have been bludgeoned. Sterling has dropped by 15% against the dollar since the start of the year. The author uses "sterling" and "the pound" the interchangeably, as journalists do (it's a news story, not a text book). --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:08, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

That single page on the BOE website is the "odd man out", so to speak. I don't think there are nearly enough citations for anyone to assert "pound sterling" as the name of the currency and not a mere adjectival disambiguation.

I've decided to browse WikiSource for some examples which seem appropriate. It appears from all historical evidence that the identification of the currency as "pound sterling" is a 20th century affectation and not an actual name anybody ever used. The term "sterling money" appears to be the actual root form from which all others grew. (emphasis is mine)

• "The mark of gold being estimated at a hundred and twenty-five piastres, and that of silver at eight piastres, the total amount, in sterling money, of the produce of the mines, during the above ten years, will be found to have been of the value of 7,703,545l."[8]
• "The purchase of a bill on France, consists in the payment of a certain amount in sterling money to a merchant trading with France, against his giving an assignment for the same value on a French merchant"[9]
• "The stipend of the master of the Edinburgh sang school appears to have been the modest allowance of ten pounds in sterling money."[10]
• "It was rested upon the force of the treaty which declared that creditors on either side (British or American), should meet with no lawful impediment to the recovery of the full value, in sterling money, of all bona fide debts theretofore contracted".[11]
• "When once the kingdom is reduced to such a condition, I will tell you what must be the end: the gentlemen of estates will all turn off their tenants for want of payments, because, as I told you before, the tenants are obliged by their leases to pay sterling, which is lawful current money of England"[12]
• "Dr. Johnson, disciplined in the school of poverty, but of English poverty, smiled at the emoluments of Boece, which he estimates at 2l. 4s. 6d. of sterling money."[13]
• "...the sum of thirteen thousand two hundred and seventy-three Peruvian soles, 72/100 silver, or its equivalent in British sterling..."[14]
• "...and the sum of fifty thousand pounds sterling money of Great Britain..."[15]

TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 19:34, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes, indeed there wasn't even a pound coin [sovereign] before the Great Recoinage of 1816 and it was 1914 before the first £1 note was issued [16] – interestingly it says "One Pound", no mention of sterling. For that matter, none of the banknotes of whatever era say sterling either, just pounds.

As I already said, I had no difficulty in finding hundreds of examples of usage such as those you have selected. But to draw an inference from those examples is WP:OR and won't stand scrutiny. We need to find a reliable source to have made the statement that sterling is the currency and then we can cite it and, as I said, I have not been able to find it. Not even one source, let alone a preponderance of sources. I suppose you could do an Freedom of Information Act request to the BoE to request clarification?

BTW, be careful not to undermine your case by selective quotation. Your last selection is more honestly read as "...and the sum of fifty thousand pounds sterling money of Great Britain...". and the preceding "... 72/100 silver, or its equivalent in British sterling." seems just as likely to mean "in British sterling silver" as sterling pounds. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:57, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Then what solution is there? Surely "pound sterling" cannot be asserted either because that would similarly be WP:OR of a far more dubious nature since this form basically doesn't appear, it is solely an inference drawn from the adjectival disambiguation. The Corporate Finance Manual of His Majesty's Revenue & Customs uses the word "sterling" many times, but uses the expression "pound sterling" only three times throughout the entire manual, and two of those are when comparing specific sums of money. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 21:26, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Fundamentally, if the Bank of England states unequivocally (as it does) that "the pound sterling is the [...] currency of the United Kingdom", then we must accept it as fact. No credible question of OR arises, we are not drawing any inferences, it is a direct report of the most reliable source there is for this subject. It doesn't matter that they only say so once, they don't contradict it anywhere else: so once is enough. We have no reliable source that says otherwise. We have no choice but to word the article accordingly. At least until someone finds a better source than the monetary authority itself. Or they revise it in the light of an FoIA enquiry. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 23:52, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Is the Royal Mint good enough? [17]

Sterling describes the British currency. It is a word that we see in the pages of the financial press and also, for instance, on travellers cheques when we go abroad. But sterling as a word has come to stand not just for the currency but also more generally for laudable qualities such as steadfastness, honour and integrity; yet, for all that it is so much a part of our lives, its derivation is curiously obscure and elusive.

A single (likely dubious) sentence in a header on the Bank of England's website is probably of lesser value than a descriptive source from the Royal Mint. I do not believe the sources I found on WikiSource constitute "original research" in any way
WP:OR states the following:

Wikipedia articles must not contain original research. The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist.[a] This includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not stated by the sources. To demonstrate that you are not adding original research, you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article, and directly support[b] the material being presented.

All the examples I provided are published sources whose content is readily understandable to any native English-speaker, hardly "original research". TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 03:25, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

• Page 36 of The Commonwealth in Brief declares "sterling-the currency of the United Kingdom"
• Page 336 of the United States Congressional Serial Set uses the expression "British sterling" to describe the currency generally, referring to "pound sterling" when describing the unit of account.
• Page 2 of The money, weights & measures of the chief commercial nations in the world states: "The money of account consists of pounds, shillings, and pence sterling" and goes on to use the term "British sterling" as the general term for the currency.
• Page 487 of the U.S. Army Area Handbook for Nigeria. Second Edition, March 1964 states "Nigeria is on a sterling exchange standard. Its currency is not redeemable in monetary metals but in British sterling", later using "pound sterling" solely as the disambiguating adjective "...and like the pound sterling it is officially worth $2.80 in United States currency"
• Page 1155 of the Kenya National Assembly Official Record (Hansard) Feb 23 - Apr 2, 1971 describes the currency as "British sterling".

TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 06:29, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

• The different usages of "pound sterling", "sterling", "pound", etcetera seem a good topic for a subsection of the article on usages vary and grammar. For me an RS issue was what would be needed to use the adjective "official", versus cites that were WP:TERTIARY and side remarks, rather than anything official or talking about something official, and that there are differing usages mean one should not simply state it per WP:WIKIVOICE. Basically, if WP is going to state His Majesty's Government made a position, then it needs a cite to a government document which shows that position being made officially or at least something discussing such an item. Preferably something at GOV.UK, rather than a cite to commercial CO.UK or informal remarks. (But the only GOV.UK I had found was the Currency Act of 1982 "The denominations of money in the currency of the United Kingdom shall be the pound sterling and the penny or new penny, being one hundredth part of a pound sterling.") Cheers Markbassett (talk) 15:46, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

You keep holding on to that act for grim death, even though as it itself says "denominations of money", specific units of account. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 03:34, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

User:TheCurrencyGuy You keep not looking at the key point of it is the *only* cite I found for “official” which is why I keep pointing it out. And note I did not fail to show by quote that it is about denominations of “currency”. I would welcome if you do better at searching government documents than I, but for now I suggest just drop the adjective “official” as it cannot point to something of His Majesty’s Government officially saying something, so it seems factually not proper to use “official”. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 16:22, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

And you are both making inferences of what it means. The fact that you each draw an equally credible but opposed inference from it underlines the point that it is not a usable citation. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 15:03, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

The BoE site also uses it. But surely the word "official" is seriously redundant? It's not like Zimbabwe where the official currency is the Zimbabwe Dollar but the de facto currency is USD, ZAR, GBP, anything except the cigarette rolling paper issued by .gov.zw. Does anybody really want to retain that word? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:57, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm fine with taking out "official". TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 19:10, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

@TheCurrencyGuy:, I think these sources are much closer to what we need, but they are not without problems:

1. First, regarding WP:OR "any analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not stated by the sources" is exactly what we are doing when we infer a definition from texts that merely use the term without defining it. As with your previous selection, most of these are not valid citations, they would be tagged as {{not in source given}} because they do not define their terms.
2. The Royal Mint source seems to deliberately and consciously avoid the definition we need. "Sterling describes the British currency" (my emphasis). Why "describes"? Why not simply "is"? That is rather worrying and it seems to accord with my #6 below, that 'sterling' is a disambiguation term?
3. You have no basis whatever to describe the Bank of England page as "likely dubious". We cannot ignore it – see Wikipedia:Cherrypicking. So we have to demonstrate that the preponderance of RSs disagree.
4. The Commonwealth in Brief citation is exactly what we need: a clear and unequivocal definition. Finally! One all.
5. United States Congressional Serial Set is more or less what we want, though perhaps a neutral editor should evaluate. Personally I prefer page 335: Jamaica: The currency of the United Kingdom is the currency of the island. [...] Accounts are kept in British sterling. One for the video referee?
6. The money, weights & measures of the chief commercial nations in the world is another unequivocally defining source, but it is actually in the footnote of page 2 and in my reading, takes us back to square one: The Term sterling distinguishes the currency of Great Britain and Ireland from that of the British Colonies, and from some Continental moneys bearing the same names. In other words, the currency is the pound and "sterling" is a disambiguation adjective.
7. Page 487 of the U.S. Army Area Handbook for Nigeria. Second Edition, March 1964 does not contain any definition but does use the term "the pound sterling". So not a valid citation pro or con.
8. The Hansard of the Parliament of Kenya uses the term, it does not define it. And even the way it is used is amenable to both interpretations. Again, not a valid citation.

So I am not yet entirely convinced that we have passed the "balance of probabilities" test, let alone "beyond reasonable doubt". @Markbassett and NotReallySoroka:, what do you think? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:38, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

These are the points I would like to offer my own opinion on (the others I will refrain from passing comment on until more thoughts have been shared).

• 6. The money, weights & measures of the chief commercial nations in the world associates "currency" with "sterling", and "pound" with "moneys". Currency in this context seems to equate to the abstract general concept while the word "moneys" refers to the physical coins and banknotes.
• 7. The U.S. Army Area Handbook for Nigeria. Second Edition, March 1964 does appear to affirm that "British sterling" as a term for currency in modern parlance means the fiat money of the United Kingdom and not "monetary metals" (ie. gold or silver).

TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 05:02, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I'm afraid you are drawing inferences again. IMO (sic), #6 distinguishes the UK pound from e.g. the Australian pound by attaching sterling as an adjective – but that is my inference and so is equally invalid as a usable citation. #7 has the same problem: "does appear" won't do. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 15:03, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

The money, weights & measures of the chief commercial nations in the world is quite consistent in its usage, The introduction defines and distinguishes the concept of currency in general and the "denominations and divisions of money in which accounts are kept". I would say it is quite explicit. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 17:40, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

User:TheCurrencyGuy - Mostly (a) Since there is such difficulty in getting support maybe we are simply going the wrong way and the “Pound sterling” is not simply “the currency” as shown by this difficulty, so searches should start looking for what is said to convey in the article rather than trying to support a priori presumptions. To a lesser extent (b) generally for RS I would deprecate as weak those that are minor or casual or verbal usages or side discussions, and prefer any focused on the term and substantive. In particular the brief item of a header at Bank of England, entomology of sterling as an adjective at Royal Mint Museum, and verbal record from Kenya. They are all good organizations, but WP:RS also looks at WP:CONTEXTMATTERS and WP:SOURCETYPES. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 17:27, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Then what are you proposing? The number of sources for "pound sterling" as the name of the currency is infinitesimally tiny and it seems pretty well cut and dried to me from the overwhelming mass of evidence in published sources that "sterling" is the name of the currency, in general, without regard to any specific denomination or unit of account. Most currencies do not have a name as such and resort to using their chief unit of account + a demonym (eg. Serbian dinar). TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 18:09, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

But we do have one (for pound sterling): the Bank of England page, which makes it authoritative. The number of sources that define sterling to be the currency are equally limited: again we have just one – The Commonwealth in Brief, which is arguably less authoritative.

