In American English, for a long time we've had the idiom "to stop on a dime." It means to stop abruptly and completely. It came to be used as a description for something agile or nimble. Etymonline says
Phrase stop on a dime attested by 1954 (a dime being the physically smallest unit of U.S. currency).
But for the past several decades I've heard the expression get off the dime being used to mean "get started" or "get going" and is used in the same circumstances as the idiom "get a move on." It seems obvious to me that this must be a transposition of "stop on a dime" (a metaphorical one, at least). [N.B.: This supposition is no longer obvious and appears to be nothing more than my own folk etymology, given that all the answers point to a different derivation.]
I'm curious if anyone can show a link between "stop on a dime" and "get off the dime," or if there is some other explanation that might turn my bit of intuition into folk etymology.
Best Answer
According to The Word Detective get off the dime dates back to the 20's and predates Etymonline 1954 suggestion on stop on a dime. Actually, as shown below, the latter has an older origin, probably from the same period as the former.
Actually according to The Dictionary of American Slang, Fourth Edition By HarperCollins get off the dime is:
Ngram shows usage of the two expressions are from the late 20's/early 30's.
The following extract suggests that they may have come into usage about the same period and in the same context:
(ytlcommunity.com)