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The colloquial Irish- and British-English phrase for two pins expresses one’s strong—and often petulant—inclination to do a particular thing.
Here, the noun pin (designating a small, thin, pointed piece of metal) is used of the most trivial or least significant thing—as in the phrases not to care a pin, not to care two pins and not worth a pin.
—Cf. also the phrases one might hear a pin drop | one can hear a pin drop.
The phrase for two pins occurs, for example, in the following from Eating and fighting, published in Booing the Bishop and Other Stories (Belfast: The Blackstaff Press Limited, 1995), by the Irish author and broadcaster Jude Collins [page 36]:
I was, she explained, a snottery, two-faced wee shite. Smiling and sucking up to people, showing them my first communion photograph with my hair slicked down, butter wouldn’t melt, would it? Ha, that was a laugh. For what was I underneath? A whitened speckled cur. A treacherous whining wee white speckled cur that’d try to bite people when their backs were turned. For two pins, she said, when our mother got home, she’d tell her The Truth about me.
These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of the phrase for two pins that I have found:
1-: From Old Bailey, published in The Times (London, England) of Thursday 18th September 1794 [page 3, column 1]:
—According to the Oxford English Dictionary (second edition, 1989), the Hummums was the name of a hammam, a bathing establishment, said to have been established in Covent Garden, London, in 1631, which subsequently became a hotel:
EXTORTION.
William Couse was indicted for feloniously extorting divers sums of money from Andrew Primrose, by threatening him that he would accuse him of unnatural practices.
Mr. Primrose lives in Piccadilly; has known the prisoner some time: met him on the 9th of July, in Covent Garden; and, as they were walking past the Hummums, the prisoner, on seeing two gentlemen, called out “Sodomites!” on the impropriety of which, he expostulated with him. The prisoner immediately said, “I’ll blow you up for a sodomite, for two pins,” and then said he must have some money, or he would follow him home, and blow him there; that, under the impression of fear for his character, he gave him three guineas, as he did also on the day following.
2-: From The History and Adventures of Godfrey Ranger (Manchester (Lancashire): Printed and Sold by R. & W. Dean, 1813), by the English author David William Paynter (1791-1823) [vol. 3, chapter 3, page 33]:
—Context: At his return to the inn, the narrator finds the landlord “knee-deep in a thick dispute” with Dick, “a poor chaise-driver”; Dick explains that a parson “has bilked” him, and promises that, if he sees that parson again, he will either “make him haul his brass, or baste him within an inch of his life”:
“Pugh, my a— in a bandbox!” cried the landlord; “that wont [sic] make my loss up. Thou’rt a lying rogue, Dick! and for two pins, thou shouldn’t drive another chaise o’ mine, the longest day thee had to live.”
3-: From Chester Police Report, published in the Chester Chronicle, and Cheshire and North Wales General Advertiser (Chester, Cheshire, England) of Friday 7th March 1823 [page 3, column 4]:
Elizabeth Webster was summoned by the Overseer of St. Peter’s parish, on a suspicion of her likelihood of becoming chargeable to the parish. She swore, however, she was a married woman, although she had not seen her husband (who lives in Liverpool) for seven months, appeared highly indignant at being sent for, and threatened “for two pins,” to father the child upon Mr. Whitebrook, the Overseer! She left the room
“Pride in her port, defiance in her eye,”
in great dudgeon, observing it was nothing to nobody whether she was with child or not, as the parish would not have to pay for the produce.
4-: From an account of a court case, published in the Chester Chronicle, and Cheshire and North Wales General Advertiser (Chester, Cheshire, England) of Friday 2nd May 1823 [page 4, column 2]:
Mrs. Williams, examined by Mr. Cross.—I was on board the boat […]. I heard many disagreeable words used by Shewell to Paterson, which from decency I cannot repeat.
Cross-examined.—Patterson [sic] said, that for two pins he would toss Shewell overboard. Paterson used no insulting language.
5-: From an account of a court case, published in The Morning Chronicle (London, England) of Monday 25th September 1826 [page 4, column 3]:
Dinner being placed on the table, and Mrs. Wilson making herself quite at home, Mr. Barber, in order to keep up his credit for hospitality, invited her to take a bit of early dinner with them, observing, that afterwards he intended to go to the races. “The races!” exclaimed Mrs. Diddler, “I should like to go and see them very much. By the bye, Mr. Barber, for two pins I would shake your rags off your back, for not coming to see us at our wakes.”
6-: From Dibdin’s Sea Songs; or, Scenes in the Gun-room, published in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland) of October 1829 [page 576, column 2]:
—In Navy slang, gunner’s daughter designated the gun to which crew members, especially boys, were lashed for corporal punishment:
‘The Captain says, sir,’ said I, addressing the Second Lieutenant, who had charge of the deck, and who had not the most fascinating manners in the world,—‘the Captain requests your attention to the conn, for that the toplifts have nearly been taken aback.’—‘The toplifts aback! you young imp! From whom did you learn that lubberly phrase?’—‘The Captain said so,’ I pertly replied—‘The Captain said no such thing, sir; and for two pins I’d cause him to introduce you to the gunner’s daughter.’
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