Add My Two Cents and Five Eggs
Richard Maurer
For the highbrow side of "add my two cents" we have
a letter from Oliver Wendell Holmes dated 1872,
but published in 1895:
I trust you are sensible enough not to consider
my opinion as worth two cents. But such as it is
I put it on record for my future confusion, ...
Works - Page 195 by Oliver Wendell Holmes,
John Torrey Morse - 1896 (on copyright page)
For the low worth side, we need five eggs.
Robert Hendricksen, in _Word and Phrase Origins_
considers
"put in one's two cents' worth"
and
"come in with one's five eggs"
to be comparable phrases. The five eggs phrase
goes back a few centuries. It also has the
advantage of being easier to search for.
The next quotes are from
A Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words
By Walter William Skeat, Anthony Lawson Mayhew
pages 148 and 128
five eggs : in phr. to come in with one's. five eggs,
to break in or interrupt fussily with an idle story ;
' Persones coming in with their five egges,
how that Sylla had geuen ouer his office ',
Udall, tr. of Erasmus's Apoph. , p. 272 ;
' Another commeth in with his fiue egges ',
Robinson, tr. More's Utopia (ed. Arber, p. 56).
The orig. phrase had reference to the offering
of five eggs for a penny, which was a trivial offer,
and not very advantageous to the purchaser
in the sixteenth century ; see eggs (2).
eggs : phr. to lake eggs for money, to accept
an offer which one would rather refuse.
Winter's Tale, i. 2. 161. (Fully explained
by me in Phil. Soc. Trans., 1903, p. 146).
Farmers' daughters would go to market, taking with
them a basket of eggs. If one bought something worth
(suppose) 3s. 4iJ., she would pay the 3s. and say
' will you take eggs for money ? ' If the shopman
weakly consented, he received the value of the 4iZ.
in eggs ; usually (16th cent.) at the rate of 4 or 5
a penny. But the strong-minded shopman would refuse.
Eggs were even used to pay interest for money.
Thus Rowley has : ' By Easter next you should have
the principal, and eggs for the use [interest],
indeed, sir. Bloodhound. Oh rogue, rogue,
I shall have eggs for my money ! I must hang myself,
A Match at Midnight, v. 1.
I can see a possible connection if a story using
the "five eggs" phrase was recounted later when the
egg practice was unknown, and the price of eggs had
gone up in the intervening years. Especially since
I think "put in" could also mean "offer for sale",
but I haven't fully sussed that out yet.
-- ---------------------------------------------
Richard Maurer To reply, remove half
Sunnyvale, California of a homonym of a synonym for also.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
(I love you ... 'cause you tell me things I want to know)
Donna Richoux
> Add My Two Cents and Five Eggs
>
> For the highbrow side of "add my two cents" we have
> a letter from Oliver Wendell Holmes dated 1872,
> but published in 1895:
>
> I trust you are sensible enough not to consider
> my opinion as worth two cents. But such as it is
> I put it on record for my future confusion, ...
>
> Works - Page 195 by Oliver Wendell Holmes,
> John Torrey Morse - 1896 (on copyright page)
Yes, what's good about that is that it specifically ties the concept of
"opinion" to the low value. I haven't reviewed what we established last
time we worked on the subject, but as I recall, the difficulty was
finding a link between "two cents' worth" and opinions, before the
1890s.
I just checked "worth two cents" in Google Books and can easily find
examples of it meaning "a low value" in the 1800s, in negative
comparisons such as these:
Companion to the Botanical Magazine By William Jackson
Hooker Item notes: v.1 (1835) Pages 40-41
You may form an idea of the difficulties I have to
encounter in this miserable country ... when I tell
you, that all the bird-skins I sent you were removed
with a common old penknife, not worth two cents., and
that even this shabby article I could not have kept
had the natives seen any thing to covet in it ...
=====
The Life and Beauties of Fanny Fern [pseud.] ... -
Page 122 - 1855 - But it was
always ' husband,' and ' dear Daisy,' even when he
knew his life wasn't worth two cents if he abated one
jot or tittle of his matrimonial loyalty ...
=====
At the General Assembly of the State of Rhode-Island
and Providence Plantations... Published by Henry Ward,
Secretary, 1864
Q. If any of the orders should not be paid, the
profit would be less ? A. Yes, sir ; I can show you
one now, it is not worth two cents.
