- A drink can only be pennied once the owner has accepted the drink by drinking from it or by pouring the beverage themself.
- Should someone manage to slip a Penny into another person's drink, the owner of the drink must completely consume it within a set period of time (usually two minutes or less, or in any case the next time they touch the glass) and ''in one go'', that is to say, without pausing between sips for breath or respite. Normally the victim is required to finish his/her drink the next time he/she touches its receptacle.
- The victim of the pennying is thereafter said to have been "pennied".
- If a pennier attempts to drop the penny into a glass, but misses the glass, either due to evasive manouevres by the intended victim, or simply through lack of co-ordination, the pennier must quaff his own beverage as punishment for attempted regicide (mis-pennying).
- A person unknowingly slipping a penny into a drink that already contains one (that is to say, "double-pennying") is obliged to consume that drink as if he or she themselves had been pennied.
- The owner of a pennied drink is allowed to keep the penny. Therefore, a "pennied" person has the small comfort of a free penny at the end of their Forfeit , whereas someone guilty of "double-pennying" must forfeit both pennies to the owner of the drink.
- It is generally frowned upon, possibly even to the point of Taboo , to refuse to drink a pennied beverage, or to "double-penny" intentionally a beverage with the intention of earning a free drink. ''Pennying on an empty glass'' is equally unthinkable. Such acts can lead to social ostracision of the culprit, or the arrangement of later Prank s of which the perpetrator is the victim.
- Secondary pennying (a pennied person pennying someone else's drink, and also referred to as 'proxy pennying' or 'pennying by proxy') is usually permitted, but the secondary victim does not have to consume their drink until the primary victim finishes theirs.
- Jugs cannot be pennied under normal rules. The rule can, however, be amended to state that any beers poured from a pennied jug must be quaffed.
- ''In Australia'' the official and universally accepted denomination for pennying is the twenty cent (20c) coin; as such, pennying in Australia is known more widely as Coining .
- Paper Money is invalid for the purposes of pennying. (See 'History of Pennying' below; as paper floats, the drink poses no danger to the Sovereign.)
- Professor Stephen Hawking is to be pennied. This is not actually a rule, but is now widely accepted after two Robinson College students attending a Caius College Formal Hall were fined in excess of £50 and given a lifelong ban from the college for pennying his Dessert .
Whether you follow these rules will likely depend on social pressure; bear in mind that there is no standard set of rules that you are obligated to follow.
- Some colleges stipulate that a drink can only be pennied if the owners hand is in contact with the beverage container (the "vessel"). If this is not the case then the pennier must consume the beveage and reimburse the owner.
- Suitably liquid foods may be used in place of drinks: Soup and Yoghurt are two prime targets. The victim must finish the pennied item of food ''in one go'' and without the use of Cutlery .
- Similarly a dessert may be pennied, the objective being to consume it ''hands free''.
- Some would mantain that one should not place one's hand over a glass or bottle ('guarding') in order to avoid its being pennied.
- If there are no pennies to hand (or if pennies have been banned due to their damaging effect on dishwashers), special powers may be invoked by which honorary penny status is conveyed upon a seemingly mundane object such as a Fork , Spoon or Smartie . To convey such a status one must place the item in the target beverage and declare it to be "The Knife of Strife", "The Spoon of Doom", or some such other rhyming title.
- Double-penniers are required, in addition to consuming the double-pennied drink, to replace the drink owner's drink with one equivalent in genre and volume to the pennied beverage, or alternatively of the owner's choosing (of a similar price). This acts as an effective Deterrent to those who would intentionally double-penny a drink with the goal of winning a free one.
- Coins not featuring the reigning Sovereign ( Foreign coins and those featuring Deceased Monarch s) do not incur the "pennying" forfeit as their submerged nature poses no Metonymical danger to the Sovereign (see History Of Pennying below). Test cases involving Abdicated monarchs are not known to have arisen while one was still alive (the only example in British history being Edward VIII ), though theoretically a Pennied person would owe no Allegiance to someone not of the direct Line Of Succession of the British Royal Family .
- In a similar vein, students who are not subjects of the reigning Sovereign are not obliged to respect the tradition of pennying.
- A variation on the pennying tradition is Shoeing - if there is a spillage resulting from an unsuccessful pennying attempt, or any another unsocial/drunken act, the senior member of the table is obliged to remove his shoe. It is presented as a recepticle for the remains of the unpennied wine, which must then be drunk from the shoe by the pennying miscreant. This is used during Boat Club crew-dates at Oriel College, Oxford .
- Pennying has even managed to adapt to the narrow-necked Alcopop Bottles - these are no longer safe from pennies folded in a Vice , which are thus slim enough in profile to be dropped into the bottles through their openings.
- Those who are currently wearing waistcoats or who are card carrying members of CICCU are prohibited from pennying others but may themselves be pennied.
Note that Pennying accompanies the International Drinking Rules observed in some social circles.
The Oxford and the Cambridge rules vary. In Oxford, one must have the glass in one's hand for it to be eligible for pennying. If a glass on the table is pennied, the pennier must forthwith down the beverage, and buy the intended pennyee a replacement. In Cambridge the glass would normally be on the table when pennied, and pennying at other times is considered Faux Pas .
The University Of Durham has a variety of rules varying from college to college. In Hatfield College, Durham rules are used that are similar to those stated above for Oxford, except that two pence coins are used instead of pennies, and pennying the water jug is generally seen as fair game, although liable to incur a "sconce" (or fine) from the JCR Senior Man. A further example would be University College, Durham whose members utilise corks in place of pennies. This leads to corks being a valuable commodity amongst castle undergraduates, and rules dictating who owns the cork in someone's drink are complicated and vary between friendship groups. Some also play rules that differentiate between different types of cork (for example, a champagne cork might result in two glasses being downed). Castlemen also play differently to most other Durham colleges in that they only can only 'cork' when their victim's glass is on the table (but in the case of liquid food, it must be held, to show possession).
The oft-quoted reason that pennyists give for the need to "drink up" is that the Sovereign (depicted on the Obverse or heads side of the submerged penny) is in danger of Drowning and must be rescued immediately. Cries of " God Save The Queen !" may be heard, uttered immediately prior to the consumption of the beverage. No Canonical text outlines the Custom of pennying, hence the great variations in its practised rules. Despite there being no evidence that this practice goes back more than a few decades, Apocrypha l tales and Oral Tradition among some within the University of Cambridge would attribute its origin to the time of the reign of Henry VIII .
While the Historicity of this account of the origin of Pennying is almost as doubtful as the validity of its posing actual mortal danger to the Sovereign, Pennying has certainly lasted long enough to become a credible Tradition within Cambridge and a few other places (such as the University Of Durham ) elsewhere in the United Kingdom . It continues to be a very enjoyable drinking game, and the practice of pennying strangers often leads to the forging of new friendships.
This practise is similar but probably unrelated to the (probably older) practise of Sconcing at Oxford.
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