The Phrase "To Coin a Phrase"

Poor Richard's Almanack was a best-seller in the American Colonies. Filled with words of wisdom, weather forecasts and amusing poems, Benjamin Franklin continually held his audience's attention under his pseudonym Richard Saunders. In 1753, the pages for August contain the first recorded use of the phrase 'to coin a phrase': "Thy Praise my Morning Song, my daily Theme; My Ev'ning Subject, and my Midnight Dream; When Grief oppresses, and when Pain is true; To coin a phrase, I've got the blues."