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Pedants' corner

Mrs Patmore from Downton Abbey has saved a "few hundred quid."

5 replies

CointreauVersial · 19/10/2014 21:09

Quid?

In the 1920s?? Would that word really have been in use?

It jarred so much, even DD1 (13) noticed.

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SageMist · 19/10/2014 21:41

According to my dictionary it's been in use since the 17th century.

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SconeRhymesWithGone · 19/10/2014 21:45

Perhaps, but "parent" as a verb definitely was not, but JF had Violet, Lady Grantham use it. Now that did jar.

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DrankSangriaInThePark · 20/10/2014 09:03

There are always loads of articles and things about how rubbish DA is with historical stuff, so it doesn't surprise me at all that linguistically it gets it wrong as well.

I don't watch it, (refuse to watch anything a) bonnet b) with HB in) but was the word used to perhaps indicate a "below stairs" person rather than a posho?

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MirandaGoshawk · 21/10/2014 17:17

Ha ha Cointreau, I thought the same thing about 'quid' - it made me wince. But I goggled it and it appears that yes, it was in use. Possibly short for quid pro quo, in that you give money for something. But yes, it sounded awful to me. Too throwaway - 'I've bin left a few hundred quid by an old aunt' when such a sum would surely be reported with a bit more solemnity.

Family lore has it that my gran bought a house for £10! It was a cottage in Wiltshire, in the early 1920s
, so Mrs P's £300 is a vast amount of money.

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CointreauVersial · 21/10/2014 17:24

It did sound like she was chatting to her mate down the pub rather than addressing her superior in 1925. Just too colloquial to my ears.

Anyway, I stand corrected if it has indeed been in use for centuries.

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