Flipping a Coin: Heads & Tails, in Other Languages

[HeyHomie]

Does the English idiom "Heads or tails" when flipping a coin (to randomly determine between two options, when such a need arises) exist in other languages? Do Spanish speakers call "cabezas o colas"? Germans "kopf oder schwanz"? Etc. etc. etc.

NOTE: I got the German from Google translate, so if I'm wrong, blame Google.

[minor7flat5]

I believe it's cara ou coroa in Portuguese: "Face or Crown"

[Heracles]

The French expression is "pile ou face". The "face" refers to heads. I'm not sure where "pile" comes from. Curse you for making me wonder.

In Québécois slang there's also the less-PC "tête ou b*tch". The literal translation of "head" is "tête".

[constanze]

Originally Posted by HeyHomie

Germans "kopf oder schwanz"? Etc. etc. etc.

NOTE: I got the German from Google translate, so if I'm wrong, blame Google.

It's "Kopf oder Zahl" (Head or Number) in German. The German word Schwanz means both tail of an animal or slang for penis, so you might want to avoid using wrong translations like Google. (And I am blaming Google for not knowing established phrases. Dumb thing.)

Why is it tails in English, anyway? Head of the King or Queen on one side, number of value on the other side - makes sense. Later, it's a picture on one side, number smaller. But why tails?

[willthekittensurvive?]

In dutch its "Kop of Munt" translate into heads or coin

[septimus]

In Thai, one side is หัว (Head) and the other ก้อย (Little finger, little). Google translates ก้อย to "reverse side", but my informants (two Eurasian teenagers raised in Thailand by Mrs. Septimus and myself) are unaware of any "reverse side" usage except with coins.

[PacifistPorcupine]

It probably relates more to the local currency than the language. And maybe not even the current local currency. When I was growing up in Mexico, it was Eagle or Sun. All Mexican coins had an eagle on one side, but I don't recall any that had a Sun on the other.

[Leaffan]

Originally Posted by Heracles

The French expression is "pile ou face". The "face" refers to heads. I'm not sure where "pile" comes from. Curse you for making me wonder.

In Québécois slang there's also the less-PC "tête ou b*tch". The literal translation of "head" is "tête".

tête ou b*tch

I don't understand this.

If tête is referring to the Queen, then who's the bitch? Or, conversely, if the Bitch is the Queen, then why is the reverse side being called tête?

[Paul in Qatar]

In Hebrew, it is (or was) "Crowns or feathers" based on the obverse and reverse of the coins.

[Balthisar]

Mexico: "Aguila o sol?" That is, "the eagle or the sun?" Because, well, traditionally there was one on one side of a coin, and the other on the other.

[Silver Tyger]

Originally Posted by constanze

Why is it tails in English, anyway? Head of the King or Queen on one side, number of value on the other side - makes sense. Later, it's a picture on one side, number smaller. But why tails?

Generally what is being flipped is a quarter. Until the state quarters started it was George Washington on the front and an eagle on the reverse. Why 'heads or tails' rather than 'heads or eagle'? WAG: they're the same number of syllables, and tails sounds like a good reverse of heads, being on the opposite end of a critter.

[constanze]

Originally Posted by Silver Tyger

Generally what is being flipped is a quarter. Until the state quarters started it was George Washington on the front and an eagle on the reverse. Why 'heads or tails' rather than 'heads or eagle'? WAG: they're the same number of syllables, and tails sounds like a good reverse of heads, being on the opposite end of a critter.

Are you sure it's an AE expression, and not a general English one? Because otherwise, you need an explanation before US quarters.

After all, the German Mark didn't usually show heads, either. The expression has been around some time, so it's based on old coins.

[pulykamell]

Originally Posted by constanze

Are you sure it's an AE expression, and not a general English one? Because otherwise, you need an explanation before US quarters.

After all, the German Mark didn't usually show heads, either. The expression has been around some time, so it's based on old coins.

You are correct. "Tails" in the sense of the non-head side of a coin, has been around since around 1680, according to etymonline.com:

tail (n.1) [...] Meaning "reverse side of a coin" is from 1680s;

That said, "tails" sounds like one logical opposite of "head" to me, so it being used for the backside of a coin doesn't sound odd to me at all.

[Indian]

It exists in at least 5 indian ( Asian) regional languages I know.

[obfusciatrist]

It is an old phrase in English.

Here's a math book printed in 1776 that uses tails to refer to the back side of a coin when talking about the possible outcomes of tossing 11 halfpence.

Here's a play, "The Atheist" by Thomas Otway, originally written in 1684 (the linked copy printed in 1726) that also uses the phrase:

Now I may do by my mistresses as the boys do by their farthings, hustle 'em in a hat together, and go to Heads and Tails for 'em...

