Word: offa
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...mere job of figuring a 10% discount on a 3? 3s 3d roast beef could take a man to the edge of starvation. The system had at least one advantage: it had practically always been that way. The pound and penny first appeared about the time of King Offa in the 8th century. They were originally named for the Roman libra and denarius (hence the still used signs of ? and d), but the libra eventually evolved into the pound, because it was worth that weight in silver. Similarly, it took 240 pennies to make a pound because that...
...more), prizefights (he once fancied himself a not-quite Hemingway-class boxer), World War II accounts of the North African campaign, countless articles on the Wayward Press, and one notable dissection of Chicago: The Second City, whose cry, Liebling insisted, had changed from "Lemme at him" to "Hold him offa me"; of pneumonia; in Manhattan...
...currency really got unmanageable around 770, when Offa, King of Mercia, decided to issue pennies weighing the equivalent of "32 wheat corns in the midst of the ear." Since the pound sterling was based on a pound of silver, this later came out to 240 pence to the pound...