The word bit is a colloquial expression referring to specific coins in various coinages throughout the world.
United States
In the US, the bit is equal to one eighth of a dollar or cents. In the U.S., the "bit" as a designation for money dates from the colonial period, when the most common unit of currency used was the Spanish dollar, also known as "piece of eight", which was worth 8 Spanish silver reales. One eighth of a dollar or one silver real was one "bit". With the adoption of the decimal U.S. currency in 1794, there was no longer a U.S. coin worth of a dollar but "two bits" remained in the language with the meaning of one quarter dollar. Because there was no one-bit coin, a dime was sometimes called a short bit and 15¢ a long bit. In addition, Spanish coinage, like other foreign coins, continued to be widely used and allowed as legal tender by Chapter XXII of the Act of April 10, 1806 until the Coinage Act of 1857 discontinued the practice. Robert Louis Stevenson describes his experience with bits in Across the Plains, p. 144: "Two bits" or "two bit" continues in general use as a colloquial expression, for 25 cents, or a quarter dollar as in the song catchphrase "Shave and a Haircut, two bits." As an adjective, "" describes something cheap or unworthy. Roger Miller's song "King of the Road" features the lines: Ah, but two hours of pushin' broom buys an / Eight by twelve four-bit room referring to the "Rooms to let, 50 cents." In the early 1930s, Crown Records was a US record label which sold records for only 25 cents. The company advertised on their sleeves, "2 Hits for 2 Bits". Another example of the use of "bit" can be found in the poem "Six-Bits Blues" by Langston Hughes, which includes the following couplet: Gimme six bits' worth o'ticket / On a train that runs somewhere.... The expression also survives in the sports cheer "Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar... all for , stand up and holler!" The New York Stock Exchange continued to list stock prices in eighths of a dollar until June 24, 1997, at which time it started listing in sixteenths. It did not fully implement decimal listing until January 29, 2001.
From 1905 to 1917, the Danish West Indies used the bit as part of its currency system. In 1904, two new currency denominations were introduced, the bit and francs which were overlaid on the old cent and daler denominations. The four units were related as 5 bits = 1 cent, 100 bits = 20 cents = 1 franc, 100 cents = 5 francs = 1 daler. Coins were issued each denominated in two units, bits and cents, francs and cents, or francs and daler. Postage stamps were denominated in bits and francs; the lowest value was five bits.
In Britain, Ireland and parts of the former British Empire, where before decimalisation a British-style currency of "pounds, shillings and pence" was in use, the word "bit" was applied colloquially to any of a range of low-denomination coins. Thus a threepence coin or "threepenny piece" was referred to as a "threepenny bit", usually pronounced "thru'penny bit". The term was used only for coins with a value of several named units, and never applied to a penny, shilling, or half crown coin. . Although earlier there had been other values in circulation such as the "fourpenny bit" or "groat", the "bit" coins still in use in the United Kingdom up to decimalisation in 1971 were the two-shilling bit , the sixpenny bit, and the threepenny bit. In the UK, use of the term "bit" disappeared with the arrival of decimal coinage and the loss of the coin denominations to which it had applied. Thus a ten pence piece is referred to merely as "ten pence", or even "ten pee", not as a "tenpenny bit". The historic American adjective "two-bit" has a British equivalent in "" – literally, worth two and a half pence.