It may well be "cut and dried" to you "from the overwhelming mass of evidence in published sources that "sterling" is the name of the currency," but only one of the sources (The Commonwealth in Brief) explicitly says so. As for the rest, you are drawing a WP:OR and WP:SYNTH inference, because you have no idea whether the writer is using an unambiguous term or just a convenient shorthand. To illustrate what I mean: at the end of today's BBC Six O'Clock News on Radio Four, you may have heard On the currency markets, the pound was trading at $1.1389 and against the euro, sterling was at €1.1442 making a euro worth 87.4p. I infer [sic] that the BBC either (a) regards either word as a valid name for the currency or (b) that the currency is "pound sterling", which may be abbreviated as "pound" or "sterling" at will. Since I have no evidence for my surmise, it is just another editor's inference and so useless as a citation. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 21:19, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

I do not think a single sentence on a website which does not otherwise use the construction is remotely authoritative. What evidence do you have that "pound sterling" is a name? So far you've been struggling to justify this backwards working from something that otherwise has no supporting citations at all and have attempted to handwave every single source offered.

I'm not sure what sort of source you're demanding, because you seem to hold a single sentence above all other material in existence. No matter what I offer I'm sure you'll just claim "oh its just abbreviation of pound sterling".

• This BoE document never uses the word "pound" once, not a single time, even though it is happy to use "dollar" throughout. The same is true of very many documents of similar provenance, but I doubt offering any will please you because you'll just claim its a contraction.

TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 00:07, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

User:TheCurrencyGuy “Then what are you proposing?” Just that cites being so weak or remote makes me wonder if perhaps things are more fundamentally gang aft from what a “pound sterling” article should say. That we are seriously going to Kenyan verbal remarks or a 1964 United States publication to have anything just feels like it has gone wrong somewhere. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 05:10, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Are Commonwealth in Brief, The money, weights & measures of the chief commercial nations in the world, and the US Congress not good quality citations?

I do have more.

• Ready reckoner of British sterling into Russian money and vice versa is a factual guide for travellers. It uses some interesting descriptions. The word "Sterling" is always capitalised, while "pound" never is.
• The Sterling Area does not even once use the word "pound".
• The History of Currency, 1252 to 1894 is a quite interesting book. The author introduces sterling as "the English sterling". only using the word "pound" in reference to physical coins, but as a unit of account he exclusively uses "sterling" (eg. "6 millions sterling").

TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 13:38, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

@John Maynard Friedman: Unfortunately we can't right great wrongs. Therefore, even if the British currency is indeed "sterling" not "pound sterling", I think we should keep the "pound sterling" nomenclature since it is both used on wiki so long, and because there are some evidence supporting its use, until we get a definite answer on the issue.

I understand that in the past, I have made contradictory statements to the above, but this is my current opinion. Thanks, NotReallySoroka (talk) 01:33, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Surely if something is incorrect it ought to be rectified. WP:RGW states:

If however the wrong you want to address has already been sorted in the real world and you have the reliable sources to prove it – for example, if the popular artist has already been convicted of that sex crime, or if the murder conviction was overturned – then please do update the articles, and reach out to a relevant WikiProject or the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard if you need help.

WP:PSTS warns against over-reliance on primary sources. The sources above I offered are mostly secondary sources, and I selected them for this reason. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 06:28, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

@NotReallySoroka:, it is not WP:RGW to report a basic fact correctly and not deliberately misinform our readers. This is not a case of WP:THETRUTH. No-one is proposing to change the name of the article. The article has its current name because there are four other pounds still in existence and historically there have been many more, so disambiguation was always going to be needed. It may be that in the US (and AU, CA, IE, NZ?) that the term "pound sterling" is the common name but in the UK it is rarely seen or heard. In routine commerce, we just say "pound". In banking, finance and ForEx, the unambiguous term "sterling" tends to be preferred. So yes, the term must appear in the first sentence or two of the lead but not in such a contrived way that we compromise readability to comply artificially with a guidance. In any case, the newly identified sources below make it clear that "the wrong you want to address has already been sorted in the real world and you have the reliable sources to prove it" --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:26, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

References

Another arbitrary break: Dictionaries

Has anyone tried looking in a dictionary? It is their job to synthesize many examples of usage "in the wild" and figure out what words mean. Merriam-Webster defines "sterling" as "British money" [18] and "pound" and "the basic monetary unit of the United Kingdom, called also pound sterling" [19] which seems to rather support TCG's essential distinction between the currency vs. the unit of account. CapitalSasha ~ talk 12:52, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

• Page 284 of Sullivan's Dictionary of the English Language defines "sterling" as "lawful English coin", not "a" coin but the sense of "Khajiit has wares if you have coin". It lacks a definition for "pound sterling", defining a "pound" as "20 shillings".
• Collins Dictionary defines "sterling" as "the money system of Great Britain". While "pound sterling" is defined as "the standard monetary unit of the United Kingdom"
• Chambers Dictionary defines "sterling" as "British money", while "pound" is defined as "the standard unit of currency of the UK", with "pound sterling" described as an alternate name for the unit.

TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 14:13, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

I can't believe we were collectively so dim as not to pursue this before. I think we may be in sight of land at last!

• The Oxford The Handbook of International Financial Terms] says "Sterling (UK).: The name given to the currency of the United Kingdom (cf. cable). Also called pound sterling or pounds."
• The Oxford Dictionary of Economics (5 ed.) says "Sterling: The UK currency. The name originated from the pound Easterling, formerly used in trade with the Baltic. "
• The Oxford/Phillips World Encyclopedia says "Sterling: Term for British currency. It is used to distinguish the UK pound from those of other currencies [...]"

And the Canadian Oxford Dictionary (2 ed.) says "Pound:2. (in full pound sterling) (pl. same or pounds) the chief monetary unit of the UK and several other countries."

