Back in the old days, if you called something “a two-bit something-or-other”, you were saying it was cheap, because it’s only worth a quarter (two bits). Nobody uses two bits to mean a quarter these days, but in the age of bits and bytes, the term doesn’t have to be obselete! Two bits is extremely small, since it takes eight of them to make just one byte, so calling something “two-bit” in the modern sense still can convey worthlessness! Example: “I’m tired of this two-bit X-Box crap!” Eh? Eh?
I once had a two-bit death ray. Wonder what it would have brought on E-Bay.
Well, actually, $.25 is pretty damn worthless these days, much more so now then when the expression first appeared. We may still need to use a quarter for a vending machine or the laundry, but it’s not like you can ever use just one. You need a pocketful.
It’s arguable that when people started using the two-bit insult, a quarter was worth at least $5.00 in today’s money. Yet we’d never say, “you cheap half-sawbuck scalawag”!. Amazingly, we still think of five dollars as being a respectable sum of money.
I guess we’re just becoming too petty to update our insults according to inflation.
Well it is still used… haven’t you ever seen this gem?
Well it is still used… haven’t you ever seen this gem?
:groan:
Believe it or not, that was my first double post ever. I’m usually very good about only hitting submit once… I don’t know what happened this time.
It might garner as much as $19.20 nowadays.
Emilio Estevez is gonna be so pissed at you pizzabrat.
Speakiing of Tube-It…