Racing for Pinks and Pink Slips

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Wendy and I’m from Charlotte.

I have a question on a phrase I heard a co-worker tell me a few weeks back. They walked by me and said, are you ready to race for pinks? And I had no clue what they meant. I actually thought it was, I thought he was referring to a pink slip, like I was, you know, are you going to lose your job or something? And he was saying it so lighthearted that it just didn’t really match what I thought it meant. So, yeah, I had never heard that phrase before. I assume it does not have anything to do, though, with losing a job.

No, no, it doesn’t.

Where were you going that you were racing for pinks?

Well, I mean, I work in banking and just headed home.

Oh, I see. Gotcha. Instead of passing on the way out the door. Who could leave work the fastest and get the heck out of there?

Maybe so. Yeah, I think that might be.

Okay, gotcha. Yeah, racing for pinks usually means that you are going to race in some kind of semi-organized or very organized fashion, and the winner of the car race gets ownership of the other person’s car. And the pink is the certificate of ownership.

Okay, well, that makes sense.

Yeah. And so I don’t know if they’re still pink, but apparently at one point they were. There’s some strong evidence that this bit of lingo for pink slips started in California. Perhaps it’s the 1920s or earlier. There was a law that passed in 1924 in California that required that certificates of ownership be presented when transferring ownership of a car or getting license plates. And at that time, that certificate was already known as a pink slip. And then later, it was abbreviated to pinks sometimes in a very slangy fashion.

If you’ve watched the Fast and Furious movies, and I know that you have, Wendy, they use pinks in that movie.

To be honest, I’ve never watched them, but Charlotte is well known for NASCAR.

It’s all about family, Wendy.

That’s true.

That’s true. But we are in NASCAR heaven here, so I think that might have something to do with it.

Yeah, yeah. If you like car racing movies, they’re completely ridiculous, but a lot of fun.

So yeah, but probably what originally happened is that pink form, so multi-part forms aren’t that common anymore, but where the top sheet is white and the sheets underneath could be either a pink color or a canary color or some other color, maybe a buff color, sometimes they’re called. Those are incredibly common. So you write on the top sheet and through some kind of transference, the pressure of your pen or your pencil creates additional impressions on the sheets underneath, so-called carbon copies. So that pink form is the one that you get. The government gets the white form and maybe your insurance company gets the other form. So that would be why you would have the pink form, literally pink colored, because you have that copy that says it’s yours and the government has the other one.

I see. Okay. That makes sense.

Well, I’m glad you weren’t getting the other kind of pink slip.

Yeah. So the other kind of pink slip is a little different. So let’s just acknowledge that most paper is white, even today, right? It’s white. That’s because it’s easier to see black ink on white paper. And so you can’t really do black ink on red, which is the color of alert and has been for a long time in Western culture. And so they would make alert messages on pink paper. And these could take a variety of roles depending on the circumstances. So you might get a magazine subscription. Your last issue of the magazine might arrive at your house. And to indicate that the subscription was expiring, there’d be an insert on pink that says, this is your last issue. Please renew. Or you might get a pink slip at elementary school to indicate detention. And sometimes urgent telegrams were put on pink paper. But more importantly, as you said, a pink slip might be inserted with your paycheck or in your employee mailbox to indicate that you were hereby terminated and your contract was null and void and your services are no longer required. So don’t show up on Monday.

Yeah, don’t show up. That color pink was meant to catch your attention because it would stand out against all the white paper.

Oh, wow. Okay, that definitely makes sense.

Yeah. So as early as the very early 1900s. So we’re talking at least 125 years ago.

Okay.

So before the race for pink or before pink slips.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah. So there’s separate origin stories.

Definitely.

All right. Well, that’s great. Thank you for shedding some light on this. I’ll have to go back to my coworker.

Wendy, thank you so much for calling.

Thank you. Appreciate it. And drive safely out there.

Yes. Thank you.

All right. Bye-bye.

Take care.

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