I recently came across an archaic statement I hadn’t seen or heard in ages. It was actually the title of an episode on a 1960s television show called “The Twilight Zone.” This segment is called “A Penny For Your Thoughts.”
The plot of this mystery thriller revolves around a man who can read his coworkers’ minds. I highly recommend searching for it on YouTube, as it’s both humorous and thought-provoking.
“A penny for your thoughts” means tell me what you’re thinking, usually said when someone looks distracted, thoughtful, or quiet. I’ve heard it a few times in my life. Mrs. Turner, my sixth-grade teacher, used it more than once when I was daydreaming in class, which was often. It was her polite way of telling me to snap out of it.
The phrase is very old and is commonly traced to Sir Thomas More, who used it in 1522 in his work “Four Last Things.” I’ve never read this book and can honestly say I never will.
At the time, a penny was a small but meaningful amount of money, so the idea was: I’ll give you a penny if you share what’s on your mind. Now it’s mostly a friendly, informal expression, not a literal offer of money. People say it to gently invite someone to open up.
With the sad decision to stop making Lincoln cents in the US, “A penny for your thoughts” will eventually go the way of the dinosaur. Twenty years from now, school children will only think of Penny as a female classmate’s name. That statement should ruffle a few leftist feathers.
Changing directions here just slightly, I started collecting different-year Lincoln pennies as a kid, placing them in blue Whitman coin notebooks. There were some Lincoln cents that were quite rare and expensive, with those slots left blank. One of them was the 1909 S-V.D.B.
That penny was minted in San Francisco with V.D.B. standing for the coin designer, Victor David Brenner. Only 484,000 were made. It is considered the 14th most collectible United States coin out of 100. I was fortunate in my later years to finally acquire one.
Youngsters collecting pennies for a hobby, as I did, will undoubtedly suffer because of President Trump’s decision. The reason the United States Mint was instructed to do so was that it cost 3.69 cents to manufacture each coin. The year 2025 is the final year of production, although special collector coins will still be struck.
I suppose a new statement will eventually replace “A penny for your thoughts,” though a nickel, dime, or quarter doesn’t quite sound right. Perhaps someday, monetary persuasion won’t even be needed to read someone’s mind.
If telepathy is ever perfected, AI computers should be able to read a person’s facial and body language to the point of recognizing what they’re thinking. Right now, that isn’t possible.
Had Mrs. Turner had a telepathy analyzer in her class in 1965, and zeroed it in on me, she would’ve been dumbfounded at what I was thinking. Most of my thoughts were undoubtedly dreams of still being on the school playground or at home riding my bike. There was nothing extremely academic or brilliant floating around in my head.
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