I hadn't heard of this phrase at all. I can believe that at some time
and place "come in with five eggs" was used to mean "to break in or
interrupt fussily with an idle story," but my instant prediction is that
you're not going to find any connection with "my two cents' worth."
Yeah, somebody thought they were "comparable," but that probably just
means in function (to belittle a contribution) not in origin.
It's still interesting, though.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
Richard Maurer
"put in one's two cents' worth"
and
"come in with one's five eggs"
... my instant prediction is that you're
not going to find any connection with
"my two cents' worth." Yeah, somebody thought
they were "comparable," but that probably just
means in function (to belittle a contribution)
not in origin.
I expect that the "two cents" phrase became instantly
figurative. The earliest newspaper quotes I see
are from 1929, and tossed about familiarly, so a
radio show may be involved.
What was new to me was that the thought that the
pre-figurative offering might not have been wisdom,
or a contribution to the discussion, but an offer
to sell "two cents" of X. X might have been ribbon,
taffy, chocolate, or pistachios. Such a phrase
would have been ready made for self-deprecation.
Some one came through the door, interrupted the discussion
to "put in"(offer for sale) two cents' worth (of X).
That would be a direct time translation of the old phrase.
(I think that the egg business is interesting even
if it has nothing to do with "two cents".)
-- ---------------------------------------------
Richard Maurer To reply, remove half
Sunnyvale, California of a homonym of a synonym for also.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
(era translation? eraic translation?)
Evan Kirshenbaum
> I expect that the "two cents" phrase became instantly figurative.
> The earliest newspaper quotes I see are from 1929, and tossed about
> familiarly, so a radio show may be involved.
That seems to be when it became popular, but I see one on Google Books
over two decades earlier:
"Missis, dear, don't tell your father about the electric light
till after dinner,--excuse me for putting in my two cents, but I
always was nosey!"
Lilian Bell, _At Home with the Jardines_
[Google gives it as "Hardines"], 1906
(copyright 1902)
"Excuse me, Boss and Missis dear, for putting in my two cents, but
you surely aren't thinking of sending all the furniture by
freight, when vans are so much more convenient?"
_ibid._
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Never attempt to teach a pig to
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |sing; it wastes your time and
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |annoys the pig.
| Robert Heinlein
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Donna Richoux
> "Richard Maurer" <rcpb1_...@yahoo.com> writes:
>
> > I expect that the "two cents" phrase became instantly figurative.
Seems pretty gradual to me. Long period of it referring to buying a
specific amount of goods ("two cents's worth of flour"), then
substantial period of it meaning a small amount (the "not worth two
cents" phase), then the "putting in one's two cents" form which is
really the one in question, the one where it means offering an opinion
(humbly valued at low worth).
> > The earliest newspaper quotes I see are from 1929, and tossed about
> > familiarly, so a radio show may be involved.
>
> That seems to be when it became popular, but I see one on Google Books
> over two decades earlier:
>
> "Missis, dear, don't tell your father about the electric light
> till after dinner,--excuse me for putting in my two cents, but I
> always was nosey!"
>
> Lilian Bell, _At Home with the Jardines_
> [Google gives it as "Hardines"], 1906
> (copyright 1902)
>
> "Excuse me, Boss and Missis dear, for putting in my two cents, but
> you surely aren't thinking of sending all the furniture by
> freight, when vans are so much more convenient?"
>
> _ibid._
When we worked on this in 2006, you (Evan) found one from 1899 that was
also with "put" and definitely along the lines of giving an opinion.
If talking will do any good and will bring us Flatbushers any
better service, just let an old reader of your esteemed paper put
in his "two cents' worth" on the mismanagement of the Flatbush
line of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, and at the same time
thank "Worker" and "Vanderveer Park" for telling the truth about
the service that Mr. Rossiter is giving to this fine old town.
[_Brooklyn Daily Eagle_, 8/28/1899]
I thought there was a indication somewhere that Dialect Notes (American
Dialect Society) had this phrase in the mid-1890s, but I don't find in
mentioned in the documents I saved, and I didn't find it in an on-line
volume when I searched a month or so ago. I guess it was the wrong
volume, or maybe it was a different phrase.