We have a penny for your thoughts, of course, as the penny is a UK coin. But our cars turn on a sixpence.
We have 'In for a penny, in for a pound'; 'I don't give tuppence for...'; 'Only ten pence to the shilling' (there used to be 12 pence to the shilling - so it is the same idea as 'a sandwich short of a picnic' etc.); Look after the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves'.
While we don't use U.S. currency, our denominations are the same as yours (except for the $2 unit). So, we use many of the same sayings you do. The ones I am familiar with (and have perhaps used) are
A penny saved is a penny earned My car turns on a dime They're a dime a dozen A penny for your thoughts
The only one I don't know really is the "plug nickel" one, though I think I've heard it before in an American context.
I can't think of any particular Canadian sayings or aphorisms, but we do have a term: the lucky loonie. It refers to loonies hidden under the ice of hockey arenas to bring good luck -- which it has in the Olympics. Here's a link if you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_1_dollar_coin
You'll need to scroll about half way down to see the story.
You hadn't heard of a loonie before? Then I suppose you haven't heard of a toonie either (our two-dollar coin). What with Loonies and Toonies, and Americans referring to our coloured paper money as "Monopoly money", folk south of the border have been having giggles at our money for years!
I know the two traditional British idioms "penny wise and pound foolish" and "take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves" (both essentially the same idea).
'Worth a guinea a minute' is something very good. Oh and we also have 'just going to spend a penny' which means go to the loo or bathroom as you would say, stemming from the days when there was a slot in the doors of public conveniences which took pennies!
Our currency is öre (=cent) and krona (=dollar/pound/whatever). Even though we have had 1, 2, 5, 10, 25 and 50 öre coins, we've never had any special names for them, a la nickels and dimes - we're boring that way. ;-)
Most of our currency idioms are related to the öre (pron. like UH-reh) - ören in the plural. We have:
- If something's not worth a red öre, it isn't worth anything, literally or figuratively. (Don't ask me where the red part comes from; it might be because 1, 2 and 5 öre coins all have been copper coins, but that's a guess on part.)
- If something turns on a 5-öring (=a 5 öre coin), it turns on a dime. ;-)
- If you don't have any money, you of course don't have an öre, or not an öre in your pocket.
- If you aren't interested at all, you aren't interested for 5 öre. (Apparently we really like that coin, even though it hasn't been around for more than 20 years. :-P)
Very interesting! Do you have any idea where the red in your phrase comes from?
(Had our red öre been an expression that had cropped up in recent years, I would have thought the red part in ours came from it being mixed (up) with the English one, but this is an *old* expression; we were nowhere near as contaminated, I mean exposed to English back then as we are now.)
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We have 'In for a penny, in for a pound'; 'I don't give tuppence for...'; 'Only ten pence to the shilling' (there used to be 12 pence to the shilling - so it is the same idea as 'a sandwich short of a picnic' etc.); Look after the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves'.
Probably more, if I thought even harder!
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A penny saved is a penny earned
My car turns on a dime
They're a dime a dozen
A penny for your thoughts
The only one I don't know really is the "plug nickel" one, though I think I've heard it before in an American context.
I can't think of any particular Canadian sayings or aphorisms, but we do have a term: the lucky loonie. It refers to loonies hidden under the ice of hockey arenas to bring good luck -- which it has in the Olympics. Here's a link if you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_1_dollar_coin
You'll need to scroll about half way down to see the story.
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;)
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Most of our currency idioms are related to the öre (pron. like UH-reh) - ören in the plural. We have:
- If something's not worth a red öre, it isn't worth anything, literally or figuratively. (Don't ask me where the red part comes from; it might be because 1, 2 and 5 öre coins all have been copper coins, but that's a guess on part.)
- If something turns on a 5-öring (=a 5 öre coin), it turns on a dime. ;-)
- If you don't have any money, you of course don't have an öre, or not an öre in your pocket.
- If you aren't interested at all, you aren't interested for 5 öre. (Apparently we really like that coin, even though it hasn't been around for more than 20 years. :-P)
I'm sure there are more. :-)
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(Had our red öre been an expression that had cropped up in recent years, I would have thought the red part in ours came from it being mixed (up) with the English one, but this is an *old* expression; we were nowhere near as contaminated, I mean exposed to English back then as we are now.)
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http://sensology.blogs.com/sensational_color/2006/08/not_worth_a_red.html
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_does_'not_one_red_cent'_mean
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