Q&A: Why do we call money ‘change’?

Each week here at the Australian Writers’ Centre, we dissect and discuss, contort and retort, ask and gasp at the English language and all its rules, regulations and ridiculousness. It’s a celebration of language, masquerading as a passive-aggressive whinge about words and weirdness. This week, time for a change?

Q: Can we talk about change?

A: Why not – after all, it’s the only thing that seems to stay the same.

Q: Very deep. But I’m referring to why we call the money we get back from something “change” – as in “keep the change” etc.

A: Ah, okay. Good question. Because the main meaning of “change” as a noun is what Macquarie Dictionary defines as “variation; alteration; modification; deviation; transformation”.

Q: Exactly. 

A: But “change” is a very busy word – with no less than 35 listings in that dictionary, including the verb meanings, noun meanings and various phrases.

Q: So how old is the money meaning?

A: Certainly not as old as the word itself, which turns up around 1200 – during a period when French dominated the language. In this case, the Anglo-French “chaunge” took its cue from the Old French verb “changier” – giving us the noun that dealt with “recompense and reciprocation”. By the 1400s, this in turn gave us the word “exchange”.

Q: Oh yeah, EX-change, duh. Makes sense.

A: This word came from the Anglo-French “eschaunge” meaning “the act of reciprocal giving and receiving” and shared Latin origins with another word: “barter”. 

Q: Sounds like we’re getting closer to money.

A: It certainly does. Initially the “change” or “exchange” was the thing that you would trade or barter in return for an item. So if you were given a cow, the magic beans would be the change exchange – what we’d consider a “trade” today.

Q: And what a trade it was – all those golden eggs and financial security for Jack and his mother! Not to mention the tourist attraction of a dead giant in your front yard!

A: Um, sure. Anyway, by the 1500s, the word also became the name of the place where merchants would gather to do business. We still see this today with the Stock Exchange.

Q: Buy! Sell! Buy!

A: Exactly. This was specifically named in the 1580s as a “building for mercantile business” – a place for lenders to meet to exchange bills of debt. And by now, it was likely that people were getting money in exchange for their cows.

Q: I was wondering when the bottom fell out of the magic bean market.

A: Haha. So this “change” started to take on a similar meaning in what we might say today “have you got change for a $20?” – i.e. the equivalent amount, but in smaller denominations.

Q: Okay sure, so now we have “change” meaning the same amount in money, and I guess we still refer to small coins as “loose change” and so on.

A: We do. The term “loose change” is common today, but its origins are a little cloudy – likely in the early 20th century.

Q: So now what about my “keep the change” meaning?

A: As the trading became more cash-based, that definition would eventually arrive by 1622 – officially defined as the “balance of money returned after deducting the price of a purchase from the sum paid”.

Q: So it’s about 400 years old?

A: It certainly is. Although some of the terminology around using change isn’t as old. For example, if a cashier returns money by counting it out, the phrase is to “make change” (1865) and if you don’t give the proper amount, you “short-change” someone (1886).

Q: Scoundrel!

A: Indeed.

Q: So to recap – the word “change” started off synonymous with “exchange” and described one half of a simple trade or barter. Then it came to mean the place where these transactions took place. And eventually the balance returned when paying with money greater than the price.

A: That’s it. Of course, as more and more transactions take place electronically, the concept of getting “change” back is less relevant. Instead, the “small denomination coins” meaning is more commonly used today.

Q: Like someone asking if you can “spare some change”?

A: Yes, although usually not as frightening as that video.

Q: And if you ever take payment from a Buddhist monk, you don’t need to give them any money back, right?

A: What? Why not?

Q: Because according to them, “change must come from within”! Bahahaaaa.

A: Ugghhhh. Time to change the subject…

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