Klarinet Archive - Posting 000397.txt from 2001/02

From: "Mark Charette" <charette@-----.org>
Subj: Re: [kl] My two cents
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 17:36:47 -0500

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tony Pay" <Tony@-----.uk>
Subject: [kl] My two cents

> I often see here the phrase: 'Just my two cents'.
>
> What I *think* this means, is: "This is my contribution. It may not be
> much, and it may even be wrong; but it's real -- I've thought about it,
> and I'd defend its reality."
>
> However, how it's often used is: "This is what I think. It may be only
> my opinion, but, hey, my opinion here is as good as anyone else's."
>
> I think this is a mistaken use of the phrase.
>

"Opinion" may be a better usage. From a cursory search of Google using "two
cents etymology" comes the following. It may or may not be accurate, but I
don't have access to much else to look things up this Sunday:
-------
>From http://www.alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxputino.html

This file is an excerpt from the September 1997 version of Mark Israel's AUE
FAQ.
The file was re-generated Sunday 3 December 2000 09:39 GMT with URLs updated
where necessary and if possible.
To see the full AUE FAQ, click here.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

"put in one's two cents' worth"
-------------------------------

This expression meaning "to contribute one's opinion" dates from
the late nineteenth century. Bo Bradham suggested that it came from
"the days of $.02 postage. To 'put one's two cents' worth in'
referred to the cost of a letter to the editor, the president, or
whomever was deserving". According to the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, the first-class postal rate was 2 cents an ounce between
1883 and 1932 (with the exception of a brief period during World War
I). This OED citation confirms that two-cent stamps were once
common: "1902 ELIZ. L. BANKS Newspaper Girl xiv, Dinah got a letter
through the American mail. She had fivepence to pay on it, because
only a common two-cent stamp had been stuck on it." On the other
hand, "two-cent" was an American expression for "of little value"
(similar to British "twopenny-halfpenny"), so the phrase may simply
have indicated the writer's modesty about the value of his
contribution.
-------------------

Mark C.

"When the unknown is thought to be unknowable, gaps in knowledge are too
readily filled by fancy, so long as the fancy is consistent with faith." --
Sherwin B. Newland, M.D., "The Mysteries Within".

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