My partner decided “loaf” was a weird word so I looked up its etymology and now we know “lord” comes from “loaf-ward” ie guardian of the bread.
etymology
£, pound, the unit of weight and history of old money
英制重量单位磅来自于拉丁语libra pondo，意为"磅重量"，其中libra是天秤座。这个词组后来缩写为libra，又进一步缩写成lb。英语中保留了来自pondo的pound作为磅的单词，同时保留了lb这个缩写。
英镑作为货币单位，符号是£，一个花体的L，指的就是libra。
而曾经有过的 1 英镑 = 12 先令，1 先令 = 20 便士这套货币系统，也源于此。公元755年，当时的法兰克国王丕平因黄金短缺无法铸造一种金币Solidius，而欧洲当时大部分地区都使用这种金币。因此他采用了新的货币，用1磅重的银铸造240枚银币Denarius，1枚正在流通的金币可以兑换12枚银币。于是就有了 1 Libra = 20 Solidius = 240 Denarius 的兑换系统。
另外补充：单词penny的复数是pennies，但在货币上，数字大于一就惯用pence。
… like kicking a dead whale down the beach.
I kept seeing this phrase on my favorite image-board, and it always seemed so random! 
But apparently, it comes from yacc’s author Stephen C. Johnson, while he was complaining about how much it sucks to program for the IBM MVS TSO, ~30 years ago. I never expected it to have any actual history to it! 
Edited 35d ago