Gold

Gold is a colour. It is yellow that has been given a promotion.^[1]

Gold is also a metal, which is gold-coloured, and which is valuable mainly because it is gold-coloured and nobody has managed to make more of it in the kitchen.

All that glitters

The proverb states that “all that glitters is not gold”. Some scholars have taken this to mean that nothing that glitters is gold, which is untrue, as gold glitters. A 1994 census of glittering objects found that 3% were gold, 12% were glitter and 85% were a wet pebble that someone had got excited about.^[2]

Medals

In sport, gold medals are awarded for first place, silver for second and bronze for third. Fourth place receives no medal but is allowed to stand nearby.

Modern Olympic gold medals are made mostly of silver, with a coating of gold. The silver medallists have been asked, politely, not to bring this up.

Purity

The purity of gold is measured in carats, with 24 carats being pure gold. A 25-carat gold has been searched for since the Middle Ages and is now generally believed to be a vegetable.

Pure gold is soft enough to be dented with a fingernail, which is why it is mixed with other metals for jewellery, and why jewellers prefer customers to keep their fingernails to themselves.^[3]

See also

• Silver – second place, and secretly first
• Yellow – before the promotion
• Pebble – 85% of what glitters
• Goldfish – not made of it

References

1. Bullion, B. (1997). Shiny, Then Shinier. Ingot Press.
2. Glitter Census Group (1994). “What Glitters: A Count”. Mostly pebbles.
3. Karat, K. (2008). Twenty-Four and No Further. Assay Press.