Brandon Crossadded a note 8 years ago

You ever come across someone who you just can’t stand, yet fate insists on testing your patience by repeatedly allowing you to run into this person, often at the worst possible times? Well, have I got the phrase for you)))

EX.

“Ugh, I think Jerome likes me. He keeps turning up like a bad penny and it’s getting on my last nerve. Sometimes I just want to tell him to get lost.”

So, you might have already guessed what this phrase means, but here’s another example.

The troublesome nephew who appears only at family weddings, funerals and holiday dinners, never invited but always mysteriously materializing at your elbow and asking for a loan – this is another example of a classic “bad penny.”

One of the many theories regarding the origin of this phrase comes from the mid-18th century. Pennies today are viewed as nearly worthless by many people (the government actually loses money as it costs 1.7 cents to make 1 cent!), but when the term “bad penny first appeared they were serious money. This made them targets for counterfeiters, and to reach into your pocket or purse and discover that you had ended up with such a counterfeit coin, a “bad” penny, was a depressing and annoying experience.

This usually happens to me after a vacation. Somehow when I go digging through my backpack to pay in exact change I always seem to pull out the ONE foreign coin out of the millions of kopeks also buried inside. Uggggh!

So, now it’s your turn! Let’s see if you can use the phrase “turn up like a bad penny” correctly.