Meaning
To offer an opinion, especially one nobody asked for, framing it as modest and of small value. Closely tied to 'my two cents' worth' - the nominal tiny price of admitting one's view into the conversation. Informal and self-deprecating; the ritual humility is the point, so it can read as snide if the opinion that follows is anything but modest. In British English the local form is two penn'orth or tuppenceworth. Regional use: American English (with an older British cousin, two penn'orth).
Origin
The record points to the mid-1920s US. The Phrase Finder's earliest print example is from March 1926, a column by Allene Sumner in the Olean Evening Times headed 'My two cents' worth', and it concludes the phrase is essentially an American translation of the older British 'two penn'orth' - two pennies' worth, or putting your tuppence in - which predates it. Wikipedia likewise derives it from that English idiom, possibly influenced by the sixteenth-century 'a penny for your thoughts'. Two popular stories do not hold: Snopes rates the poker-ante theory (two cents as the minimum bet to join a game) false for lack of any support, and the postage-stamp theory is likewise unverified speculation. Snopes instead traces the deeper lineage to 'twopenny' used as a dismissive modifier meaning worth almost nothing, on record since 1560.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- give your two cents
- my two cents
- my two cents' worth
Usage Examples
- Feel free to put in your two cents before we finalize the seating chart for the rehearsal dinner.
- He put his two cents in about the menu, even though nobody had asked, and then ordered for everyone.
- Here's my two cents' worth on the new logo: keep the serif typeface and drop the heavy drop shadow.