Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: The penny dropped

No sooner did I comment to a friend that the penny dropped than I knew what this week's Slang-o-rama was going to be about...

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An informal British idiom, the penny drops is used to say that someone finally understands something after not understanding it for a time. (Thank you, Merriam-Webster, for that definition!)  As for the what and when of its origin, The Phrase Finder points to the Oxford Dictionary for an explanation:

...The Oxford English Dictionary states that this phrase originated by way of allusion to the mechanism of penny-in-the-slot machines. The OED's earliest citation of a use of the phrase with the 'now I understand' meaning, is from The Daily Mirror August 1939:

And then the penny dropped, and I saw his meaning!

The image of someone waiting for a penny-in-the-slot mechanism (which often jammed) to operate does sound plausible and, if that isn't the origin, it is difficult to imagine what is...

Ah, but Word Histories finds an earlier date for first figurative use of this phrase—April 10, 1931—in "On getting educated," published in The Ripley and Heanor News and Ilkeston Division Free Press of Ripley in Derbyshire. The post also offers several other instances cropping up in 1932, including the following from the Skegness Standard of Skegness in Lincolnshire, on April 20, 1932:

THINGS WE WANT TO KNOW.
The identity of the gentleman who was allowed to go for a drink after assisting the missus on Sunday?
And how long it took him to fathom the problem as to why the hostelry was closed at 1.15 p.m.
And if the penny dropped on suggestion of his spouse that he had forgotten to advance his watch an hour?
And if he has made a mental resolve to guard against a similar happening in future years?

Check out the Word Histories post and scroll down to see other early-use figurative quotes.

It took me a few minutes, but then the (figurative) penny dropped.
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