11 November 2023
Brownie points are a notional accounting system for good deeds that lead to credit with one’s spouse, teacher, or superior at work. The term is overwhelmingly found in the plural, and Brownie is sometimes capitalized, a reference to the belief that the phrase originates in the junior division of the Girl Scouts (Girl Guides in the UK). But what inspired the phrase is uncertain.
It could be from the Girl Scouts. The Brownie program, aimed at girls aged seven to nine, got its name in 1915. The original name had been the Rosebuds. We have references to Brownies earning points for various chores and activities dating back to the 1920s, but there are no uses of the phrase Brownie points in this context until the 1950s, after we see the phrase appearing in other contexts. Alternatively, it may come from brownie as the name for the pixie-like supernatural creatures of myth who are known for known for being helpful by performing household chores. Another possibility is that it is wordplay on brown-nosing or currying favor. Yet another is that it comes out of World War II food rationing. It could also arise out of some combination of these.
The earliest reference I’m aware of to Brownies having some sort of point system is an article in Virginia’s 1926 Norfolk Ledger-Dispatch of 13 October 1926. The article, however, doesn’t use the phrase brownie point:
Here are some of the things Brownies must do during the week:
1. Make up our bed two times.
2. Air our bed two or three times.
3. Have hands, fingernails, and teeth cleaned and hair neatly brushed.During the next month we must learn something new, to darn a pair of sox, cook something fit to eat, or crochet or knit.
The contest has started and every Brownie on time will make one point for her six. So let us try to do our best.
The “six” is a reference to small group of Brownies, nominally made up of that number.
A similar reference to Brownies earning points, again sans the phrase itself, is found in Wisconsin’s La Crosse Tribune of 11 February 1943:
Troop 21—Monday afternoon Brownies of the training school are going to have a party. Each one is going to bring a defense stamp on a pretty Valentine. The stamp is a Valentine for Uncle Sam. The training school and Emerson school Brownies have a stocking box. The Brownies earn points by bringing stockings. They get awards for this.
The earliest instance I have of the actual phrase brownie point being used in the context of scouting is from California’s Modesto Bee of 17 June 1952, about the time we see the phrase appearing in general contexts:
Brownie Troop 129, under the leadership of Mesdames Harry Rose and Lester C. Hickle, presented a program and party honoring their mothers.
[…]
Mrs. Rose presented a Brownie bracelet to Linda Hickle, first prize winner in a Brownie point contest. Shirley Brennecke and Antoinette Fontana were awarded Brownie rings as second and third place winners.
It is tempting to pin the phrase to the Girl Scouts, but since we don’t have an actual use of brownie points in a scouting context until after it appears elsewhere, those earlier reference to Brownies earning points may be unrelated. Points or gold stars or ribbons are common tools for motivating children, so we cannot take it for granted that any given reference to Brownies earning points is evidence for the phrase.
And the first known use of brownie points is in military slang during World War II. A poem published in the U. S. Army newspaper Stars and Stripes on 30 July 1945 reads as follows:
Here's to you, my little man,
Soldier boy with nose of tan.
Shoes all shined and trousers neat,
Everybody out you beat.Fellow soldiers you disgust
By making smiles to brass a must.
Tell me, why are you this way?
Tell me, does it really pay?Do 90 days make one so thick
As not to see through such a trick?
Don't tell me that they're too damn dumb
To wise up to you, you little bum.Someday you'll end up sans a friend,
Isn't that an awful end?
With us, dear pal, you've hit the bottom,
But brownie points—man you've got 'em.So here's to you, my little man,
Soldier boy with nose of tan.
Right now you may be making hay,
But may you live to rue the day.
The term continued in military slang use after the war. We have this from the Daily Utah Chronicle, the University of Utah’s school newspaper of 7 March 1952. The article in question is about the school’s Air Force ROTC program and bears the title “Brownies in Blue”:
Off we go into the AROTC! Students in the program are of the opinion that the wild blue yonder of yesterfame has been replaced with the brownie point.