So, IMO at least, we have enough solid evidence to support at least the first phrase of my #Current proposal: Sterling (abbreviation: stg; ISO code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and its associated territories. The pound (sign: £) is the main unit of sterling, but the word is also used to refer to the British currency generally, especially in international contexts, where it may be identified as the British pound or the pound sterling. (redundant "official" discarded per discussion above). Is the Canadian Oxford enough for "pound sterling" or does anyone want more? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:56, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

User:John Maynard Friedman - that's fine, support is simpler if it doesn't add "official". For what it's worth, the money vs unit distinction also matches what is at the wikisource Encyclopedia Britannica on Sterling (money) and Pound, and a website with description on the entymology and symbol. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 19:12, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

I support this wording. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 00:50, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

With all the citations in place, that proposed opening sentence would read:

• Sterling (abbreviation: stg;; ISO code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and its associated territories. The pound (sign: £) is the main unit of sterling, but the word "pound" is also used to refer to the British currency generally, where it may be identified as the British pound or the pound sterling, especially in international contexts.

I think we have reached a consensus. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 18:54, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

In principle sounds fine to me, but since you've moved "especially in international contexts," the use of "where" in "where it may be referred to..." is no longer appropriate. I guess this is the kind of thing we can workshop once it's in the article though. CapitalSasha ~ talk 22:01, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Might this slight tweak work?

Sterling (abbreviation: stg; ISO code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and its associated territories. The pound (sign: £) is the main unit of sterling, but the word "pound" is also used to refer to the British currency generally, especially in international contexts, where it may be identified as the British pound or the pound sterling. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 06:49, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

"Act in haste, repent at leisure": yes, this is how it was before I did an ill-considered swap of the order of the last two phrases. It was (and is again) better this way. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 09:41, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

"but" should be "and": we're making two separate points here. And "pound", which should be emboldened as an alternative topic name, is not used only especially in international contexts - I say "pound" in place of "sterling" most of the time; the addition of "British" or "sterling" internationally is a qualification for precision.

Which is a roundabout way of saying I suggest a further refinement to Sterling (abbreviation: stg; ISO code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and its associated territories. The pound (sign: £) is the main unit of sterling, and the word "pound" is also used to refer to the British currency generally, often qualified in international contexts as the British pound or the pound sterling.

Bazza (talk) 10:30, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Of course. Indeed I thought I had emboldened "pound" at first mention (just before "(sign: £)" but see I failed miserably. An extra 50 lashes, Mr Christian! --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:43, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

I think we've done it! Now we can focus on getting the currency template edited a little to be less clumsy. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 17:14, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

We still need this RFC to be closed formally before we can implement. The fat lady hasn't sung yet. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 18:33, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

I think we should bold the first (but not the second) occurrence of the word "pound" (i.e. The pound (sign: £)... and the word "pound" is also used...), but otherwise I am fine with this lede. NotReallySoroka (talk) 23:04, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

At this point I think that a rough consensus has been reached among the participants in the RfC; whatever smaller adjustments people want to make can probably be resolved through the normal editing process. I suggest we close the RfC and implement the current proposal for the lead section. CapitalSasha ~ talk 00:34, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

John Maynard Friedman and @TheCurrencyGuy: What do you think about my addendum to Bazza's proposal? NotReallySoroka (talk) 03:52, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Totally fine with me. It delivers the intent of Bazza's edit (minimally changed) and was how I should have formatted it in the first place. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 09:50, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

I see no problems with this edit, I think this works. TheCurrencyGuy (talk) 17:59, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Good catch, thanks. Bazza (talk) 12:41, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

References

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Is the use of sterling in minor outlying islands WP:DUE in the lead?

At present, this paragraph features prominently in the lead.

Sterling is also the currency in these territories: Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Gibraltar, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, the British Antarctic Territory, and Tristan da Cunha. Local issues of the pound are produced in these territories which are valued at par with the British pound: the Guernsey pound, Jersey pound, Manx pound, Gibraltar pound, Falkland Islands pound, and the Saint Helena pound. Other territories have transitioned to the U.S. dollar, e.g. Bermuda in 1970. The currency of some British Overseas Territories, such as the Cayman Islands, is pegged to the U.S. dollar.

WP:LEAD says that the lead should summarise the most significant points of the body. This information is not even in the body, let alone a summary of it. Does anyone object if I move that paragraph down into the body? IMO, it will be summarised proportionately in the opening sentence: "... the currency of the United Kingdom and its associated territories. (My emphasis). --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 18:15, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

The lead section sentence "Sterling banknotes issued by other jurisdictions are not regulated by the Bank of England" would need a link from "other jurisdictions" to the relocated section. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 18:20, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps "some of its associated territories" to exclude the ones that use various forms of the dollar.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:35, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

So maybe we need a more precise word than "associated" and certainly drop the reference to the Bahamas, independent since 50 years ago, so essentially the same status as Oz, Can etc. Is there a single word to encompass the Channel Islands, IoM, FIs etc. What about the Carribbean tax havens? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:22, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

What about "the United Kingdom and those British-governed territories that still use that currency"?--Wehwalt (talk) 20:27, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

How about "...the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories."? NotReallySoroka (talk) 22:28, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

[edit conflict]] @Wehwalt: Well apart from the overwhelming desire to make minimal (if any) changes to the sentence hammered out at great length in the RFC above, its accuracy is questionable. The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, for example, are not part of the United Kingdom and not subject to its government. So my strong preference is to leave "associated territories" as it is in opening sentence and define them with an additional introductory sentence. NotReallySoroka's suggestion passes my "minimal" test and would be wise in any case. Something like The currency of all the Crown Dependencies and most British Overseas Territories is either sterling or is pegged to sterling at par. Will that work? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 22:37, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Retrospective insertion: rereading that, I should make clear that my proposed sentence would open the new/relocated section, not be embedded in the lead sentence (shudder!). --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 09:13, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