So for origins of the English phrase I think it has to go back to England and their coins.

[Giles]

Originally Posted by Leaffan

tête ou b*tch

I don't understand this.

If tête is referring to the Queen, then who's the bitch? Or, conversely, if the Bitch is the Queen, then why is the reverse side being called tête?

That sounds like it comes from "tête-bêche", sometimes used in English to refer to a pair of stamps printed upside down relative to each other.

[Heracles]

Originally Posted by Leaffan

tête ou b*tch

I don't understand this.

If tête is referring to the Queen, then who's the bitch? Or, conversely, if the Bitch is the Queen, then why is the reverse side being called tête?

That makes two of us. But "tête" is the queen's side, I'm pretty sure.

ETA: I like Giles' hypothesis.

[obfusciatrist]

And just because old cites by famous people are liked: Alexander Pope used it in 1727 in "Peri Bathous, or the Art of Sinking in Poetry," the essay which introduced the word bathos.

[SpoilerVirgin]

Originally Posted by constanze

It's "Kopf oder Zahl" (Head or Number) in German. The German word Schwanz means both tail of an animal or slang for penis, so you might want to avoid using wrong translations like Google.

But "head or penis?" would make flipping a coin so much more interesting.

[Alessan]

In Hebrew (in Israel) it's "Etz o Pali" - "Tree or Pali", with "Pali" being short for "Palestine". My guess is that it refers to a specific coin that was in circulation sometime between 1918 and 1948.

Anyway, the Tree is the picture, and the Pali is the number.

[Alessan]

Follow-up: a quick Googling gave me this.

[constanze]

Originally Posted by pulykamell

That said, "tails" sounds like one logical opposite of "head" to me, so it being used for the backside of a coin doesn't sound odd to me at all.

But you don't know if the coins used at that time showed any tails?

I'm afraid I can't see the logic in calling a backside tails. Humans don't have tails, they have a butt, so it would either be "head or butt" or "Head or feet" if you want logically. Usually it seems to be what's on the other side of the coin, though - "Heads or number" or "Head or [whatever]".

[pulykamell]

Originally Posted by constanze

But you don't know if the coins used at that time showed any tails?

I'm afraid I can't see the logic in calling a backside tails. Humans don't have tails, they have a butt, so it would either be "head or butt" or "Head or feet" if you want logically. Usually it seems to be what's on the other side of the coin, though - "Heads or number" or "Head or [whatever]".

*shrug* To me, it doesn't seem odd at all. "Tail" is, indeed, used for "butt" in English sometimes. "Tail" as an opposite to "head" is common in English. The "head" of a line vs the "tail" of a line. A passage from Deuteronomy 28:13 "And the LORD shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath." " I had never actually thought of "head" and "tail" as literally meaning a head and tail, but rather meaning "front" and "back."

Besides, the more interesting question for me is why is it always in the plural?

[Dr. Drake]

Ffynes-Clinton's Welsh Vocabulary of the Bangor District gives "cing ta brits." Cing is the English word "king" (the Welsh for "king" is brenin and he defines brits as "'the figure of Britannia on the reverse side of copper coins'; only used in phrases connected with tossing coins" but since it is pronounced bridge I wonder if it's "king or bridge" — anyone know if there was a British coin with a bridge on the back in the Victorian era? I know there was a Britannia, but that seems far-fetched. Otherwise, it seems to be "tu blaen neu tu chwith," literally "front side or back side." Chwith is "left" and by extension both "back" and "wrong, strange" (cf. sinister).

[Krokodil]

Originally Posted by PacifistPorcupine

It probably relates more to the local currency than the language. And maybe not even the current local currency. When I was growing up in Mexico, it was Eagle or Sun. All Mexican coins had an eagle on one side, but I don't recall any that had a Sun on the other.

It has a Mayan calendar shaped like the Sun on the reverse side. There's a Cantinflas movie called Águila o sol (1938, one of his earliest films), so I guess it's a fairly common expression.

[naita]

Originally Posted by willthekittensurvive?

In dutch its "Kop of Munt" translate into heads or coin

In Norwegian it's kron eller mynt, i.e. crown or mint. The defining part being mint, the side the value is marked on. But some people don't know this and use the expression wrong when the coin has a crown or crowns on the same side as the value.

[TokyoBayer]

In Japanese it's omete (front) or ura back.

[UDS]

Originally Posted by constanze

But you don't know if the coins used at that time showed any tails?

I'm afraid I can't see the logic in calling a backside tails. Humans don't have tails, they have a butt, so it would either be "head or butt" or "Head or feet" if you want logically. Usually it seems to be what's on the other side of the coin, though - "Heads or number" or "Head or [whatever]".

