On yen, pennies, and wafers

A yen is worth less than a U.S. penny. I got to wondering why the Japanese would count in yen. Kiloyen seems more reasonable. Then again, I guess it’s relative. Is there a Japanese word for a fraction of a yen? Who would need it? If all Americans had always counted in pennies, we’d be used to that. We wouldn’t need a word for a hundred or a thousand pennies. I remember my first year at university we would use pennies as projectiles. They were large enough to hurt, but too small to cause serious injury. Nobody put an eye out. We called them wafers. Tuition my 2nd year went over $10,000. We complained about getting a bill for a megawafer.

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Tim Chambers @tbc