What do you think of when you hear the word coin? Money, more specifically change. However, that simple word has more meanings than the quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies rattling around in your pocket.
The process of making coins by stamping them in metal is called coining. Dimes were once coined from 90% silver.
New words or phrases are said to be coined, as in "to coin a phrase". While no one knows who actually started, or coined this phrase, it may have come about by the aforementioned making of coins. As the freshly-minted coins were new, the phrase "to coin" took on the meaning of something new, and by the sixteenth century coining new words was popular. It appears that has not changed, and new words are added to the dictionary regularly.
Coin can also refer to your fortune, or lack thereof. One who has much coin is considered rich.
Coins have two sides. First the opposite, or flip side of the coin. For example, the great news is it's raining, the bad news is game is canceled.
And then where a thing is seen as having two sides that are closely related even though they don't seem so. Light and dark are two sides of the same coin - darkness is the absence of light and therefore light and dark are related.
The coin is also used to make a decision by tossing a coin and seeing how it lands. Heads we go out, tails we stay in.
Finally, if two options are of equal interest or value and you can't decide, you may say it's a toss-up, in which case you may want to employ a coin toss.
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Ha! I like how you did this post. So many things with "coin!"
ReplyDeleteThanks P.J. I was struggling with this prompt, too.
DeleteThen, of course, you could get a coin toss where the coin doesn't flip, like in the Arizona/Green Bay playoff game. Green Bay called tails, it landed tails, but because the coin never flipped over and over, the referee re-flipped the coin. Green Bay still called tails, but this time, it came up heads. Arizona got the ball and four plays later scored eliminating Green Bay. All because the coin didn't flip.
ReplyDeleteIn doing my research for this post, I did read about the coin toss in football, but since I don't know football to begin with, that was too much to go into. But now I know something that I didn't - even football teams use a coin toss.
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