3 ms·

I've definitely heard expressions that go something like, "Why you no-good, two-bit etc etc!", and never connected that to this until now.

• TeMPOraL 3y ago
  Me neither! I always tentatively assumed it's about computer bits, where two bits would be "not much", and that somehow it entered into normie vernacular. So, TIL that this is another case of society and culture in the 19th and 20th century US evolving primarily around the stock exchange :o.
  • bregma 3y ago
    TIL Yosemite Sam was the rootinest, tootinest computer geek this side of the Pecos.
  • madcaptenor 3y ago
    And of course bytes are divided into eight bits - but that's just a coincidence, because bits came first and byte sizes weren't standardized until the 1970s.
  • samatman 3y ago
    I suspect that "bit" for binary digit and "bit" as in "two bits" is a deliberate convergence more than pure coincidence. Tukey coined the term right after the war, which is a cultural high water mark for the term two bits. It doesn't hurt that "a bit" also means the least of something one might reasonably consider, this is where the bit as a sliver of the Spanish Dollar comes from in the first place, eight pieces being about as small as it was feasible to divide the coin into. Hence two bits for the quarter.