What about adding a footnote then? Wehwalt (talk) 22:48, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Such as? Where? Has my retrospective clarification note above resolved the issue? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 09:13, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

As no-one has objected to the very principle, I will now WP:BE BOLD and just do it. Normal editorial copy edits and tweaks can follow thereafter. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:37, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

References

Detailed list of "Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories" replaced in infobox by simple link

I removed this list first because it doesn't work as expected: the "[show]" was displaying above rather than beside or below the line. (For long explanation, see Template talk:Collapsible list#Show misaligned. Note the observation from another editor that effect is not user-friendly.) On further investigation, MOS:HIDE is uncomplimentary about the whole idea, explaining in particular that the list is always shown uncompressed on mobiles. So the space it takes up in an already-busy infobox is disproportionate to its significance. Yes, that sterling is used in these CDs&BOTs certainly belongs in the infobox but they don't need to be listed here given that they have a whole section in the body. This change is logically consistent with the discussion and conclusion of #Is the use of sterling in minor outlying islands WP:DUE in the lead? above. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:25, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Applause. Remove a longer list, a collapsible one at that, from an Infobox is always good (prevent Infobox becoming the substitute article); folding a list = not Infobox-relevant info by definition. Maybe section title could be more clear, mentioning like "Also users"? § Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories? DePiep (talk) 11:36, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

"Legal tender" status of commemorative coins

I reverted addition of 25p and £5 crown coins to the infobox because these are commemorative coins for collectors, they are not intended for use in commerce and traders are not obliged to accept them. For the long explanation, see Legal tender#United Kingdom. For the Mint's wriggling "explanation", see this from Twenty pounds (British coin):

The prolific issuance since 2013 of silver commemorative £20, £50 and £100 coins at face value has led to attempts to spend or deposit these coins, prompting the Royal Mint to clarify the legal tender status of these silver coins. Royal Mint guidelines advise that, although these coins were approved as legal tender, they are considered limited edition collectables not intended for general circulation.

Therefore they don't go in the infobox as generally circulating coins, even if an individual editor happened to be persuaded to accept one in change. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:12, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

References

𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:12, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

"£ stg.", "£ stg." everywhere

I am seeing the expression "£1 stg." (or something along that line) everywhere, thanks to a specific editor. But I am wondering: just as we spell out an acronym the first time we use it on wiki, why are we expecting people to magically understand "£ stg."?

I propose that we instead use "one [[pound sterling]]" (even if it could be improper), "£1 [[pound sterling|sterling]]", or "one shilling six pence [[pound sterling#pre-decimal|sterling]]" the first time we mention the British currency, and we could use "£ stg." afterwards once the reader understand which currency are we talking about. NotReallySoroka (talk) 07:29, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

I've never seen "£1 stg." being used in RL. How is it used in UK, and how abroad, and how disambiguated wrt other pounds/£ ? Especially, when is "sterling" added at all? DePiep (talk) 07:36, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

I add: wrt dolalr sign "$", at enwiki we have the good habIt to write "US$" (recognisable and disambiguating). Appears that we have a mos: MOS:$ (=MOS:£, MOS:€). DePiep (talk) 07:38, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

MOS:£ is clear insofar, that using "£1 stg." (for GBP) is not even mentioned. Instead, a more real life common notation must be established. First statement: £1 stg is not correct per RL nor MOS. DePiep (talk) 07:53, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

@DePiep: Thank you for your prompt response.

I have seen "GB£" used on wiki, and I personally think that it is concise, but others might think that it is improper from a real-life point of view. NotReallySoroka (talk) 08:46, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Requires an RfC/MOS-update (into, proposal 1, "UK£" similar to "US$" I'd say). Research: establish RL common name, WP:DAB, misunderstanding issues.

I don't have time for this now. pinging @John Maynard Friedman:. DePiep (talk) 08:53, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

• In general usage within the UK, the disambiguators "stg" and "GB£" were never and are never used. Historically, Dept of Trade and FCO documents used STG to distinguish from the (devalued) Australian pound. In UK banking (esp in Northern Ireland), the styles "£123.45 stg" and "GB£123.45" were used to disambiguate from IEP ("IE£") but only when there was a credible risk of confusion. That risk lasted from 1978 to 1999 and ended for most purposes more than 20 years ago. There is still a theoretical risk of confusion with Egyptian and Sudanese pounds but the FOREX industry uses ISO 4217 pretty much exclusively nowadays so GBP, EGP and SDG are used, not GB£, EG£, SD£ (esp given that the recognised abbreviations for the latter two are EL and LL). The older notations will be seen in old sources but should not be used in modern writing. I have never seen UK£ "in the wild".
  • IMO, any current use of "GB£" (or, worse still, UK£) is a thoughtless extrapolation of the conventional disambiguation style used for the many currencies that use the $ sign (US$, CA$, AU$, NZ$, MX$ etc), where disambiguation is certainly and routinely needed. The WP:common name is just plain £ or GBP; GB£ is "long tail" and "UK£" is background noise. Wikipedia should not seek to establish a new convention. We should not disambiguate obsessively when no credible confusion arises.
• Coming back to the original question, "stg" is a recognised abbreviation of "sterling", the currency of the UK. So, as with all abbreviations, the long form should be given first then the abbreviation. But if you are reviewing articles that use it, I suggest you verify that is actually essential in context before you just repair the style issue.
• Do we really need to bother the MOS with this? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:58, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

  "bother" MOS you say? This is what MOS is for! Since I, as argued, and possibly others disagree with this ehm standard you state, an RfC/MOS is the best route to establish this. Ridiculing or snapping like .. thoughtless extrapolation .. is not a productive route. DePiep (talk) 12:22, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

  Of course it needs to go to talk:MOS if there is significant difference of view: I hadn't appreciated that there is such. (I had the impression that the question only arose because of TCG's campaign to WP:RGW.) Do we need an RFC here first? (My .. thoughtless extrapolation .. was not intended as ridicule or snappy: I don't doubt that editors use GB£ in good faith but what I am saying is that they have little or no objective justification to do so.) --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 12:46, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

  DePiep and @John Maynard Friedman: I would strongly support an RfC in this regard, now that we have prior discussion here. I don't mind whether the RfC is located here or at the MoS talk page. NotReallySoroka (talk) 20:27, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

  Agree. Takes careful preparation (asking the right question). Can't spend time this Jan. DePiep (talk) 20:30, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

  Me too. NRS, would you propose a draft RFC? I suspect that it is probably best to conduct it here and take the result to talk:MOS for final review but I have no prior experience.

