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The expression also survives in the sportsĬheer "Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar … all for (player's name), stand up and holler!" The company advertised on their sleeves, "2 Hits for 2 Bits."Įxample of this use of "bit" can be found in the poem "Six-Bits Blues" by Langston Hughes, which includes the following couplet: Gimme six bits' worth o'ticket / On a train that runs somewhere.… In the early 1930s, Crown Records was a US record label which sold records for only 25¢. Roger Miller's song "King of the Road" features the lines: Ah, but two hours of pushin' broom buys an / Eight by twelve four-bit room referring to signs stating "Rooms to let, 50¢." "Shave and a Haircut, two bits." As an adjective, "two-bit" describes something cheap or unworthy. But if you have not, and lay down a quarter, the bar-keeper or shopman calmly tenders you a dime by way of change and thus you have paid what is called a long bit, and lost two and a half cents, or even, by comparison with a short bit, five cents.Ĭontinues in general use as a colloquial expression, for 25¢, or a quarter dollar as in the song catchphrase If you have one, you lay it triumphantly down, and save two and a half cents. But how about an odd bit? The nearest coin to it is a dime, which is, short by a fifth.

When it comes to two bits, the quarter-dollar stands for the requiredĪmount. The supposed value of the bit is twelve and a half cents, eight to the dollar. In the Pacific States they have made a bolder push for complexity, and settle their affairs by a coin that no longer exists – the bit, or old Mexican real. Robert Louis Stevenson describes his experience with bits in Across the Plains, (1892) Picayune, which was originally 1 / 2 real or 1 / 2 bit ( 6 + 1 / 4¢), was similarly transferred to the US nickel.)įoreign coins, continued to be widely used and allowed as legal tender by Chapter XXII of the Act of Apuntil theĬoinage Act of 1857 discontinued the practice. Because there was no 1-bit coin, a dime (10¢) was sometimes called a short bit and 15¢ a long bit. $ 1 / 8, but "two bits" remained in the language with the meaning of $ 1 / 4. currency in 1794, there was no longer a U.S. Spanish dollar, also known as "piece of eight", which was worth 8 Spanish silver reales. In the U.S., the "bit" as a designation for money dates from the colonial period, when the most common unit of currency used was the In the US, the bit is equal to 12 + 1 / 2¢. Banknote for "Twelve and a Half Cents" = $ 1 / 8, Alabama, 1838