Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Day 16 - Shave and a haircut, two bits

Not sure where that little musical ditty originated, or even if the younger generation still refers to a quarter as two bits,* but the phrase came to mind for this week's theme.
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*
Soooo
, being the curious type that I am, I Googled "two bits" and came across this interesting tidbit:

Word Origins:
Where did the Term "Two Bits" Come From?

During the colonial days, people used coins from all over the world. The most commonly used coin was the Spanish milled dollar. When our nation adopted an official currency, the Spanish Milled Dollar was chosen, and it later became the model for American silver dollars.

"That will be two bits, sir."
The Spanish milled dollars were easily cut apart into equal "bits" of 8 pieces. One "bit" would be equal to 1/8 of a dollar, and 2 bits would equal 2/8 (or 1/4 - a quarter of a dollar). So, it is easy to see why the coins were called "pieces of eight", and "2 bits" was commonly used to refer to 25 cents.
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Makes perfect sense to me!

4 comments:

Stacy at Exceedingly Mundane said...

Cool stuff! Plus, there's the cheerleading cheer, 2 bits, 4 bits, 6 bits, a dollar :)

crowdog66 said...

What a great little bit of history to go with a neat picture! I never knew that before. :-)

lynette said...

Fun little history lesson :) Great close up too.

Anonymous said...

My dad always used to sing that little ditty to me, but I never really knew what it meant, so thanks for that very cool bit of trivia!