  Evidence is going to be murder to find: Google Ngram doesn't recognise GB£ or UK£ as argumente and if you just search for "GB£", the £ is ingnored and you get zillions of hits for GB. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:49, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

  ... or wait some weeks. I myself would start off from current MOSsses. MOS:$ probably good and stable framework for a very same situation. DePiep (talk) 21:15, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

  The problem is that MOS:£ is silent on stuff like "GB£" vs. "£ stg." NotReallySoroka (talk) 21:27, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

  It does say use "£22" (for example) if a page is entirely on UK-related topics, but the problem is that the certain editor also used "£ stg." where the page is not related to Britain (e.g. Kuwaiti dinar). NotReallySoroka (talk) 21:29, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

  @John Maynard Friedman: I think that a final review is redundant simply because an RfC already involves the Community at large. NotReallySoroka (talk) 21:30, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

  Exactly that. That's why I advise MOS:$ as pattern, has good solutions for these situations. I see few or none discussions re USD. We should change the MOS:£ to covert same sutuations as USD does. Any proposal will be scrutinised, all right. DePiep (talk) 21:45, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

My assumption was that a more specialist readership here would be better placed to understand the nuances than generalists at MOS discussions (recognising that the latter are better placed to see through the eyes of our generalist readership). But I can see that I'm in minority of one and won't pursue it further: it really doesn't matter how we get there. But let's at least ensure that we have sound foundations before we start building. The current text of MOS:£ reads:

Currency symbols

• In general, the first mention of a particular currency should use its full, unambiguous signifier (e.g. A$52), with subsequent references using just the appropriate symbol (e.g. $88), unless this would be unclear. Exceptions:
  • In an article referring to multiple currencies represented by the same symbol (e.g. the dollars of the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries – see Currency symbols § dollar variants) use the full signifier (e.g. US$ or A$, but not e.g. $US123 or $123 (US)) each time, except (possibly) where a particular context makes this both unnecessary and undesirable.
  • In articles entirely on EU-, UK- and/or US-related topics, all occurrences may be shortened (€26, £22 or $34), unless this would be unclear.
    — Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Currencies

In framing the RFC, I suggest that these points need to be taken into account:

1. today, the only currency that uses the £ sign is GBP. The Egyptian pound is abbreviated LE and a long time ago was written £E (never E£, except by Investopedia who it seems doesn't understand that in French the adjective mostly follows the noun). The Sudanese pound is LL and was £Sd (not Sd£ or SD£). See those articles for citations.
2. Historically, there were other currencies that used the £ sign:
   1. Australia, 1910–1966, commonly abbreviated A£
   2. Ireland, 1922–2001, commonly abbreviated IR£ (occasionally IE£) from 1978
   3. New Zealand, 1840–1967, commonly abbreviated NZ£
   4. South Africa, 1910–1961, commonly abbreviated £SA (not SA£)

which suggests to me that the first item of the MOS (In general, the first mention...) needs another exception, something like "in the case of £, a signifier is redundant unless the article deals with pre-2002 currencies other than the pound sterling. When used, the letter order should follow national convention: A£, £E (not E£), GB£ (not UK£), IR£ (not IE£), NZ£, £SA (not SA£), £Sd (not Sd£ or SD£).

Coming back to NRS's original point, the I suggest that the MOS needs something like "outdated or particularly local abbreviations that are unfamiliar to a worldwide audience should be avoided: for example "stg" for (pound) sterling". This at Irish pound#Replacement with the euro particularly caught my eye: The initial sterling/euro exchange rate was £1 stg. = €1.42210, making £1 stg. about IR£1.12. By 1 January 2002, the day when euro cash was introduced, £1 stg. was worth about IR£1.29 (I have resisted the temptation to hack it immediately in case anyone wants to evaluate it in context.)

Is that useful? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:58, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

It seems to me that we're at risk of creating an Asshole John rule. The only editor who was pushing obscure and parochial abbreviations has been indeffed, so there's a limit to how much we have to worry about them.

That said, a reasonable and low-impact way of clarifying that stg. is wrong might be to add a sterling example to the first bullet. For example, use the full signifier (e.g. US$, A$ or GB£, but not e.g. $US123, $123 (US) or £123 stg.). It doesn't discuss other currencies that use the pound sign, but I suspect MOSNUM editors are unlikely to be willing to list obscure historical usages that will rarely appear in practice. Kahastok talk 22:41, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I like Kahastok's analysis and conclusion re £123 stg.. [...] I have never seen "GB£" anywhere outside Wikipedia and it really does look like we are trying "to lead, not follow" by using it. The current MOS text does not use it and I don't think we should add it.

How about this as an extra "except" :

• "There is no need to qualify the £ sign in articles that deal exclusively with topics before 1910 or after 2002. If needed, the word qualifier "sterling" should be [used and] given in full: use £123 sterling, not £123 stg., GB£123 or UK£123."

Does that work? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:22, 17 January 2023 (UTC) revised slightly 12:03, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

@John Maynard Friedman: The IP has now been blocke as a TCG sock. NotReallySoroka (talk) 18:19, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Which is exactly as I suspected. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:50, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

@NotReallySoroka: I assume you will have to list GB£ and UK£ as options in the RFC for debate and I can argue against them there. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:23, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Plus GBP, please (as an option for the debate). (It is by far the most common alternative in the UK to a simple "£", often appearing on banking and credit statements as a clear indication about the currency being used, and on currency conversion rates.) Bazza (talk) 20:46, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Would the following text for an RfC work:

What should be the symbol for (the pound) sterling, the British currency: GB£, UK£, (simply) £, £ stg., or another unlisted symbol?

