Goldbricking

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, how are you?

This is Byron calling from Norfolk, Virginia.

Well, welcome to the show, Byron. What can we do for you?

I was calling about the word gold brick. I was watching a 1950s military police training video on YouTube, and they talk about the need to watch out for gold bricks when you’re on patrol. And so I thought it was like an interesting term. So I looked it up and it said like someone that’s useless or has no value towards the team. And I just thought it was kind of weird because when you think about it, like a gold brick is very valuable and I would want to keep it with me at all times. But they seem to make it seem like it’s dead weight.

Byron, what are you doing watching 1950s military training videos on YouTube?

I just watch random stuff on YouTube and it comes up on my suggestions. Because I like a lot of stuff about World War II and Cold War and things like that.

Okay. So pretty much once you watch one of those on YouTube, I bet your feed is just filled with nothing but videos like that, right?

Yes, I get a lot of them.

All right. That’s a fantastic place to run across terminology. Those videos where they just throw these terms out and they don’t even realize that they’re using a term that other people might know, that is something that a slang researcher like me loves because it’s an unironic, unconscious use. They’re not like winking at you when they use it. They’re just like it just blips right by, right?

Right. It’s like their normal vernacular.

Right. Okay. So in the context, a gold brick was something to avoid, something you didn’t want.

Right. Okay. The story is super interesting. I hope you love this. And we’ll connect with that video in just a second.

In the 1800s, there was this scam they would pull in the West during the mining days, during the gold rush, where people from the East would show up hearing about this gold rush, and these scammers would paint lead or other metals gold and sell it to these idiot Easterners as gold bricks. They would paint them gold-colored and sell them sometimes for thousands of dollars as if they were actually made of gold and get away with it.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, so literally fake bricks of gold. And this scam became widely known. And so very quickly, to gold brick someone became a generic term for a swindle or a cheat. And then by World War I, a gold brick as a noun referred to a malingerer, that is somebody who pretends to be sick and isn’t, or somebody who was sick and still kind of is in bed, still pretending to be sick, or loafers or shirkers or soldiers who tried to evade duty. And this is where we start to intersect with your term.

And by World War II, a gold brick was somebody who, especially an officer, who was seen by soldiers as soft or poorly trained. Somebody who was dead weight in the company. Somebody who was just like, you had to do everything for them or they were to buy the book in particular. Somebody who only could refer to the manual but had no practical experience. And so I think that’s probably what they were talking about in your manual. Somebody who just could not be relied upon when times were tough, when you were out there in the field and really needed to hunker down and deface the enemy head on.

Do you hear that word much anymore? I kind of associate it with World War II or the 50s or something like that.

I’ve only heard it from people who kind of know goldbricking as fooling around on the job, where you’re just mucking about pretending to work but not actually doing anything at all.

And it’s gold brick as a noun rather than gold bricker?

I’ve seen both, but again, as a slang guy, I’m not a really good example of somebody that you can check my knowledge of everyday usage because I spend too much time in the dictionaries.

Right, right. What about you, Byron? Do you run across it anywhere else besides that YouTube video?

No, I have not heard gold brick other than that. But now that it’s 2020, I’ve heard people are starting to try to bring back 1920s slang because we’re now in the roaring 20s again.

Sure, yeah. Maybe it’ll start to make a resurgence that way.

Yeah, we’re looking forward to the drop-waist skirts and all the dances, the Charleston we’re all going to do.

Yeah, the chaos between the wars. It’s time. I’m going to do the elevator. That’s no steps.

Well, when you run across other weird terms in the weird YouTube videos you’re watching, give us a call, all right?

Yeah, let us know.

I will.

All right, take care.

All right, thanks, Byron.

All right, thank you. Have a great day.

Call us, 877-929-9673.