What does "Cheap at half the price" really mean?

[Foxglove]

See question title: I have never been able to really work this one out.

[pega]

 I have taken this to believe that if something good comes your way what you really want you will pay for it and people say cheap at half the price because perhaps was beyond dreams and never throught would come to you don't hear it said much but means a bargain don't know where it comes from probably antique sales.

[Clanad]

On the other hand, the following is an interesting dissertation from the  World Wide Words site:

"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).
Contd.

[Clanad]

Contd.

"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."

[acw]

First - sorry Clanad but your answer was too long for me to read fully.  Therefore if I repeat what you've said then I'm very very sorry! *blushes*

Second - I always thought the phrase was "Cheap at twice the price".   Following pega's logic this means that you'd have been prepared to pay double the amount and still be happy.  Seems to make more sense to me than "Cheap at half the price" - which makes NO sense at all!

[jno]

I'm with acw (again) on this, I think the correct saying is cheap at twice the price (meaning very cheap). Cheap at half the price just sounds like the bleedin' obvious, somehow - everything's cheap at half the price, so what?

[THECORBYLOON]

I've often heard the phrase "Cheap at half the price" and thought it was daft. I used to work wi a woman who described the spendthrifrt as "spending money like a man wi no arms." EH?  Another described thick fog being "so bad, I couldn't see ma ha hand behind ma back"........

[acw]

"spending money like a man with no arms" - surely that's from the same idea as describing a Scotsman as a "guy with deep pockets and short arms"!  I'm only kidding TCL.  I've got Scottish blood in my veins myself!

A man with no arms can't reach his wallet.  That makes sense. 

The fog one - haven't the foggiest! :-p

PS - Big apologies to Clanad.  I scanned your ansewr again and saw that you had said what I said. 

[THECORBYLOON]

Don't worry acw I'm not offended. Spendthrift means spending money in an extravagant or unwise way so, surely, short arms and deep pockets is the opposite?

[littleoldme]

I've always known it as "cheap at HALF the price" and always thought it didn't make any sense. I can only assume, as Clanad has implied, that it was originally coined as a bit of a mickey-take - the item would be cheap if the seller was only asking half as much for it. Perhaps over time, we've lost the sarcastic tone to the phrase and now accept it at face value without stopping to think that it's nonsense that way.

[brachiopod]

I think you're spot on, littleoldme, the original "cheap at twice the price" (meaning a genuine bargain) was deliberately misquoted by some wit as "...at half the price" as a play on words to imply a rip-off. (see also "legend in his own lunchtime", "underwhelmed" etc.)

Then, through over-use, this phrase seems to have been accepted as the original, and is used unthinkingly when a implying that something was a bargain. The original form seems to have fallen by the wayside.

[chil]

Hi all I never done this before but wanted to answer this Q. I always thought that 'Cheap at half the price' was an abreviation of 'cheap at half the price it shoul be' Oh well we all have an opion.