People don't have heads at one end and tails at the other, but lots of common farmyard and domestic animals do. Coins don't represent people but they do represent property, and farm animals were an important form of property, so it makes more sense to personify a coin as an animal than as, well, a person.

The monarch's head on one side of a British coin is a pretty ancient and unvarying practice. The other side, however, could have a variety of designs and inscriptions; there was little or no commonality about what these might be. Hence it was easier to specify the obverse of a coin as "not the head" or "opposite the head" than by reference to what was on it, and "tails" worked for that purpose.

[Erdosain]

There is a fair amount of variation in Latin American countries, besides the "aguila o sol," which is unique to Mexico. The generic one is "cara o cruz" (face or cross).

Heads is always face, but Wikipedia lists a bunch of variations for the tails:

escudo (coat of arms), corona (crown), sello (seal), numero, letra (words), ceca (mint).

[Mangetout]

Originally Posted by UDS

People don't have heads at one end and tails at the other, but lots of common farmyard and domestic animals do. Coins don't represent people but they do represent property, and farm animals were an important form of property, so it makes more sense to personify a coin as an animal than as, well, a person.

Tail, as a general antonym for 'head' is faily general though - 'top to tail' is a less common variant of "top to toe", likewise "head over tail" and "head over heels" - 'tail', as well as meaing tail, also just means the trailing end of something, or the opposite end from the head.

In a modern context, there is a pair of *nix commands called head and tail, which return the first or last few lines respectively, of a file.

In the context of coinage, some British coins do/did have tails on the reverse side, for example:
The modern decimal 10p piece has lions on it (each coin in the set has a segment of the Royal Shield - the 10p has the top left part, and shows a pair of lions passant). Previous versions all the way back to decimal day had a single lion.

Sovreigns and Silver Crowns had a horse and rider (the horse with conspicuous tail)

Half Crowns had a depiction of the Royal Shield, with a total of 7 lions on it.

Shillings had a lion, Some Farthings (albeit later ones) had a wren Guineas had several different shields or crests, all with lions, and so on.

[CalMeacham]

It's not a question of language -- as many of the above replies illustrate, it often depends upon what's on the coin, or local slang. So the reply in Mexico might be different from that in Spain, from that in some country in South America.


In one of C.S. Foresyer's Hornblower novels, set in the British navy in the Napoleonic era, one officer asks another to call "Ace or Spade" before flipping a coin.

[Nava]

Well, the answer for Spain is the same one Erdosain mentions as the generic one: cara o cruz.

While there are dialectal variations, I don't think it's any more wrong to say that "in English, it's 'head or tails'; in Spanish, it's 'cara o cruz'" than it is to say "in English it's 'thank you', in Spanish it's 'gracias'".

[dracoi]

Originally Posted by constanze

But you don't know if the coins used at that time showed any tails?

I'm afraid I can't see the logic in calling a backside tails. Humans don't have tails, they have a butt, so it would either be "head or butt" or "Head or feet" if you want logically. Usually it seems to be what's on the other side of the coin, though - "Heads or number" or "Head or [whatever]".

If we insist that humans do not have tails and the rear end of a human can't be called a tail, then the expression "chasing tail" has frightening new meanings.

[Leo Bloom]

Originally Posted by constanze

It's "Kopf oder Zahl" (Head or Number) in German. The German word Schwanz means both tail of an animal or slang for penis, so you might want to avoid using wrong translations like Google

Schvantz I win Stucke you win.

Voof.

[naita]

Originally Posted by constanze

The German word Schwanz means both tail of an animal or slang for penis, so you might want to avoid using wrong translations like Google.

Originally Posted by constanze

I'm afraid I can't see the logic in calling a backside tails. Humans don't have tails, they have a butt, so it would either be "head or butt" or "Head or feet" if you want logically. Usually it seems to be what's on the other side of the coin, though - "Heads or number" or "Head or [whatever]".

Yes, because language and expressions have to be logical, the way calling the part of the body where we have a tail bone the tail isn't, and calling the floppy part opposite the butt a Schwanz is.

[constanze]

Originally Posted by naita

Yes, because language and expressions have to be logical, the way calling the part of the body where we have a tail bone the tail isn't, and calling the floppy part opposite the butt a Schwanz is.

I know that languages aren't logical. I just had a problem with it being presented as "Completly logical of course".

If tails as opposite to head even for humans has indeed a long history in the English language, but other examples have fallen out of use, that's an explanation that makes more sense to me.

And calling the penis a Schwanz= tail: well you can waggle it much better than the vestigial tailbone humans have.

[pulykamell]

Originally Posted by constanze

I know that languages aren't logical. I just had a problem with it being presented as "Completly logical of course".

"One logical opposite" is how I personally phrased it, and it is, indeed, a logical opposite of "head" in English, not just in literal usage, but in figurative usage.