not worth a plugged nickel!

[xray]

I can't believe this has sat on Ebay for 10 hours with a BIN of $1. Where's the love for the 2.4????

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=7970152585&category=46098

[Bambikiller240]

SOmebody will get them. If I was closer, I would.

[TomoHawk]

I believe the phrase is a "plug nickel."

[Fun_in_my_z]

I would but its to far away

[xray]

http://www.word-detective.com/061300.html

Funny money.

Dear Word Detective: I'm wondering about the term "plugged nickel," which would never have come to mind except that I work at a newspaper and I just noticed that someone used the term "plug nickel" in a headline: "Million Dollar greens not worth plug nickel to golden boy Garcia." (Whatever that means. I guess it's about golf.) I'd always thought it was "plugged" nickel and might mean that the coin isn't pure nickel (or whatever non-precious metal nickels are made of) but is plugged with something cheaper. Or maybe a gunman shot the nickel down and the big hole in it makes it worthless. Who the heck knows? -- Marilyn Lynch, via the internet.

I agree. Who the heck, indeed. It's a nice day, far too nice to spend poring over dusty old books in a musty old office searching for word and phrase origins. I'm going for a walk in the woods now. You guys are on your own.

Funny, my wife seems to have locked me in here. Oh well, may as well work. "Not worth a plugged nickel" as an Americanism meaning "worthless" first appeared in print about 1912, although we can assume "plugged nickel", along with the similar "plugged quarter" and "plugged peso," were in common usage long before they made it into print. To "plug" a coin means to remove its center, usually because the coin is made of a precious metal such as gold or silver, and to replace the missing part with a cheaper metal "plug." This sort of larcenous messing with currency has been popular since coins first appeared millennia ago, and Americans were plugging French, English and other nations' coins back in the days before we had our own to plug. A plugged nickel, while it may be accepted at face value by an inattentive shopkeeper, is, of course, fundamentally worthless.

Incidentally, although we think of the nickel as the quintessential American five-cent piece, in 1857 the coin known as "the nickel" was made of copper and nickel and worth only one cent. A three cent all-nickel "nickel" appeared in 1865, but the nickel we know today (again actually a copper-nickel alloy) wasn't issued until 1875.

[TomoHawk]

etymology is cool. My favorite is the dime (pronounced "deem"), which most people pronounce 'incorrectly.'

[xray]

etymology is cool. My favorite is the dime (pronounced "deem"), which most people pronounce 'incorrectly.'

being a Southerner, etymology and colloquialisms can be a great pastime. I've found some great websites---try these (if you don't already know of them...)

http://www.etymonline.com/

http://www.etymologic.com/

It's a weird interest, I'll admit, but I come by it honestly as my father had an etymological addiction as well.

Steve