Thread 169/83

Pennies of 1982

I am doing a project for honors science. It deals with pennies and how the amount of copper in a penny changed in 1982 because of the rise in the price of copper. It was changed by the US Mint. My question is, how did they ever come up with the name "US Mint"?

Amanda Miller
- Columbia, Missouri
2002
publicly reply to Amanda Miller

---

US is an abbreviation for United States. The derivation of the word "Mint" is pretty interesting and was included even in my modest sized dictionary. It's probably in yours too. I was surprised to learn that Juno had a nickname. And what's with that anyway, a nickname that's longer than the real name?

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
2002
publicly reply to Ted Mooney

---

The word "mint" originates from Old English and Old Saxon, where it meant a coin or money. By the mid C16 it had also come to mean a place where money was coined. It is probably originally derived from a Latin word for money or coins. When the US began making coins, it used the English word for the place where it was done I.e. the "mint".

Trevor Crichton
R&D practical scientist
Chesham, Bucks, UK
2002
publicly reply to Trevor Crichton

---