Englishnot worth a red cent
Meaning: Worthless.
Example: “The old coupon isn't worth a red cent now.”
Equivalents in other languages
Swedish: det är inte värt ett öre Literally: It is not worth an öre
Origin: The cent was struck in copper, which gave the coin a distinctly reddish color and made "red" a natural identifying adjective for the lowest denomination in American currency. The phrase therefore names the smallest unit of money a person could actually hold and denies something even that. What is striking is how many languages have independently built the identical expression around their own smallest reddish coin: Swedish has "inte värd ett rött öre," Danish "ikke en rød øre," German "keinen roten Heller." The convergence is not borrowing but arithmetic — copper is the cheap coinage metal almost everywhere, so the lowest denomination is reddish almost everywhere, and the same joke becomes available in each language separately.
More English idioms
- off one's rocker Out of one's mind; slightly crazy.
- off the wall Unusual; peculiar.
- old fuddy-duddy A person who is old-fashioned and not open to new technology or ideas.
- old hat Old-fashioned, or so familiar as to be boring.
- on the warpath Looking for a fight; very angry and upset with someone or something.
- put something on hold To postpone something; on the phone, to make someone wait without hanging up.
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Words that look familiar in another language but mean something else entirely.
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