funny money

funny money
—n
1.	a sum of money so large as to be considered unreal
2.	counterfeit money
3.	derogatory foreign currency

funny money definition n. counterfeit money. : The bank teller spotted the funny money in the man's deposit almost immediately. n. military script; temporary or substitute money, good only in certain places. : What am I going to do with all this funny money when I leave here? It's no good anywhere else. n. foreign currency. (Jocular.) : We had better buy some gifts and get rid of some of this funny money before our flight.

funny money definition

Notional units of computing time and/or storage handed to students at the beginning of a computer course; also called "play money" or "purple money" (in implicit opposition to real or "green" money).
In New Zealand and Germany the odd usage "paper money" has been recorded; in Germany, the particularly amusing synonym "transfer ruble" commemorates the funny money used for trade between COMECON countries back when the Soviet Bloc still existed.
When your funny money ran out, your account froze and you needed to go to a professor to get more. Fortunately, the plunging cost of time-sharing cycles has made this less common. The amounts allocated were almost invariably too small, even for the non-hackers who wanted to slide by with minimum work. In extreme cases, the practice led to small-scale black markets in bootlegged computer accounts. By extension, phantom money or quantity tickets of any kind used as a resource-allocation hack within a system.
[Jargon File]

funny money

Counterfeit money; also, money from an obscure or questionable source. For example, The police warned storekeepers that some funny money was being passed around town. This expression probably endures because of its rhyme. [1930s]