The phrase standing on my own two pins goes back to the 1940s and means “standing on my own two legs.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Standing On Your Own Two Pins”
I have a friend who’s in her late 80s, and one of my favorite things about talking with her is that every single time she introduces me to a word or phrase that isn’t used very much anymore, but that I’ve never heard before.
And the one I heard most recently was she was talking about standing on my own two pins.
Oh, pins for legs.
Yeah, pins for legs. I couldn’t figure out if that was the same idea as the pins in an electrical plug or what, but it’s a fairly common term, at least among a certain age of folks.
Yeah, maybe the 50s, 40s. You might talk about a dame with nice pins.
Oh, I don’t know about that. Dame with nice pins, really?
Yeah.
Okay, on my two pins.
