"biting money"

[Dan Goncharoff]

I have seen the noun phrase contrasted with 'paper promises'.

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 3, 2011, at 10:07 AM, "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "biting money"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> It would certainly help if some context were
> provided, including a reply to Alice Faber's
> question whether the reference is to coin or paper money (or something else).
>
> If coin:
>
> Douglas has responded as though "biting money" is
> a noun phrase, meaning some kind of money.  I had
> thought of it as a verbal phrase, a la Alice,
> someone biting money to see if it is genuine.
>
> 1)  Noun phrase
>
> Douglas's 1937 and 1939 examples seem to me to be
> a comparison of "hard" currency, precious metal
> coin, as having real value as contrasted with
> paper currency, which is without inherent value
> and subject to inflation.  That is, "biting
> money" = "coin of precious metal".  His 1974
> example seems a straightforward example this.
>
> 2)  Verbal phrase, literal
>
> Examples:
>
> 1888:  "Until I was thoroughly known, merchants
> were in the habit of ringing or biting my money
> to assure themselves that it was genuine."  The
> Atchison Daily Globe, (Atchison, KS) Tuesday,
> March 06, 1888; Issue 3,196; col F.  [19th Century U.S. Newspapers]
>
> 1892:  "Never give a porter a bad quarter of soft
> metal � the porters have an unpleasant way of
> biting the money received."  Judge's library, a
> monthly magazine of fun, vols. 34-45, p. 51.  [GBooks]
>
> 1928: "The man who spends his time biting his
> money to see whether or not it is genuine
> doesn't, usually, have much of it to bite;
> ...".  The Desert Moon mystery, Kay Cleaver Strahan, p. 234.  [GBooks snippet]
>
> (I am surprised not to find anything earlier, but
> probably I am not searching well.)
>
> Thus for the verbal phrase, literal, "biting
> money" is the simple, well-known "testing the quality of coin".
>
> 3)  Verbal phrase, figurative
>
> Google Everything has about 2250 hits for the
> phrase "biting the money".  A few suggest a
> meaning of "violently or improperly taking money from someone".  Examples:
>
> "He was biting the money out my hand lol he knows the value of money!"
>
> "and, therefore, when we provide the committee
> with the teeth with which to bite those who are biting the money of the
> public instead of sending money,"
>
> "when it starts biting the money off of you"
> -----
>
> Of course, none of this directly addresses the
> question of whether the expression is regional to the Upper Peninsula.
>
> Joel
>
>
>
>
>
>
> At 12/3/2011 02:01 AM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
>> On 12/1/2011 9:35 AM, Michael Sheehan wrote:
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>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       Michael Sheehan<wordmall at AOL.COM>
>>> Subject:      "biting money"
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Having exhausted the meager resources available to me, I turn to this
>>> august body. I am told that "biting money" is an Upper Peninsula term,
>>> and that it was often used by U.P. author Cully Gage. Can anyone
>>> define the term?
>> --
>>
>> Sure, I can, tentatively; but I can't guarantee that my definition is
>> 100% accurate or verifiable.
>>
>> I suppose that "biting money" means (1) coins (originally those which
>> were of gold or silver with 'intrinsic value') as opposed to paper
>> money, (2) actual cash in hand (as opposed to credit, or to other forms
>> of property).
>>
>> I suppose it means originally "money which one can bite" (supposedly in
>> the old days one might bite a coin to test it, maybe to distinguish
>> silver from lead or whatever).
>>
>> In some cases "biting money" seems to be somewhat redundant, = simply
>> "money", as one might say "cash money", "cold cash", etc.
>>
>> Examples:
>>
>> 1937: <<Many millions of dollars of paper money had been issued, backed
>> by hope. Its value was falling from a rate in February, 1780, of 40
>> continental paper dollars to one good, hard dollar of biting money
>> toward the depths that it struck In 1781.>> [dateline Washington DC]
>>
>> 1939 : <<When they sell their franchise rights, "natives" want the
>> payoff in what they call biting money rather than paper promises.>>
>> [apparently refers to silver dollars in New Mexico]
>>
>> 1974: <<Alongside the fabric gold pokes on display are early pocket gold
>> scales the wary carried to test "biting" money on the spot.>> [pioneer
>> gold exhibition, San Francisco]
>>
>> I can't find any published explicit definition on brief search.
>>
>> -- Doug Wilson
>>
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