To Coin a Phrase

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If you’re like me, you sometimes find yourself using a phrase whose meaning is widely known even if its specific reference has become anachronistic. For example, a “broken record” is likely to be recognized as referring to needless repetition, even among those whose musical listening experience has been entirely digital. But I think—I hope—that in our era of increasingly electronic payments, coin-based phrases remain not only relevant but also understandable. 

Naturally, many coin-related phrases concern financial matters. A general reluctance to spend is described as penny pinching.

A specific item that’s seen as overly expensive is said to cost a pretty penny.

No one wants to be nickel and dimed with an excess of small expenditures. At the same time, one shouldn’t lose sight of the larger financial picture by being penny wise and pound foolish. (That phrase initially referred to the British pound when it consisted of 240 pence, though the sentiment still applies to the post-1971 decimal pound worth 100 pence.) 

Benjamin Franklin, who conceived the design for the first U.S. coin, the 1787 Fugio cent, is known for saying a penny saved is a penny earned. However, what he actually said was the less catchy: a penny saved is two pence clear. Will penny-based phrases endure now that U.S. cents are no longer being made for circulation? Only time will tell.

Beyond the world of finance, an outcome that’s almost certain might be described as dollars to doughnuts (that is, so certain that even a small gain is worth betting on). It could induce someone to bet their bottom dollar (the last one remaining from a once-large stack). And a choice between two outcomes that are about equally likely would be aptly described as a coin flip.

Especially common items are a dime a dozen.

Two things that are objectionably indistinguishable are described as not having a dime’s worth of difference.

Something of questionable value may be derided as two-bit (a “bit” being the slang term for ⅛ of the old Spanish Milled dollar, making two bits equal to 25 cents).

Someone who displays a lack of intelligence might be described with the phrase not the full shilling (the British equivalent of “not playing with a full deck”). And a repeated annoyance is sometimes compared to a bad penny.

In the world of popular culture, numismatic dismissiveness was immortalized in Travis Tritt’s 1991 hit single, “Here’s a Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares)”—this was back when coin-operated phones were a thing. Billy Ray Cyrus used the same phrase at the 1993 American Music Awards in his defiant rebuttal of Tritt’s criticism. (The two have since reconciled.) 

A delayed awareness or realization is a situation where the penny dropped (as it would, after a delay, in a vending machine).

To alert the authorities is to drop a dime on someone (another phrase from the time of pay phones).

To change suddenly is to turn on a dime, and to stop suddenly is to stop on a dime. (Dimes, with their small size, are appropriate metaphors for small intervals.)

One might be resigned to the monotony of another day, another dollar. However, that’s better than being a day late and a dollar short. 

Communication can be facilitated by offering a pensive person a penny for their thoughts (originally a 16th-century penny, when that denomination represented substantial value), or when a person modestly describes an opinion as giving their two cents (a saying that, perhaps, originates in two-cent postage).

Someone recognizing how small actions lead to larger commitments may describe themselves as being in for a penny, in for a pound. And when two seemingly different phenomena are connected in a way that may not be immediately obvious, they’re described as two sides of the same coin.

Coins are so prevalent in society, it’s no wonder that they have been used so many times and in so many ways to coin a phrase.