Grammar Girl here. I'm Minion Fogarty, your friendly guide to the English language.

Today, I have a penny for your thoughts, and then we'll look at how procrastination has changed language.

But first, things are going well with the Grammar Pallusians over on Patreon. Thank you so much.

To everyone who is signed up to support this show, they got a surprise, full-sized crossword

puzzle last week that you can still access if you sign up now.

It's a great way to help and you get all kinds of fun extras.

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This next segment is by Karen Lundy. My friend told me just the other day, she spotted a sign at

her favorite coffee stand, encouraging customers to pay with exact change or with credit or debit card

due to a penny shortage. Signs like

those might become more and more familiar in 2006. If you've been following the headlines,

you know that the U.S. Treasury officially stopped minting pennies on November 12, 2025. After 232 years in existence, the humble one-cent coin is officially

sunseting, although it is still legal tender. In episode 11118, we talked about dime

idioms, like stopping on a dime and dropping a dime. Well, today, in honor of the

penny's retirement, we're going to look at the other side of the coin, or at least another

type of coin. It may be the end of an era for the penny, but we're sure to still be talking

about pennies for years to come. Plenty of phrases have outlived the objects or actions they describe.

After all, we still hang up the phone, even though all we do now is push a button.

First, have you ever had a problem that just would not go away, or an annoying acquaintance

who kept showing up at your door? You might say, a bad penny always turns up.

Well, the term bad penny is really old, going back to medieval times.

And okay, I can hear the history buffs screaming, wait a minute, the U.S. Mint didn't start

...