A fact from Profane Oaths Act 1745 appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 2 August 2007. The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that the Profane Oaths Act 1745, which criminalised "profane cursing and swearing" in the United Kingdom, was not fully repealed until 1967?
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"excrecable" should be "execrable" unless the original quote has the same typo (or maybe that's how they talked in 1745) Art LaPella23:44, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No, the character next to the 5 is a solidus, which can be represented on modern keyboards as a "/" (ie forward slash) or, I suppose, an italic "l" (as is this case) works, as a solidus is slightly different than a / (see the solidus article for more on that. But, to get back to my point, 5l means 5 shillings, £5 would probably be way too steep a fine in 1745 I would imagine. --Canuckguy17:42, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
But why the discrepancy? The previous paragraph uses 5s for 5 shillings. Given that there is no pence portion, this is probably the better way of representing it. (I also note Mucky Duck isn't the only one confused, as Micahbrwn has since added a wikilink to Pound Sterling.) -- 21:40, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
It isn't, you know: It's an italic lower case L. This is why I assumed it was meant to represent pounds (as in LSD). If it is meant to be a solidus then why not use one? In any case if used it should be followed by a hyphen as in "5/-" (or, as anonymous says, stick to "s"). The fact that it would have been a significant fine was why it interested me. Mucky Duck08:38, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well if it's 5 shillings, a constable would have been charged 8 times as much as a magistrate. If it's 5 pounds, a magistrate would have been charged 2.5 times as much as a constable (100 shillings). The fact that the fine was split suggests it's the latter and steeper fine, but instead of guessing maybe we could find the original act online somewhere to check? AbleRiver09:51, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's 5l, and I speak with the authority of having the Act on my desk! If they meant five shillings, it'd be 5s; this was the standard and conventional form of notation at the time. I cannot think of any time I've encountered "5/" to mean 5s without it being given the extra dash to make it 5/-; was this method of notation even in use then? Shimgray | talk | 12:49, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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