Q: "gold dust" used figuratively?

[Bill Palmer]

Touché...I was thinking, I suppose, more about what I had heard in cowboy
movies (the extent of my scholarship)...you know, when the scruffy
prospector throws a sack of gold dust on the bar and orders drinks for the
house.

Or, in the same movie, when the assay office evaluates the strike as iron
pyrite.

Bill Palmer

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 1:16 PM
Subject: Re: Q: "gold dust" used figuratively?


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> header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Q:  "gold dust" used figuratively?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Since I've been challenged, how about, from the 18th century:
>
> Some of the High Germans seem now to have rubb'd the French Gold-Dust
> out of their Eyes, & begin to see that the French are but lukewarm in
> the Emperor's Interest in the pretended mediation with the Ottoman Port.
>
> This appeared only 1/3 of a century after the OED's earliest citation
> for the literal meaning.
>
> Joel
>
> At 3/26/2010 12:32 PM, Bill Palmer wrote:
>>IMHO, sounds more like that sort of thing  would be termed "fool's gold"
>>rather than "gold dust".
>>
>>Bill Palmer
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>>To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 11:34 AM
>>Subject: Q: "gold dust" used figuratively?
>>
>>
>>>---------------------- Information from the mail
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>>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>>>Subject:      Q:  "gold dust" used figuratively?
>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>Where is the place (and what are early dates) for "gold dust" used
>>>figuratively, for example as something seductive but false?  It's not
>>>in the OED, nor in the few dictionaries of American slang I have.
>>>
>>>Joel
>>>
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>>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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