Today I/m going to talk about pennies, the old coin, the penny, because it's actually found in many, many idioms in English even though the penny as we knew it doesn't exist any more. I'm going to start with the penny drops, so that's a moment when in idiom or a joke of some remark or argument has suddenly been understood. A little bit obvious perhaps, this one, but it dates from the middle of the 20th century when penny slot machines were incredibly popular at fairgrounds up and down the land and indeed on piers and arcades, etc. They're, of course, motionless and entirely unresponsive until the penny drops inside and, similary, a person who doesn't understand a joke or a remark made to them doesn't react until, so to speak, the penny drops in their brain. But inflation has caught up with proverbial sayings. We still use them today. A penny for your thoughts means nothing, really, a penny, but we still use it. You'd now need at least 20p to spend a penny obviously in a British public loo. Obviously that comes from when you had those coin-operated locks operated by the heavy, really old, pre-decimal pennies. And, finally, the penny is also related to the soucepan that we use simply because of the round shape.
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