Why do we say that something is 'cheap at half the price'? Surely that's stating the obvious?

Question

The phrase above has always confused me - how should it be interpreted?

Answer 1

On the face of it, the saying is self-evidently true, since if you buy a thing at half the price it’s going to be cheaper than paying full whack. But it’s one of those sayings that cause people to think it over and then shake their heads in bemusement. It seems from digging around that a lot of people are puzzled by it.

I was sure there was a single obvious meaning for it until I looked into Eric Partridge’s A Dictionary of Catch Phrases, as revised by Paul Beale. If something is cheap at half the price, it is argued there, then the price being asked must be reasonable, fair value. A glossary of Australian slang online gives much the same explanation, saying that it is “an expression of satisfaction over the cost of something”. Other sites online that use the phrase also seem to think it refers to a good thing.

I don’t. I was sure before I started investigating (still am, come to that) that it’s a deliberate and humorous inversion of an old street trader’s cry. He might shout “cheap at twice the price”, so informing prospective customers that something he was selling was incredibly cheap and extremely good value. If it were cheap at half the price, on the other hand, it suggests that the price actually being charged is excessive. That was certainly the way my late father used it—to him, it was a sarcastic and dismissive comment on an item that was over-priced. “Wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole,” he might well have added. I find to my relief that my view equates exactly with that of the late Kingsley Amis, who wrote about it in the Observer in 1977 and who said firmly that it meant something was “bloody expensive”. The online Notes and Queries column of the Guardian newspaper has two replies by British readers to just this question and they also agree with me (or I with them, or all of us with Sir Kingsley).

The entry in A Dictionary of Catch Phrases remarks rather sadly, having gone into the matter, that this is a question that must be settled by leaving it unsettled. I disagree. However, as it stands it’s most certainly thoroughly confusing to anyone who might stumble across it. My guess is that, once the phrase moved away from its London street-trader roots, it became less easy to understand, and people who have tried to analyse it have come up with exactly the wrong idea. As a result, it’s best avoided unless you spell out exactly what you mean by it, but of course if you do that it loses most of its force.

Answer 2

Usually when you buy something for half price, you're buying it at the wholesale price, the cost the reseller bought it for. They usually mark it up by at least 50% when you buy it.

So, to me it's not really cheap, that's just about the right price for the item.

Answer 3

nicely, in case you do no longer ask you will by no potential understand. because whilst is it "dumb" to ask a question? How else can we learn?the only dumb everyone seems to be people who do no longer ask questions, or think of they already understand, or undertake an elitist suggestions-set which, with the aid of calling human beings dumb, in a roundabout way infers that they are clever. some human beings somewhat don't understand the thank you to circulate approximately turning out to be any of the issues you stated, you haven't any longer any suitable to tell them to no longer ask, wth.

Answer 4

I think it's been 'lost in translation' over the years and originally was 'cheap at twice the price'

Answer 5

It's just a sarcastic remark aimed at the seller of the item ' to informed the seller you consider the price too high!!

Answer 6

the phrase is usually " that would be cheap at TWICE the price"

Answer 7

Well... I have seen things that are still expensive at half their lable price. That may be the reason for an apparent redundancy.

Answer 8

well cause it's not cheap, at half price it makes it more affordable.
cheap should be used for cheap stuff stuff that doesn't work. instead of cheap start using discounted.

Answer 9

I think you're getting mixed up... usually it is:

Cheap at twice the price.

Answer 10

"A bargain at twice the price" has a better ring to it.