the small worth, or value of a bean, or 'the black of a bean.' A variant is not worth a straw (q.v). Both phrases are old, not worth a bean being traced back to 1297.
To be beany, phr. (common).—To be in good humour—a metaphor also drawn from the stable.
To know beans, phr. (American).—To be well informed. The phrase is incorporated into many expressions in a very strange way; and is an allusion to the fondness of New Englanders in general, and Bostonians in particular, for baked beans and pork, combined with a sly hit at the assumption of superior culture on which they are supposed to insist. To know beans, therefore, is to be sharp and shrewd; to be within the charmed circle of the 'cultured elect'—in short to be fully equipped in the 'upper storey.'
1888. Portland Transcript, March 7. The pudding was pronounced a success by each member of the assembled family, including a dainty Boston girl who, of course, knows beans.
1888. Chicago Herald. One has to know beans to be successful in the latest Washington novelty for entertainment at luncheons.
An alternative derivation may, however, be found in the English form.
To know how many blue beans make five white ones, phr. (common).—This is generally put in the form of a question, the answer to which is 'Five, if peeled,' and those who fail to get tripped by the 'catch' are said 'to know how many,' etc.; in other words to be cute; knowing; wide awake.
1830. Galt, Laurie, T. (1849), II., i. 42. Few men who better knew how many blue beans it takes to make five. [m.]
1886. Zoological Comparisons, in Broadside Ballad. Nature and art improves us, the girls with smiles are moving us, Which very often ruin us there's no gammon about that; Then just as we begin to know 'how many beans make five,' The ladies call us puppies when we at that age arrive; You may perchance become a deer, if in favour with some lass, If not you're called a donkey, and oftentimes an ass.
1889. Daily News, 4 Nov., p. 6, col. 5. Mr. Gladstone and The Saturday Review. Sir,—My master, who is a good Conservative, lends me The Saturday Review to improve my mind. . . . It says that there were eighty-six Parnellites, and that if Mr. Gladstone, by his wickedness, could make them leave off voting for the Tories, and vote for him, instead of being in a minority of four, he would have had a majority of 80. Why, Sir, the dunce of the school knows that if you take 80 from one side and add it on to the other, the difference is not 80, but 160. It is as simple as how many blue beans make five. I think some people are losing their wits faster than Mr. Gladstone.—I am, Sir, yours respectfully, A Schoolboy.
Three blue beans in a blue bladder.—Nares confesses his inability to discover the origin of this whimsical combination of words, but points out that it is at least of long standing. The subjoined quotations would seem to indicate the meaning as noisy, frothy talk; clap-trap.
1600. Dekker, Old Fortunatus, iii., p. 128.
F. Hark, does't rattle?
S. Yes, like three blue beans in a blue bladder, rattle, bladder, rattle.
1717. Mathew Prior, Alma (cant), I., v., 25.
They say That putting all his words together, 'Tis three blue beans in one blue bladder.
