for not a penny

[navi tasan]

1) He did it for not a penny.
2) He gave it to me for not a single penny.

Are these sentences correct and natural?

 

[emsr2d2]

They're grammatically correct. No doubt there will follow a debate about what "natural" means but I'm going to say no, because you wouldn't hear a native speaker use either of them in everyday speech.

He did it for nothing.
He did it free.
He gave it to me for nothing.
He gave it to me free.
He did it and didn't charge me a penny.
He gave it to me and didn't want a penny for it. [This is marginally tautologous because "gave" already suggests that no payment was required. If he'd wanted money for it, it would be "sold".)

 

[Tarheel]

You could say:

He didn't charge me anything.

Or:

He gave it to me.

Or:

There was no charge.

Or:

He didn't ask for any payment.

 

[Skrej]

They sound very antiquated to me - something out a Dickens novel. However, they're not technically wrong.

 

[jutfrank]

The pattern 'not a penny' is common enough, and can be used in a few ways, but not really with 'for' preceding it.

He didn't charge me a single penny for it.