Though love of it may be the root of all evil, it is also said
that money makes the world go round, so it’s not surprising that
so many words for the stuff have entered the English language.
It seems that only sex and drink challenge it for the number of
slang terms, which gives a pretty good indication of what most
people have thought most important to them down the centuries.
Colloquial terms for specific sums of money can cause
embarrassing problems when you come across them for the first
time, say in the slang of builders or second-hand car dealers.
Some less reputable persons are known to use the words to
confuse naive customers; indeed some of them may not be too sure
themselves of the values implied by the slang terms, which adds
an extra dimension to the potential confusion. A number of these
slang money terms are well-known and well-established in
Britain, especially in and around London, and several of them
have crossed the Atlantic to mean the equivalent sum in dollars;
the reverse process has also