I want to know the origin of the phrase "get off the dime."  I know
what it means, but I want to find out how it started.

Hi bronzegoddess,
  
"The meaning of to get off the dime, as native speakers know, is "to
start moving; to stop stalling." But what's the origin? And why hasn't
the old slang phrase faded along with the value of the 10-cent piece,
in an era when hardly anything can be bought for a dime a dozen?
  
A dime, from the Latin decem, "ten," is the smallest and thinnest U.S.
coin. In metaphor, it signifies anything especially tiny. When you are
driving, and mean to stop at a precise point, not in a general area -
you stop on a dime.
  
Thanks to Jonathan Lighter's "Historical Dictionary of American
Slang," we have the activity that coined the phrase. Carl Van Vechter,
one of the earliest modern dance critics and author of the 1926 novel
"Nigger Heaven" - a title nobody would use today - described the scene
in a taxi-dance hall: "Sometimes a ? couple would scarcely move from
one spot. Then the floor manager would cry, Git off dat dime!"
  
To dance on a dime was to grind bodies tightly together in clothed but
sexual contact, without moving from that spot; taxi dancers working
for a dime (immortalized in the 1930 Lorenz Hart lyric "Ten Cents a
Dance") were exhorted by their bosses to keep the customers moving.
Thus, to get off the dime came to mean "to get moving."
http://ytlcommunity.com/commnews/shownews.asp?newsid=4418
  
  
  
The origin of the phrase is also discussed here:
  
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=38716191.4A472E5C%40samueljohnson.com&rnum=3&prev=/groups%3Fq%3D%2522get%2Boff%2Bthe%2Bdime%2522%2B%2522dat%2Bdime%2522%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26selm%3D38716191.4A472E5C%2540samueljohnson.com%26rnum%3D3
  
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=1e3nh16.tdw7ukde9fmkN%25trio%40euronet.nl&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3D%2522get%2Boff%2Bthe%2Bdime%2522%2B%2522dat%2Bdime%2522%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26selm%3D1e3nh16.tdw7ukde9fmkN%2525trio%2540euronet.nl%26rnum%3D1
  
  
  
Hope that helps.

~ Jackburton
  
  
  
Search terms:
"get off the dime" origin phrase
"get off the dime" dancers
"get off the dime" "dat dime"

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