NotReallySoroka (talk) 06:20, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Alternatively, we can subject Kahastok's proposal above to a confirmation RfC. Which one do you all prefer? NotReallySoroka (talk) 06:39, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

The symbol is £. The question needs to reflect that the consideration is for instances where it needs to be distinguished from other currencies which may or may have used the same. Perhaps What should be the disambiguating symbol for the British currency, the pound sterling: £, £ stg, £ stg., GB£, UK£, GBP or another symbol? (ordered to prevent bias, with additions for WP:ENGVAR). Bazza (talk) 10:11, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

I think it's good. NotReallySoroka (talk) 04:42, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

I think it's good too but IMO it would be clearer to write "£ (only)" as the first option. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:40, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 19 January 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Favonian (talk) 12:29, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

---

Pound sterling → Sterling (currency) – The discussion that constitutes Talk:Pound sterling#Survey (Q2) (which I strongly recommend you to read) indirectly established "sterling" as the name of the British currency and "pound" as the name of its unit.

I note that TheCurrencyGuy has already tried this RM, but now that they are indeffed along with Oppa gangnam psy, I am inspired to try this RM again to see whether we should end the dichotomy between the currency name ("sterling") and page title ("Pound sterling").

I hope that there will be less parochial finger-pointing and more insights germane to the discussion of the title. I also hope that there will be no sockpuppets in this discussion. Lastly, if this RM fails, I hope that the closer could specifically address whether the RM would be sufficient to overturn the RfC's consensus that "sterling" alone is the name of the British currency.

Sincerely, NotReallySoroka (talk) 06:26, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

For the record, I lean a very weak oppose to my own RM. Since I was instrumental in creating, discussing in, and closing the RfC above, I am hesitant to throw it all out. However, the fact that "pound sterling" is itself sometimes considered a term for the British currency means that we should be pragmatic when we comes to naming the British currency on-wiki. Thanks. NotReallySoroka (talk) 06:34, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. WP:COMMONNAME, if nothing else. Bazza (talk) 10:13, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. YorkshireExpat (talk) 11:55, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NATURAL (natural disambiguation is preferred over parenthetical disambiguation when the two options are equal). Thryduulf (talk) 12:13, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
• Strong oppose. The currency is commonly known as the pound or pound sterling, not sterling alone. O.N.R. ^(talk) 13:44, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per common name and natural, as Thryduulf explains. Although the correct name for the currency is indeed "sterling" and that name is used (try https://news.google.com/search?q=sterling%20-raheem%20-silver&hl=en-GB&gl=GB&ceid=GB%3Aen), though it is not well known worldwide outside FOREX. The present compromise where the name of the article is "pound sterling" but the article begins with an explanation of the different appellations is a good-enough solution to a difficult problem. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:25, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NATURALDISAMBIGUATION. Rreagan007 (talk) 21:03, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
• Strong support I always found this a bit strange, presumably anyone could ask the British Mint and get the issue cleared up. While I suppose we've all got used to hearing "pound Sterling", it's as weird as calling the currency "dollar US Dollar" all the time, technically. Oddly enough, I was thinking about this yesterday, about how Sterling wasn't always denominated primarily in pounds and how weird it would have sounded then. Sometimes official name really should outweigh common name, especially as currency is something not many people know the basics of; Wikipedia can be an educational tool or propagate common mistakes. Kingsif (talk) 03:41, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Which is why the first two sentences of the lead are written as they are, after a long and difficult consensus seeking process. The name of the article is the common name, like it or no, that's what it is called around the world but the first words of the article are "sterling is the currency", not "pound sterling is the currency". And yes, for centuries, the silver penny was the primary unit of account – for almost everybody, the pound was just a measure of weight. But yes, it is indeed strange if you stop to analyse it but that's life. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:06, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

    As I have raised in the RfC, there's also [20]. NotReallySoroka (talk) 21:13, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

    Please let's not plough that furrow again, it has been well and truly worked to death. The strong preponderance of RSs say that sterling is the currency and the pound is its (current) primary unit. The BoE uses the term "sterling" alone in many places: that page is an anomaly. This is getting obsessive. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 21:46, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. Extremely clear WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NATURALDISAMBIGUATION. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:02, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. per WP:COMMONNAME. Denisarona (talk) 14:21, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Second request for comment (currency symbols)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

What should be the disambiguating symbol for the British currency, the pound sterling: "£" (alone), "£ stg", "£ stg.", "GB£", "UK£", "GBP" or another symbol? NotReallySoroka (talk) 21:11, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

• Comment: Prior discussion can be seen at Talk:Pound sterling#"£ stg.", "£ stg." everywhere. NotReallySoroka (talk) 21:11, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
• Weak support GB£ per personal preferences. NotReallySoroka (talk) 21:11, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

  £ (potentially with a link to pound sterling) for concision in unambiguous situations (e.g. £1). If disambiguation is necessary, then use GBP (again, potentially with links) for commonness. NotReallySoroka (talk) 16:42, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

• Ah crap, not this again. Enough already. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:30, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

  @Redrose64: The above (linked) section of this talk page does exhibit a fairly strong consensus for an RfC, so I don't see why not. NotReallySoroka (talk) 16:42, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

  What I mean is that there was a lengthy discussion on almost this exact matter seven months ago, see Template talk:GBP#Semi-protected edit request on 12 June 2022. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:33, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

