This post is about U.S. and Canadian currencies. Well, apart from the fact that in Canada we don't have $1 and $2 notes anymore, and receiving a $2 note as change in the U.S. is (relatively) rare, but we love $2 coins in Canada.

Why is it that our denominations for amounts less than one dollar are 1, 2, 5, 10, 25, 50 cents, but the bank notes are 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100? There is something strange here.

If you're going to have a 25-cent piece, you may as well split up the dollars into sixteenths so that we have 1/16, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 dollar coins, just like the way Americans do measurements when using inches or cups. (I am kidding.)

In the U.S., the coins are labeled as follows: "one cent", "five cents", "one dime", "quarter dollar", "half dollar". What the heck is going on? Be consistent. At least in Canada they got that right (see system two below).

system one: "hundreth dollar", "twentieth dollar", "tenth dollar", "quarter dollar", "half dollar"
system two: "1 cent", "5 cents", "10 cents", "25 cents", "50 cents"

Americans use a mix of both systems in their coinage, but written entirely in English. This might pose a problem if you aren't familiar with English. Thinking metric and counting coinage would be a lot easier if we had a 20-cent piece instead. Just like they do in Europe, Australia, and southeast Asia.