Today you'll hear my two cents worth about some fascinating verbal coinages.

Let's start with the phrase "two cents worth" itself. Even in the pre-inflation 1800s, when this term first appeared, two cents wasn't worth much. The cheapest cigar you could buy, for instance, cost two cents, and some attribute the phrase "two cents worth" to the popularity of these "two-centers."

Others trace the term to the two-cent coin, first minted in 1864. It was the first coin to contain the words "In God We Trust," though if I can add my two cents worth, it could have been written more simply as "We Trust in God."

The self-deprecating "I'll add my two cents worth," by the way, can furnish anticipatory cover if your ideas prove to be foolish. When applied to others ("Abe chimed in with his two cents worth"), it disparages and diminishes their contributions.

And speaking of diminishment, what of "red cent," as in "not worth a red cent" or "I'm not going to pay another red cent" for this muffler? Does it refer to a devil's coin . . . blood money . . . a penny from a communist country?

Sorry; it's nothing that exotic. Back when pennies were made completely of copper, they bore a distinctly reddish color.

Perhaps even more worthless than a red cent is a plugged nickel — and, no, I don't mean one of those "Special Issue" coins plugged on TV — "Buy the Millard Fillmore nickel and then collect the whole obscure presidents' set!"

In centuries past, crooks would remove the center of a coin made of gold or silver and replace it with a plug made of a much less valuable metal. Such a coin was said to be "plugged."

So a nickel, which wasn't worth very much to begin with, was worth even less when reduced to a "plugged nickel."

As for "wooden nickel," sly peddlers in 19th-century America were notorious for tricking unsuspecting rubes into buying a wide variety of articles made of wood — wooden nutmegs, wooden eggs, wooden handkerchiefs, wooden husbands who rarely smiled.

So it's not surprising that people would be warned not to accept any wooden nickels, which, it just so happens, actually existed.

Carnivals, circuses and sideshows would sometimes entice customers by giving out wooden nickels accepted as payment for their attractions. But, once the shows were over, of course, these wooden nickels were, well, not worth a plugged nickel.

Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Conn., invites your language sightings. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via e-mail to [email protected] or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 5777 W. Century Blvd., Suite 700, Los Angeles, CA 90045. To find out more about Rob Kyff and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.