[…]
Morale with the hup-two-three-fourers is in sad shape. The brownie-point system has got them down. The system started out as an incentive program but has been used to build a brassy unit with band, publicity sheet, good dancers and a fabulous Arnold society.
Many Arnold society members admit that the only reason they joined the organization was to get a few brownie points, which help their grades.
(The Arnold Society is an extracurricular service organization within Air Force ROTC, named for General of the Air Force Henry “Hap” Arnold, commander of the US Army Air Forces during World War II.)
The title of the article would, at first blush, seem to be an allusion to the Girl Scouts, a reference to the brown uniforms of Scouting’s Brownies. And it’s certainly possible that the wartime uses of brownie points are also derisive references, comparing the military to the junior division of the Girl Scouts.
But the military use may be from a different source altogether. Brownie points may be reference to brown-nosing, a term for currying favor that is a euphemism for ass kissing. And the 1945 poem, with the line “nose of tan,” would seem to be using the phrase in this context. Brown-nosing is recorded in 1934 in the student slang of the Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University). From an opinion column in the school newspaper, the Plainsman, of 11 April 1934:
“If I were the Roosevelt of Auburn:
[…]
Student jobs would be given by ability and not by pull and brown-nosing.
And in 1939, the journal American Speech records brown nose and get in the brown with as student slang at the Citadel, a military academy in Charleston, South Carolina:
BROWN NOSE, v. To curry favor, especially for rank; n. a cadet who curries favor; adj. desirous of rank to the point of currying favor.
Also:
GET IN THE BROWN (WITH), v. To win favorable recognition (of superiors).
Another wartime origin could be on the Homefront with brown points being a way of rationing food. During the war on the US home front, households were issued brown points, so-called because of the color of the stamps in the ration books, that were necessary to purchase certain categories of food. There are numerous references to brown points in US newspapers starting in 1943, such as this one in the New York Herald Tribune of 26 February 1943:
There are eight pages in the new book. Pages 1, 2, 7 and 8 contain blue and brown point-ration stamps similar in all but color to the point stamps of Book No. 2.
And this United Press syndicated article from 21 April 1943:
War ration book No. 3 combines “unit” stamps—already familiar under the sugar, coffee and shoe programs—and “point” stamps, such as are now used for canned goods, meats and fat.
The new book contains eight pages, for with a single alphabet of brown point stamps in the usual eight, five, two and one values. Four center pages hold 48 unit stamps.
Brownie points make their way into the general lexicon shortly after the war. We have this article that appeared in the Los Angeles Times of 15 March 1951. It points to the supernatural creature, known for being helpful by performing household chores, as being the inspiration of the term:
I first heard about them when the chap standing next to me in the elevator pulled a letter from his pocket, looked at it in dismay and muttered[:]
“More lost brownie points.”
Figuring him for an eccentric, I forgot about them until that evening when one of the boys looked soulfully into the foam brimming his glass and said solemnly:
“I should have been home two hours ago … I’ll never catch up on my brownie points.”
Brownie points! What esoteric cult was this that immersed men in pixie mathematics?
What are you talking about about?” I asked.
“Brownie points,” he said. “You either have ’em or you don’t. Mostly you don’t. But if you work hard you sometimes get even. I never heard of anyone getting ahead on ’em.”
“Are you feeling all right?”
“Sure, sure. I’m just worried about my points, that’s all.”
“What’s this genie geometry all about?”
“You don’t know about brownie points? All my buddies keep score. In fact every married male should know about ’em. It’s a way of figuring where you stand with the little woman—favor or disfavor. Started way back in the days of the leprechauns, I suppose, long before there were any doghouses.
This appearance in the 1950s would lead one to think that the term arises out of the idea of a husband currying favor with his wife by acting the part of a brownie and performing household chores. But that is not necessarily the case. For one thing, a young husband in 1951 was likely to be a veteran of the war and familiar with the military slang usage.
