# Meaning of phrase "two-bit character" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 3, 2012, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-phrase-two-bit-character/636579 "2012-10-03T13:35:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Kiyoshi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e19adc/32.png) [@Kiyoshi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kiyoshi)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-phrase-two-bit-character/636579/1 "2012-10-03T13:35:57Z")
A simple question, but I can’t find the answer by googling. I’m reading the _Suzumiya Haruhi_ novels, and the narrator, Kyon, someyimes refers to his friends Taniguchi and Kunikida as “two-bit characters”. What does this mean? The only use of “two-bit” I can find online, is to describe an object as cheap. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-phrase-two-bit-character/636579/2 "2012-10-03T13:44:19Z")
Exactly. Two bits is slang for a quarter. Describing something cheap as two-bit goes back probably to the 1920s, when you would see references to things like “two-bit hoodlum” to describe a low-level thug in a detective novel. No idea how it is being used in what you are reading, but it’s kind of a film-noir type reference. ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-phrase-two-bit-character/636579/3 "2012-10-03T13:48:08Z")
Well since the OP is answered, how did ‘two bits’ become slang for a quarter? Two-bit would seem to imply that there is also a single bit, but I don’t see how useful it is to have a term for 12 1/2 cents. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-phrase-two-bit-character/636579/4 "2012-10-03T13:49:32Z")
Here’s my guess: In colonial days, Americas used any currency that was available since they didn’t mint their own coins. A popular one was the Spanish dollar, worth eight reales. This was the piece of eight known from pirate movies. Americans combined this with an old British expression for small coins and called each eighth a bit. I don’t know for sure if they literally cut the coins into eighths or just used the expression figuratively, but one-bit, two-bit, etc. entered the language both literally as fractions of a dollar and figuratively as anything cheap, or small, or not whole, or not worth paying good money for. Small change also came to take on most of those meanings. A two-bit hood in private eye books was a punk, a poor imitation of someone really dangerous, a quarter as opposed to real folding money. Today we might use knockoff in that way, a cheap imitation of a luxury good. Both phrases are extremely versatile and can be extended to a wide variety of figurative sues. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-phrase-two-bit-character/636579/5 "2012-10-03T13:59:47Z")
They literally cut the coin into bits sometimes. It was solid silver, so that was a way to make change. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-phrase-two-bit-character/636579/6 "2012-10-03T14:12:03Z")
[Wikipedia on a “bit”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_(money)). > [@](#): > > In the U.S., the “bit” as a designation for money dates from the colonial period, when the most common unit of currency used was the Spanish dollar, also known as “piece of eight”, which was worth 8 Spanish silver reales. One eighth of a dollar or one silver real was one “bit”. > With the adoption of the decimal U.S. currency in 1794, there was no longer a coin worth 1/8 of a dollar but “two bits” remained in the language with the meaning of one quarter dollar, “four bits” half dollar, etc. Because there was no one-bit coin, a dime (10 ¢) was sometimes called a short bit and 15¢ a long bit. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-phrase-two-bit-character/636579/7 "2012-10-03T14:29:47Z")
I also understand it to be the going rate for a shave and a haircut. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-phrase-two-bit-character/636579/8 "2012-10-03T16:00:30Z")
> [@leahcim](#): > > I also understand it to be the going rate for a shave and a haircut. Your barber must have been one desperate dude. Most barbers traditionally charged _six_ bits! (Wikipedia says [both](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shave_and_a_haircut). That’s news to me. I’ve never heard other than “six bits”. 😕 Including the shave, of course.) ETA: Anyone remember what it was in _Roger Rabbit?_ – Two bits or six bits? ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-phrase-two-bit-character/636579/9 "2012-10-03T16:03:28Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Your barber must have been one desperate dude. Most barbers traditionally charged _six_ bits! > > (Wikipedia says [both](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shave_and_a_haircut). That’s news to me. I’ve never heard other than “six bits”. 😕 Including the shave, of course.) > > ETA: Anyone remember what it was in _Roger Rabbit?_ – Two bits or six bits? Don’t know about Roger Rabbit, but I’ve only heard the “two bits” version. ETA: [Two bits](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSj-w01_t2o) in _Roger Rabbit_. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-phrase-two-bit-character/636579/10 "2012-10-03T16:05:07Z")
