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== Headline -- The more likely answer here is that handing out a dime or a dropping a shiny dime comes from the fact that the rich used to actually hand out dimes to help the poor in tough times. Rockefeller, for one, was known to hand out new "shiny dimes" on street corners. This is a hypothesis...but I believe a solid one which seems likely to be the true origin. A suggestion: The word is not infrequently used in the expression "drop n dimes," as in "Chauncey scored 24 points and dropped 8 dimes." The Urban Dictionary website notes that to "drop a dime" (he dropped a dime on George for stealing the car)is slang meaning to turn someone in for a crime (when there were payphones and payphone calls cost a dime!). Dropping a dime is thus assisting in the capture of a criminal, and, by extension, assisting a teammate in a score. Someone named Tom Dalzell sent the American Dialect Society Mailing List a short excerpt from an article by Dan Cahill in the Chicago Sun-Times, March 18, 1994, page 132. It is about a CBS and ESPN analyst named Clark Kellogg, famous for using new and unusual phrases. To quote: "In Kellogg's vernacular, a player doesn't make an assist, he "drops a dime." A really nifty assist is "dropping a shiny dime." Kellogg picked up some of the terms during his college (Ohio State) and NBA (Indiana Pacers) careers, but most of the catchy phrases come from shoot-arounds and summer pickup games."
The most logical explanation comes from the '60s phrase "to drop a dime," which the Dictionary of American Slang ( HarperCollins) defines as "to give information, especially to the police." Most pay phones used to cost a dime; an informant would "drop a dime" to call police and thus "assist" in an arrest.
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Who is the woman on a 1924 American dime?
It isn't any living person but it's a representation of Liberty. The coin is called a Mercury Dime.
What is the average price of a 1970 newspaper?
Possibly a dime.
The material for dime novels often came from?
cowboys exaggerated tales
What coin has a fasces?
The pre-Roosevelt (Mercury) dime has the fasces on the back.
What did the southern colonies center on?
they centered on crops and what ever they could make dime for
What is a dime in basketball?
Yes, a dime is a slang term for an assist in basketball.
What does the term drop a dime mean?
The term "drop a dime" originated from the act of using a payphone to anonymously tip off authorities about criminal activity. It implies informing on someone to the police or authorities.
Why do they call assists Dimes?
== == From what I've heard, assists are called dimes because it's like dropping a dime in the pay phone (back when it was 10 cents) to make a connection. The player who makes the pass to the other player who scores made the "connection" just like a phone call! I have heard that dropping dimes into a pay phone is very easy, like making an assist. There are many different stories for why an assist is called a dime.
What is the name of the dime first minted in 1916?
The Winged Liberty, or Mercury Dime. Most people call it the Mercury Dime, but its real name is the Winged Liberty dime.
What do you call one tenth of a dollar?
a dime
What does Joey Essex call a good looking girl?
Dime
What could you buy for a dime in 1986?
A call on a pay phone.
What are the Sport lingo in Basketbol?
Alley oop, Dunk, Lay up, Swish, Assist, Dropping a "Dime", Double-Double etc.
What does a dime symbolize?
Perhaps you are meant to call someone you have not spoken to in a long while.
What did Dime Bag Darrell call himself before Dime Bag?
Before calling himeself Dimebag Darrell he actually called himseld Diamond Darrell.
Where does the phrase drop the dime come from?
The term "to drop a dime"comes from American street slang. When a drug dealer in the1960s would find it advantageous, they would call the police from a pay phone and snitch on a rival. The cost of a local phone call in the day was 10 cents, thus the term to drop a dime was coined.
What we you call a person who assist the enemy power to invade his country?
Traitor
