Episode 232: If I Had a Nickel

If Shauna and Dan had a nickel for every episode of Bunny Trails they released, they'd have $11.60, which isn't a lot, but it's not nothing. Bonus: Rich women of the Barony of Glenard, Mark Twain, and Memes. 

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Bunny Trails: A Word History Podcast
Episode 232: If I Had a Nickel
Record Date: April 7, 2024
Air Date: April 24, 2024

Intro

Shauna:
Welcome to Bunny Trails, a whimsical adventure of idioms and other turns of phrase.

I’m Shauna Harrison

Dan:
And I’m Dan Pugh

Each week we take an idiom or other turn of phrase and try to tell the story from its entry into the English language, to how it’s used today.

Opening Hook
Shauna, I use uBlockOrgin as a browser extension to block trackers and bad actor ads. But we also use gmail for our Bunny Trails email account. And a few weeks ago I opened the email on my browser and then the doorbell rang and I went upstairs to the door. And one thing led to another and it was almost an hour before I got back downstairs to my computer.. And uBlockOrigin had blocked over 1,000 instances of gmail trying to track my stuff online. And I thought, if I had a nickel for every time Google tried to track my data, I’d be a trillionaire.. And that reminded me that I have wanted to research “if I had a nickel” for a while, so here we are.

Meaning

Unfortunately, we don’t have entries in any of our standard dictionary sources for this one, so I’ll have to go to thefreedictionary.com,
 
if I had (some monetary unit) for every (something) is:

Quote
Used to indicate a very large number or very frequent occurrence of people, things, or actions. Usually used in conjunction with some expression that one would be rich as a result of receiving money for all such instances.
End Quote
https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/if+I+had+a+nickel+for

This phrase is often credited to Mark Twain who was born in 1835, but the first attestation I could find comes in 1831, so that clearly cannot be true. And I’ll note that there is every reason to think this phrase was in use before this example, but I just couldn’t find any example of it. And researching it was difficult because there could be so many variations of currency types and in the words used to describe the concept, that searching digitized media was tedious as best. But I think I’ve found enough to give us an idea of some early uses of the phrase and that lets us tell the story of how it has changed over time.

1831
Up first, here is an example using penny, in the 1831 work Irishmen and Irishwomen by George Brittaine.

Quote
Oh! If I had a penny for every mile I have walked after my wary charge, I’d be the richest woman in the Barony of Glenard, by this time.
End Quote
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Irishmen_and_Irishwomen/pTZoAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22if+I+had+a+penny+for+every%22&pg=PA145&printsec=frontcover

1839
Here is an example using penny, found in the 1839 work Sergeant Bell, and His Raree-Show by Old Humphrey

Quote
If I had a penny for every letter that has been put into that Post Office, I should not be a poor weather-beaten showman; but wishing is an idle trade!
End Quote
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sergeant_Bell_and_His_Raree_show/3_UDAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22if+I+had+a+penny+for+every%22&pg=PA149&printsec=frontcover


1886
Here is one using nickel, from the Inland Printer dated February 1886,

Quote
If I had a nickel for every dog bite I have got on me I could keep Mr. Pasteur in business for a year.
End Quote
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Inland_Printer/em0eAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22if+I+had+a+nickel+for+every%22&pg=PA272&printsec=frontcover


1896
And one using dollar. This is from Following the Equator, by Mark Twain. The work was published in 1898, but he was using his diary entries to write this, and this passage was from February 1896 while he was traveling in India. In it he is commenting on snake bites.

Quote
If I had a dollar for every person killed per year in India, I would rather have it than any other property, as it is the only property in the world not subject to shrinkage.
End Quote
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2895/2895-h/2895-h.htm

1913
Here’s one from across the pond, which is to say the United Kingdom. In this case, the “pond” is the Atlantic Ocean. Anyway, this uses quid as the monetary unit. It’s out of Pearson’s Weekly, January 4, 1913.

Quote
I wish I had a quid for every time I’ve been wished a Happy New Year today
End Quote
https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0002163/19130104/076/0020?browse=true

1947
Here’s one using dime, from The Manitoban, the newspaper of the University of Manitoba Students’ Union out of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. dated March 7, 1947.

