'gong' = "trophy (explicitly not a medal)"

[Damien Hall]

The UK version of _Metro_ (the worldwide free morning paper given out on
public transport) contains the following, about a redesign of the trophy
given to Brit Awards winners (the Brits are a British annual set of music
awards which style themselves, now explicitly, after the Oscars):

'[Vivienne Westwood] has been commissioned to design the gong given out to
winners ...'

This was a new one on me, and it's not listed in _OED_ or _MW Online_. In
both, the fairly common 'medal' sense is listed (MW lists it specifically
as 'British', but OED doesn't), but this is an extension of that. The Brit
Awards trophy is famously not a medal but a sort of miniature sporting cup,
about the size of an Oscar, and its redesign won't be a medal either, to
read the article. I therefore think this is a generalisation of the 'medal'
sense to 'award (possibly shiny like a medal, though not necessarily).

Citation:

Harmsworth, Andrei. 'Brits set for major "Oscars" overhaul'. _Metro_, 8 Nov
2010, p37 (in my edition)

http://www.metro.co.uk/music/846521-brit-awards-set-for-major-oscars-overhaul

Damien

--
Damien Hall

Accent and Identity on the Scottish-English Border
Department of Language and Linguistic Science, University of York

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