I assume inflation drove the price of a shave and a haircut from 2 bits to 6 bits over time. At that point the phrase stuck instead of following through to the current price of 232 bits. ---
**Author:** ![74westy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/74westy/32/3950_2.png) [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-phrase-two-bit-character/636579/11 "2012-10-03T16:23:39Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Your barber must have been one desperate dude. Most barbers traditionally charged _six_ bits! > > (Wikipedia says [both](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shave_and_a_haircut). That’s news to me. I’ve never heard other than “six bits”. 😕 Including the shave, of course.) > > ETA: Anyone remember what it was in _Roger Rabbit?_ – Two bits or six bits? It has to be six bits or the second verse doesn’t make sense. You know – the one that starts “Cow and a milkmaid” ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-phrase-two-bit-character/636579/12 "2012-10-03T17:25:57Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I assume inflation drove the price of a shave and a haircut from 2 bits to 6 bits over time. At that point the phrase stuck instead of following through to the current price of 232 bits. Yeah. 232 bits wouldn’t scan. Anyone remember the old football cheer? Two bits! Four bits! Six bits! A dollar! All for (your school) Stand up and holler! ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-phrase-two-bit-character/636579/13 "2012-10-03T18:18:02Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > [Wikipedia on a “bit”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_(money)). Note also that Spanish coinage continued to circulate on par with the US dollar through a large part of the 19th century, particularly in the west, reinforcing the “two bits = a quarter” equivalence. The [Coinage Act of 1857](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coinage_Act_of_1857) made foreign coins no longer legal tender. However, when the twenty cent silver coin was minted in 1875/76, Spanish bits were still being circulated in the west. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-phrase-two-bit-character/636579/14 "2012-10-03T18:51:03Z")
> [@74westy](#): > > It has to be six bits or the second verse doesn’t make sense. You know – the one that starts “Cow and a milkmaid” Googling “Cow and a milkmaid” six bits brings up nothing. So I don’t get it. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-phrase-two-bit-character/636579/15 "2012-10-03T18:53:08Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Googling “Cow and a milkmaid” six bits brings up nothing. So I don’t get it. I’m guessing something to do with the total number of teats. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2012, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-phrase-two-bit-character/636579/16 "2012-10-03T23:31:15Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > They literally cut the coin into bits sometimes. It was solid silver, so that was a way to make change. They rarely would do this. The idea that the Spanish dollar sized 8 real was cut into pieces is a bit of a fantasy. Not saying it didn’t happen, but rarely done. ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-phrase-two-bit-character/636579/17 "2012-10-04T03:37:05Z")
It makes me wonder if 128-bit encryption is really only worth 16 dollars. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-phrase-two-bit-character/636579/18 "2012-10-04T05:12:23Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-phrase-two-bit-character/636579/19 "2012-10-04T10:07:43Z")
> [@Sicks\_Ate](#): > > It makes me wonder if 128-bit encryption is really only worth 16 dollars. On a more serious note, I wonder if this is where the 8 bits to a byte thing came from? ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2012, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-phrase-two-bit-character/636579/20 "2012-10-04T10:54:28Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > They rarely would do this. The idea that the Spanish dollar sized 8 real was cut into pieces is a bit of a fantasy. Not saying it didn’t happen, but rarely done. This is from a site about Australian colonial currency, which also used the Spanish dollar. It makes for a good read, but as to the cutting - it seems that it happened enough to be documented as real, but not all that often: > [@](#): > > While occassional references to change being given in ‘small triangular pieces of silver’ are found in various records from the colony dated in the 1790’s and into the early 1800’s, these pieces played only a miniscule role as a medium of exchange . > Exiled Irish patriot Joseph Holt recorded in the early 1800’s that on offering a guinea for a bottle of rum, he was given in change “three small pieces of silver of a triangular shape, the value of which I did not know”. These were likely to have been parts of a dollar cut as described above. The ease with which cut dollar pieces could be reproduced today from real Spanish dollars has relegated them to curiosity status for most numismatists. [http://www.australianstamp.com/Coin-web/aust/earlyaus.htm#CutDollarsAnchor](http://www.australianstamp.com/Coin-web/aust/earlyaus.htm#CutDollarsAnchor) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meaning-of-phrase-two-bit-character/636579.md?page=2)