buck three eighty
A pittance, or the amount that one lacks in order to purchase a local busfare.
Well, I imagine it’s not strictly an East Coast thing, as my father says “a buck 3 eighty-five” and he grew up in Wisconsin. And on the very least one of my uncles (one of his brothers) utilizes it also. contemplating that then, I’ve observed or observed odd monetary expressions like that in your context of mid-to-north-Atlantic Coast urbanites, and I’ve in no way understood what it’s designed to mean.
theme shoes Cease to struggle and you cease to live. – Thomas Carlyle
I see the words and they don’t understand me.
I think the comment was intended for this thread.
Ah, so!
Yes, I don’t what you said well.
Reported for merging.
Accidental new thread merged with existing reanimated zombie thread.
I honestly think the expression is stupid. It doesn’t communicate anything that any other random assortment of currencies couldn’t, as indicated by the number of variations. It sounds like something my old drunk ex-uncle would say. You’d tell him that he was so funny because you knew that’s what he wanted, but secretly be wondering if the constant boozing had broken his brain.
Is this seriously still in use?
Neither my wife (born and raised in Vermont) nor I (born and raised in Ohio) had heard this phrase before. I would’ve assumed “a buck three-eighty” was slang for “a miscellaneous small wad of cash and coins” (i.e. “a coupla bucks”) or $4.80 (one dollar plus three dollars plus eighty cents in change).
Ignorance fought.
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:48, topic:4619”]
Accidental new thread merged with existing reanimated zombie thread.
[/QUOTE]
That’s how The Virus got started, you know.
Never heard this phrase before. Grew up in Texas and lived in the Southwest and Hawaii.
Since I’m the one that resurrected this monster, I kind of feel (a little bit) obligated to continue participating.
I started this mess with the observation that my dear old Dad, used the phrase “two six bits”. Upon rereading the entire thread (again), I feel I ought to add that I’ve queried him about whether he had ever used the term “a buck three-eighty” or “a buck 3 eighty-five”, or if he could recall having heard it(them) being used. He responded, “No, can’t say I have.”
Like Siam Sam, I was (born and) raised in Texas and had never heard the term ‘buck three-eighty/eighty five’ being used, nor had I ever heard any of my multitudinous kinfolk in Louisiana (where my father and mother are from) use it, either. Just sayin’… 
A buck/dollar three-eighty is $1.83. The word sequence is exactly how numbers are spoken in German. Instead of saying eighty-three, Germans say three and eighty (in German, of course). For one hundred eighty-three, they say one hundred three and eighty. I imagine it’s the same in Yiddish, and no surprise it’s common in New York City. Somewhere along the way, the “and” got left out.
I first heard that Billy Joel song as a teenager in NY when it came out and what my ears heard him singing was, “a buck three eighty won’t buy me much lady on the streets these days”. 
The earliest press acount I could find was from 1950. The writer is Ewing M. Poteet, based in New Orleans:
Even more than making movies, Hollywood is famed for spending money.
The usual procedure is to pour out forty-eleven million dollars making a film and devoting the proceeds of a couple of diamond mines to its promotion. What happens? It goes over like a cement balloon.
Then, just for kicks, some producer ties one hand behind his back, and, in his spare time, turns out a picture for a buck three-eighty that makes life really worth living for a movie-goer.
–New Orleans Item, March 30, 1950
Apparently it just meant dirt cheap in this context. The next press account I found was two decades later in an article on fly fishing:
Oh, yes! And be prepared for all the tiny insects to feast on you while you’re waiting for that trout (if there is one out there) to feast on that fly you paid a buck-three-eighty for.
–Daytona Beach Morning Journal, August 10, 1970
Did not show up very much in press accounts, with the exception of a race horse with the name ‘Buck Three Eighty’ from the late 1980s into the early 1990s.
That’s my experience.
I always took it to mean $3.50, except saying it the hard way for…reasons.
No one let me in on the slang.
I’ve never understood this expression and similar ones to be intended to refer to a specific amount of money. They are deliberately using improper syntax to just mean some arbitrary small amount of money, like “a jillion dollars” is used to mean some arbitrary large amount of money.
Yeah, I’d interpret it as “a buck, or two-fifty, or whatever, something small like that, don’t bother me with the details”.
I mean, it’s one buck. What could it cost, ten dollars?
.5 fast.