The name of the supernatural creature dates to the late medieval / early modern period in Scotland. The 1937 Dictionary of the Older Scottish dates brownie to c.1500. Another early appearance is in the preface to Gawin Douglas’s 1553 translation of Virgil’s Aeneid:
For me lyst wyth no man, nor bukis flyite
Nor wyth na bogill, nor browny to debaite
Nowthir auld gaistis, nor spretis dede of lai[t]
Nor na man will I lakkin, nor dyspyse
My werkis till authoris, be sic wise
But twiching Virgyllis honoure and reuerence
Quho euer contrary, I mon stand at defence(I do not desire to argue with no man, nor books
Nor debate with any boggle, nor brownie
Neither old ghosts, nor spirits lately dead
Nor any man will I make sport of, nor despise
My works regarding authors be likewise
But touching Virgil’s honor and reverence
Wherever contrary, I must stand at defense.)
Where does this leave us? The first known use of brownie points is in World War II military slang, but it is preceded by a centuries-old myth of helpful pixies, Girl Scouts earning points, wartime food rationing, and brown nosing. Make of the evidence what you will.
For my part, I think the most likely origin of brownie points is a military allusion to brown nosing, possibly with some derisive and misogynist comparison of those who earn the points to Girl Scouts. The brown points of food rationing are an unlikely direct origin, but it was “in the air” at the time, so to speak, and may have helped reinforce adoption of the phrase. As for the supernatural pixies and their possible relation to the phrase, I think that’s a post hoc euphemistic rationalization to make the origin more palatable for a general audience. If more early uses are found, that might sway my opinion in a different direction.
Sources:
Baker, John. “Antedating of Brownie Point.” ADS-L, 25 October 2023.
“Brownies in Blue.” Daily Utah Chronicle (Salt Lake City), 7 March 1952, 2. NewspaperArchive.
“Brownie Troop Gives Party for Mothers.” Modesto Bee (California), 17 June 1952, 6/4. NewspaperArchive.
Davies, Mark. Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), 2023, s.v. brownie point, brownie points.
“Deadly Deductions.” Plainsman (Auburn, Alabama), 11 April 1934, 2/5. NewspaperArchive.
Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (1937). Dictionaries of the Scots Language, s.v. (Brounie,) Brownie, Brunie, n.
Douglas, Gawin. “Preface.” The VIII Bukes of Eneados.” London: William Copland, 1553, vr. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
“Girl Scouts.” La Crosse Tribune and Leader-Press, 11 February 1943, 14/3–4. Newspapers.com.
Green’s Dictionary of Slang, n.d., s.v. brownie point, n., brown-nose, v., brown nose, n.
“History of Guiding.” Girlguiding UK, 25 February 2012. Archived at Archive.org.
McDavid, Jr., R.I. “A Citadel Glossary.” American Speech, 14.1, February 1939, 23–32 at 25 and 27. JSTOR.
Miles, Marvin. “Brownie Points—a New Measure of a Husband.” Los Angeles Times, 15 March 1951, Part 2, 5/7. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
Muenz, Robert O. J. “Puptent Poets: To a Brownie.” Stars and Stripes (Mediterranean Edition), 30 July 1945, 4/2. NewspaperArchive.com.
Ochletree, Virginia Lee. “Pack No. 1—Fairy Tree Brownies.” Norfolk Ledger-Dispatch (Virginia), 13 October 1926, 22/3. Newspapers.com.
O’Toole, Garson. “Antedating of Brownie Point.” ADS-L, 25 October 2023.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, September 2021, s.v., brown-nosing, n.; second edition, 1989, s.v. Brownie point, n., brownie, n.
“Ration Book 3, Point and Unit Type, Is Ready.” New York Herald Tribune, 26 February 1943, 9/5. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
United Press. “No. 3 Ration Book to Be Distributed by Mail in June.” Buffalo Evening News (New York), 21 April 1943, 18/4. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Photo credit: Elucidate, 2008. Wikimedia Commons. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.