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Can anyone supply the origin of the terms "brown nose" and "brownie points", which I presume are related?
(I ran into a historical tidbit that suggests a source - but only if I add to the data a "guess" from which to leap to a conclusion.)
To keep this interesting, may I suggest that this question be a "no OED" zone: we pick our own collective brains and, for the moment, bar any look-up in word-related sources?
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Carpal Tunnel
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were I not barred, I might be tempted to suggest that the origin may be obvious. -ron
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Carpal Tunnel
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Tsuwm, the bar emphatically does not apply to your brain (which is highly sought), but merely to your ICLIU.
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enthusiast
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Not related except by brown, surely?
The Brownies wear brown uniforms and collect brownie points for their good deeds.
Brown nosing is the unstated obvious; Private Eye perhaps made it more prominent with their award of the OBN (Order of the Brown Nose).
It wouldn't have occurred to me to connect the two, but now that you've done so I'm afraid the image will never leave my mind. Those poor Brownies. :)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Brown nosing and gaining Brownie points are DEFINITELY NOT related.
Brownies are a division of the Girl Guides for younger ladies. When you learn to master a specific task you get points and badges. For the Brownies (6 and 7 year olds) the tasks are relatively simple...learning how to make a simple breakfast, arts & crafts and the likes. The term Brownie points came to mean accumulating points for doing good things and is a positive expression.
Brown nosing on the other hand is a negative expression. It is related to that common expressing - kissing the boss' ass. Publicly agreeing with everything he's says weather he right or wrong, fawning over him, etc… When you are brown nosing you are kissing it so close that, well, you get the picture.
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Carpal Tunnel
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The Brownies are girls who have recently joined the Girl Scouts. But brownie points is often a sarcastic reference to unadmirable men currying favor by use of demeaning ingratiating tactics, which are less degrading than those called brown nosing.
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Carpal Tunnel
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The term Brownie points came to mean accumulating points for doing good things and is a positive expression.
Not necessarily positive, as I understand it. It can also mean measuring "merit" by an compusive, computational and mechanical toting of minutia.
Anyone else familiar with the derogatory usage? Is this an area where perhaps British and US usages differ?
Dating may be a clue. The US Girl scouts were founding in 1912 and, as I understand, the Brownies somewhat later. Does the term brownie points predate this?
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>Anyone else familiar with the derogatory usage? Is this an area where perhaps British and US usages differ?
I'm guessing that the derogatory usage started in the U.S. and predated the Brownies co-option of the term.
p.s. - I've just discussed this with an ex-(US)-Brownie, and she claims they never earned Brownie points, but rather awards -- maybe it's the Brownie Points that are a UK usage.
she also tells me that Girl Scouts is US and Girl Guides UK, but Brownies are junior divisions of both.
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Soon after cameras were invented, there was a great effort made to get cameras into everybody's hands. Those who could not afford a camera outright would buy points at 1/100th the cost of the camera, to be pasted into a book much like US Savings Stamps, which only USn old timers will remember. The Brownie points could then be redeemed for an inexpensive Kodak camera called a Brownie, hence the term brownie points.
Brown-nose is a derogatory term derived from the fanciful idea that a Pinocchio-like person would lie so much and kiss the boss's ass so much that his nose would be turned up until it met the kisser's forehead. Hence brow-nose, which soon became brown-nose.
Actually, there isn't a word of truth in the foregoing two paragraphs. Except that Kodak did make a Brownie camera. There's still one floating around in our family, belonging to one of my brothers. A simple box camera that used either 120 or 620 size film, I think the former.
Brownie point according to the Dictionary of American Slang, which is sitting open on my lap, is defined as "[from the point system used for advancement by the Brownies of the Girl Scouts but strongly reinforced by BROWN-NOSE]. a credit toward advancement or good standing, esp. when gained by servility, opportunism, or the like."
In the same source, brown-nose is "[of scatalogical inspiration but now considered vulgar} Originally Mil.(itary) a toady; an obsequious sycophant." This dictionary gives a 1938 citation followed by a host of others from the 40s and 50s.
TEd
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Just a speculative theory. But back in a more rural, small-town era ladies' "bake-offs" were quite the annual event. Women became famous in town for making the best pies, cakes, cookies, etc. And brownies were high on the list of importance (along with pumpkin pie and a few others). So, perhaps, the expression as applied to "getting on the good side of a lady" with compliments, charm, or mannerful gestures relates to that, especially when awarding her brownies points as an easy way of getting on her good side...but then you have to earn them back with proof of your sincerity. Or maybe it was simply taken from complimenting a woman on her culinary expertise.
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