Quote
A day does not pass but I meet one or more of my university friends, and they ask, “Why aren’t you back at U, Bohush?
If I had a dime every time that question was asked of me, I would be able to purchase for myself a half a dozen good new pipes.
End Quote
https://newspaperarchive.com/winnipeg-manitoban-mar-07-1947-p-7/

So in that 100+ year span we see multiple currencies used for the phrase. According to Google's Ngram, the “dollar” seems to be the more popular usage, which might be owing to Mark Twain’s popularity. But nickel is also heavily used, and we’re going to stick with nickel because of the way the phrase has shifted over time.
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=had+a+penny+every+time%2Chad+a+nickel+every+time%2Chad+a+dollar+every+time%2Chad+a+quid+every+time&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3

1948-1949
I Wish I had a Nickel is a song that was recorded by Hank Williams in 1948 or 1949. It was released in 1956, three years after his death. Here are some of the lyrics:

Quote
Tears fallin' down your pretty cheeks,
Tears you cannot hide and tears you cannot keep,
They are tears of sorrow and tears of delight,
I wish I had a nickel, for every tear you shed last night.
End Quote
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7r2Zi0lGmQ

1980
Here’s another song that uses the phrase, this one by Carlen & Spencer off the 1980 album of the same name, If I Had a Nickel. The song is the last track on the A side of the vinyl record. And just like Hank Williams, it’s a classic country style song. Here are the opening lyrics.

Quote
If I had a nickel for every time for every time you said goodbye
And if I had penny for every time you made me cry
I’d put it all together dear and this is what I’d do
I’d catch a bus, a plane, a train, and get away from you
End Quote
https://www.discogs.com/release/20175589-Carlen-Spencer-If-I-Had-A-Nickel
https://youtu.be/X9EFAh6g2oo?si=L7afqERBdGX23b8c&t=822

So this is the way the phrase gets used, even still today. Before I mention the next one, I want to make sure everyone knows the definition of the word, ‘trope, because we are going to look at a piece from TVTropes.org. They say:

Quote
In storytelling, a trope is… a conceptual figure of speech, a storytelling shorthand for a concept that the audience will recognize and understand instantly.
End Quote
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Trope

And here they are, talking about the trope “If I had a nickel”

Quote
A Stock Phrase, in response to a frequent event. The character will say something along the lines of, "If I had a nickel for every time X happened, I'd be rich." Expect "nickel" to be replaced as appropriate with whatever currency appears in the work.

A common variant is for the character to simply trail off after the first part, e.g.: "If I had a nickel for every time X happened..." Another possible variant is "If I had a nickel for every X, I'd have (number of X) nickels." Additionally, this trope might be Played for Laughs by having the second part of the phrase add up to something impossible (for instance, getting $5.47 from nickels).
End Quote
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IfIHadANickel

We’ll talk more about TV tropes in the behind the scenes, which airs every Friday on Patreon. Next up we’re going to talk about a popular variant in use today which is threatening to completely subvert this phrase, but first we’d like to say thank you to our sponsors.

A Quick Thank You
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We have new things every weekday on the feeds. On Monday’s we have a conversation about what movies, shows, books, podcasts and whatever else everyone is enjoying, Tuesday see early access to the weeks podcast, Wednesdays have all the links, books, songs, and other content mentioned in the weeks episode, Thursday has patron’s only polls, and Friday’s are our lightly-edited behind the scenes video featuring all the cut content, goofs, and bonus facts you could imagine.

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That’s patreon.com/bunnytrailspod


A shifting Phrase

When we first described the phrase, it was about something that happens frequently. But there is a popular variant that we use to describe something that is infrequent or very rare.


2011
Which brings us to the 2011 movie Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension. The scene in question, which we’ll link to on our Patreon, has gained popularity both as a quote and as a meme template.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSnCDMa_ECg

Here is the quote from Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz. If you are familiar with the character, you can imagine it in his voice.

Quote
Wow, if I had a nickel for every time I was doomed by a puppet I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird it happened twice, right?
End Quote

This builds on the series-long theme of Dr. Doofenshmirtz’s long-suffering history and back-story.

