Waiting for the penny to drop - Printable Version

Waiting for the penny to drop - Printable Version

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Waiting for the penny to drop - DISRAELI - 09-17-2023

“I’m waiting for the penny to drop”.

This is a British idiom, not related to the American idiom about “the other shoe”. It is what you might say if you have just told somebody something, and it’s clear from the expression on their face that they haven’t grasped the implications of what they’ve heard. It might be obvious puzzlement, or it might just be the absence of whatever reaction would be most natural, whether joy or anger or outright terror. When the point of what you’ve just said “sinks in” (to use a different metaphor), they might confess “The penny’s just dropped”, or you may be able to see it for yourself.

I’ve seen online explanations, but these are usually missing one vital detail, presumably because the explainers were not on the scene when that detail was obvious. This is an attempt to get that detail on the record before it disappears from living memory.

It is rightly explained in terms of old-fashioned coin-using machines, which depended on mechanics rather than electronics. I’m going to use the example of the simple chocolate-vending machines which used to be found on railway stations, because that’s the kind I knew best.

The mechanism was fairly simple to understand, even from the outside. The bars of Cadbury’s chocolate would be stacked vertically in a metal case. There was a coin-slot at the top of the case and a drawer at the bottom. The customer would drop his penny in the slot and it would fall to the bottom of the compartment, where it would press a lever. The lever would open a little door underneath the stack and one bar would drop into the drawer. The customer would then pull out the drawer and claim the contents.

As often happens, the weak point in the mechanism was the human element. Everything went fine as long as these events came in the right sequence. Too frequently, though, the customer would be impatient, and would pull out the drawer before the chocolate had finished dropping, or even before the chocolate had started dropping. In the first case, the bar would jam the drawer so that it could not be fully opened, and in the rare second case it would be jammed behind the drawer. Either way the customer would get no chocolate. Neither would anybody else for the next six months, because there was nobody on the station responsible for unjamming the machines , though they would still treacherously take your money.

Obviously customers would be well-advised to be more patient and allow more time. The vital detail I mentioned is that this advice had become necessary enough to be clearly printed in a notice on the machine itself, and the wording of that notice was;
“WAIT FOR THE PENNY TO DROP”
Admittedly, by the time I was travelling around England being interviewed for universities, the impact of inflation had enforced a change in wording, to the more flexible;
“WAIT FOR THE COIN TO DROP”
But by that time the original version was already proverbial.

So the popular remark is a metaphor. Observers are waiting for the information received to travel, like the original coin, from one end of the receiver’s brain to the other, where it will take effect and produce a reaction. The vital detail missing from most explanations is that the wording of the popular remark has been directly borrowed from the wording which Cadbury’s customers would see in front of them (and that was why it came into use in that form).

Perhaps somebody would be good enough to inform Wikipedia.

RE: Waiting for the penny to drop - Infolurker - 09-17-2023

LOL, I am waiting for the hammer to drop.

We all know it is coming.

RE: Waiting for the penny to drop - Snarl - 09-17-2023

(09-17-2023, 02:26 PM)Infolurker Wrote: LOL, I am waiting for the hammer to drop.

We all know it is coming.

Wait a sec: Hammer to fall ... or ... drop the hammer?

Is this one of those Mandela Effect / Berenstain Bear moments? Wink

RE: Waiting for the penny to drop - Grace - 09-18-2023

I almost had to ask what a chocolate vending machine was... hahaha (this simple statement is a true statement).

But that's what you mean right?

So... why are we informing Wikipedia?

RE: Waiting for the penny to drop - Schmoe - 09-18-2023

Not surprising, I'm sure it's the same people who say "could of" or "should of" instead of could've. I guess they're spelling it out phonetically...

Or my personal favorite "I could care less." Well, thanks for caring a little, I guess....

Yet ANOTHER favorite is seeing someone getting arrested, repeating "I didn't do nothing" over and over. Ok, so you're saying you did SOMETHING?

RE: Waiting for the penny to drop - Ninurta - 09-18-2023

(09-17-2023, 05:50 PM)Snarl Wrote:
(09-17-2023, 02:26 PM)Infolurker Wrote: LOL, I am waiting for the hammer to drop.

We all know it is coming.

Wait a sec: Hammer to fall ... or ... drop the hammer?

Is this one of those Mandela Effect / Berenstain Bear moments?

I think that may be a distinctly American idiom, but both are correct, under slightly different circumstances.

"Waiting for the hammer to fall" refers to the lock time on old black powder guns, I believe. Gun springs were hand made in those days, and some were faster than others, meaning some fire locks had longer lock times than others. If you got a bad piece with bad springs, you might have to hold steady for a bit to let "the hammer drop" to the ignition pan, particularly in the times of matchlocks. One might have to hold his breath for a bit for a steady hold between the time the trigger was pulled and the time the ball actually left the muzzle, most of that time being taken up during the time the hammer took to drop the match into the flash pan.

"Drop the hammer" also refers to firearms, but in the context of someone whose days are numbered, or some action being ordered to be taken - "drop the hammer on him" means to launch a projectile at the offending party. "Drop the hammer on it" means to initiate a course of action concerning whatever "it" might be.

During the days of matchlocks, what we now call "hammer" was actually called the "dog". Through flintlocks into cap locks, and on to modern firing mechanisms, the name gradually changed from "dog" through "cock" to finally "hammer", likening it's percussive effects to those of the tool bearing the same name.

.

RE: Waiting for the penny to drop - EndtheMadnessNow - 09-18-2023

Nice! Should be added to the Roguepedia.

A penniless country
In 2012, the cost of producing one penny in Canada was 1.6 cents, prompting the government to eliminate the penny. The Canadian Mint stopped producing pennies in May 2012 and ceased distribution of the one-cent piece in February 2013. Google even created a special Google Doodle that month to mark the occasion.
[Image: p1YBwY8.gif]

All the world's a stage

For we who grew up tall and proud
In the shadow of the mushroom cloud
It's gonna fall
Hammer, you know, Hammer To Fall

[Image: mSC4vyS.jpg]

RE: Waiting for the penny to drop - Snarl - 09-19-2023

I was just funnin' is all, ya'll.