• Disambiguation does not arise before 1910 or after 2002, so £ (alone) at all other times. Disambiguating form (whichever it is) should never be used unless the context makes it unavoidable. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk)
• Prefer GBP where necessary, but mostly I imagine £ should be fine. I only speak as a non-Brit who has barely visited the islands, and I imagine most of my experience with the abbreviations will be from financial news, but it sounds most common and reasonable to my ear. I don’t oppose ‘sterling’ in any form, but the abbreviation stg seems slightly less comprehensible than alternatives. I dislike UK£, mostly because I’ve never heard/seen it before and the idea of United Kingdom Pound sounds made up. — HTGS (talk) 07:38, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
• I also prefer GBP and £, as those are the most common symbols for this currency that I have seen as being used.Iraniangal777 (talk) 08:44, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
• For disambiguating, GBP, as the currency's unambiguous, internationally-understood designation. Otherwise £ alone. Bazza (talk) 09:41, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
• £ where unambiguous, GBP otherwise. Thryduulf (talk) 14:33, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
• £. That is its symbol, after all. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:34, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
• £ unless it is genuinely not clear - and matters - which pound is meant from context. It it does matter and it isn't clear, then I'd suggest that we should use use ad-hoc descriptive disambiguation (e.g. £123 (UK)). We should only use GBP when other currencies are given ISO 4217 abbreviations, bearing in mind that it is anachronistic to use ISO 4217 before the 1970s. I would strongly support deprecating obscure abbreviations like stg. Kahastok talk 18:32, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

  It's not anachronistic. We can decide that "GBP" is short-hand for "pound sterling" regardless of the norms for the time period we're referring to. "Great War" is not used to refer to World War I in articles about the 1919–1938 period (before the need to distinguish between I and II arose); Elizabeth I is used to refer to the monarch in articles on subjects pre-1952 (ditto). Bazza (talk) 10:53, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

  What ISO code should we use for the Australian and New Zealand pounds? After all, it would seem poor style to say something like £1 Australian is equivalent to 16s GBP, without consistently using one format or the other. And that's before we mention that 16s GBP is a completely novel format that is not used anywhere else in the world. Kahastok talk 11:26, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

  @Kahastok Note this discussion is only for those relatively unusual occasions when a symbol is required for disambiguation. So in your specific example, one might write about "£1 Australian" being equivalent to "£1 sterling", or £1.16s sterling. If space is limited, then that may require symbols, and I don't see why using AUP and GBP aren't suitable, even if the former is not an ISO code; although for this specific example, I would argue that the full notation would be needed for clarity. Bazza (talk) 12:26, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

  I don't think inventing our own original and private extensions to ISO 4217 is in keeping with WP:NOR or WP:V. And I think you risk a world of trouble. What are we calling the Tongan pound, given that TOP is already the pa'anga? What about the pounds used in the American colonies (both US and non-US) before dollarisation? Each of which had a different value? How are we distinguishing the Rhodesian pound from the Rhodesia and Nyasaland pound? Kahastok talk 13:04, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

  We don't always have to use currency symbols. We can well write "one Australian pound" or "1.23 Rhodesian pound". NotReallySoroka (talk) 22:58, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

• £. that's how it is known for the most part. Hogo-2020 (talk) 20:49, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
• £ where unambiguous, GBP otherwise. - Per User:Thryduulf & User:Necrothesp; this is definitely the method I'm familiar with. NickCT (talk) 19:29, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

May I remind everyone of the original motivation for this RFC? It is to determine whether another line needs adding to (or the last line replacing in?) MOS:CURRENCY, which currently reads:

Currency symbols

• In general, the first mention of a particular currency should use its full, unambiguous signifier (e.g. A$52), with subsequent references using just the appropriate symbol (e.g. $88), unless this would be unclear. Exceptions:
  • In an article referring to multiple currencies represented by the same symbol (e.g. the dollars of the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries – see Currency symbols § dollar variants) use the full signifier (e.g. US$ or A$, but not e.g. $US123 or $123 (US)) each time, except (possibly) where a particular context makes this both unnecessary and undesirable.
  • In articles entirely on EU-, UK- and/or US-related topics, all occurrences may be shortened (€26, £22 or $34), unless this would be unclear.
    — Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Currencies

IMO, the last line should be replaced by two lines reading

• In articles entirely on US-related topics, all occurrences may be shortened $34), unless this would be unclear. (The reference to the € sign is entirely unnecessary and should never have been there.)

and

• Before 1910 or after 2002, the pound sign (£) almost invariably refers to the British pound sterling and needs no further disambiguation. In articles that require disambiguation, the notation GBP123.45 [articles about period 1980–2002] or £123.45 sterling [1910–1979] may be used. Other abbreviations are deprecated.

Does that adequately capture the discussion above? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 21:14, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't think that the original motivation of this RfC is to determine whether lines should be added to that MoS section; rather, it is to determine which symbol(s) to use for (the pound) sterling. Although adding to the RfC could be one way to accomplish that goal, it is not the only way.

I also fail to understand why 1910 and 2002 have to be the only determinants of whether disambiguation is needed; rather, I advocate for the ambiguity to be determined ad hoc. However, I do think that removing the euro sign is great, and so is using "£X sterling" as an alternative disambiguator to "GBP". NotReallySoroka (talk) 19:33, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

The only place where a rule can be declared is the MOS. Otherwise it is down to to editors' consensus at each individual article. So we can conclude on this page for this article only that (for example) the abbreviation "stg" should not be used [even though some mid C20 sources do] but we cannot assert that convention on any other article.

1910 is when the Oz and NZ pounds decoupled from sterling: before that date, their £ and the British £ were identical.

I can't see any reason to use a disambiguated notation outside those dates and we should not do so. It is just noise at best. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:59, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

King Charles III

Someone should add the image of the new confirmed, to be released £5 note with Charles III. StrawWord298944 (talk) 17:53, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Only if all ten fair use criteria can be satisfied. If you really want to know what they look like before they are issued next year, see King Charles III banknotes at Bank of England. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:19, 11 February 2023 (UTC)