To describe how popular this has become, we’ll jump back to TVTropes.org talking about ‘if I had a nickel for every time this happened”

Quote
This becomes a Subverted Trope when a character instead says something like, "If I had a nickel for every time X happened...I'd have two nickels." Lately, this subversion has become common enough that the trope looks to be heading towards… Dead Horse Trope territory.
End Quote
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IfIHadANickel

A dead horse trope, they describe in another article, is:

Quote
Named for the idiom "beating a dead horse", which describes continuing a course of action that is clearly pointless. If you're whipping your horse to gain speed when the horse is dead, you're just wasting your time.
End Quote
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeadHorseTrope

You can find more about beating or flogging a dead horse in episode 29 which we originally aired in November 2018.
https://www.bunnytrailspod.com/2018/11/episode-29-beat-dead-horse.html

KnowYourMeme.com says the meme version of Doofenshmirtz’s ‘two nickels’ began appearing regularly in 2019 and 2020.

Quote
While the quote is a famous one among the Phineas and Ferb fandom, it stuck particularly well with the Reddit community, and especially in subreddits such as r/Doofenshmirtz (and) r/History…, the… latter having a history of pointing out odd events.
End Quote
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dr-doofenshmirtz-if-i-had-a-nickel

I’ll give you two of the examples on their site. The first is a screen shot of the movie with Dr. Doofenshmirtz with the puppet. Doof says:

Quote
If I had a nickel for every time a gender reveal started a wildfire I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice.
End Quote


The other is Obi Wan Kanobi, in one of the Star Wars animated tv shows, saying:

Quote
If I had a nickel for every time Maul stabbed someone I loved, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s kind of weird it happened twice.
End Quote


https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dr-doofenshmirtz-if-i-had-a-nickel

Another meme I’ve seen using nickels is where a person is talking to a therapist or someone similar and says something to the effect of:

If I had a nickel for every time I got confused, I’d be like “where’d this nickel come from?” And then there’d be another nickel and I’d think “what’s with the nickels?” leading to more nickels and more confusion and eventually I’d be crushed by nickels without ever knowing why.


Or one with a philosoraptor background:

If I had a nickel for everytime I got a nickel, I’d have an infinite amount of nickels!




Wrap Up
I love watching phrases shift over time and feeling like I’m a part of it. While I do occasionally think “if I had a nickel” in the traditional sense of something that happens all the time, I’m almost exclusively to the point now where I use the Phineas and Ferb version instead, where something rarely happens. I think in casual conversation, I find the things that happen rarely to be more interesting topics than the things that happen all the time. And maybe that’s why this newer version, I’d have two nickels, is becoming so popular. But either way, I think it’s cool to be part of the shift while it is happening.

Dan:
That’s about all we have for today. If you have any thoughts on the show, or pop culture references we should have included,
reach out to us on Patreon, patreon.com/bunnytrailspod or comment on our website bunnytrailspod.com

Shauna:
It’s poll time!

Recently we asked our Patrons, Apple or Android?

Our Patrons formed a 75/25 split with Android winning.

Heather says:
Quote
I've always used Android. I've never really been a brand person, but for the past few years I've had a Samsung phone and tablet, and I think I'll stick with them
End Quote

Dan:
Even with three quarters of Patrons saying they use Android, that doesn’t mean that’s the preference.

Jans says:
Quote
I had an android years ago and then went to iPhone for a few phones. Tried android again and I'm just not loving it as much as I thought. 2025 rolls around and I'll go back to an iPhone I guess.
End Quote

For me, I've never been super tied into an infrastructure, but I've had samsung devices on Android for the last decade. I don't love it, but I'm cheap so I likely won't be using Apple unless I take on a career where those devices make sense.

Shauna:
I’m a mixed bag on this one. I have apple products but my phone is an android because that’s just what I have and I don’t see the need to change… hopefully I won’t need to buy another phone for awhile.


As a reminder, our silly polls mean absolutely nothing and are not scientifically valid. But Patrons of all levels get to take part. Head over to patreon.com/bunnytrailspod to take this week’s poll!

Outro

Shauna:
Thanks for joining us. We’ll talk to you again next week. Until then remember,

Together:
Words belong to their users.