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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   1930 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 12, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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There's no particularly good reason to translate "ecu" at all. If you read a history book about the period, it will say "ecus", and translators of novels should just follow that convention. Should we translate "sestertius"? "Solidus"? "Ducat"? "Reichsmark"?

An autistic fixation on accuracy in translating currency names in literature is basically a high modernist project. The based and lindy approach is to pick a reasonable substitute. Matthew 20:2 KJV: "And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny [orig. dēnarion] a day, he sent them into his vineyard."

That word choice actually is justifiable, since the penny historically evolved from the denarius. Likewise, it would be reasonable to translate "solidus" as "shilling" and "libra" as "pound". In contrast, the French écu (3 livres) and the English crown (1/4 pound) do not appear to be cognate descendants of the same Carolingian or Roman coin.

Similarly, a crown is simply a gold coin with a crown on it. No problem!

There's a basically inexhaustible fund of such examples of all kinds of currencies.

Mark 12:42: "And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites [lepta], which make a farthing [quadrans]."

There was no such coin as a "mite" in Britain at all, it merely meant "a coin of low value" due to a low-value coin of such a name in the Netherlands - so that's what they used in the translation.

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