Editing Brownie points (section)

==Conjectures for etymology==

===Girlguiding===
A popular etymology is an allusion to the merit badges or six points earned by [[Brownie (Girl Guides)|Brownie]]s (junior [[Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting|Girl Guides/Girl Scouts]]) for carrying out good deeds. Brownies were named after [[Brownie (folklore)|a kind of mythological elf]] that does helpful things around the house.<ref>"Brownie, n. 1" The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989. OED Online. Oxford University Press. Accessed 14 July 2005.</ref>

===Brown stamps===
A popular marketing practice employed by many stores in post-World War II US was the distribution of stamps with each purchase. The number of stamps given out varied with the amount of the purchase. These stamps were collected by customers and later redeemed for household gifts. The earliest of these stamps were brown in color and known as "brown stamps" or "brown points". The relationship between a purchase and the collection of these "brown points" equated with doing a good thing (supporting the local vendor) and getting a bonus (the valuable stamps). Purportedly, the collection of these "brownie points" eventually evolved into the modern usage. {{Citation needed|date=December 2011}} The term Browniepoints is still used as a marketing practice in business today by a New Zealand power company<ref>Genesis Energy loyalty scheme ''[[Genesis Energy Limited]]''</ref> and also used by a gift service.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.browniepoints.co.nz/pages/about-us |work=Browniepoints gift service |title=About Us}}</ref>

===George R. Brown===
Another proposed etymology is that the term derives from the name of a 19th-century American railroad superintendent, George R. Brown who, in 1886, devised what was then an innovative system of merits and demerits for railroad employees on the Fall Brook Railway in New York state. Accounts of his system were published in railroad journals, and adopted by many leading U.S. railroads.<ref>Browne, K.J. Norman, "The Brown and Other Systems of Railway Discipline" in Publications Received, ''[[Railway Gazette International|Railway Gazette]]'' (London) December 7, 1923, page 715</ref> American railroad employees soon began referring colloquially to "brownie points", and at some point, the term entered the general vocabulary.<ref>[http://cprr.org/CPRR_Discussion_Group/2006/03/brownie-points.html CPRR Museum Discussion Group]</ref>

===Curtis Publishing===
In the 1930s, the [[Curtis Publishing Company]] published several magazines, including the ''[[Saturday Evening Post]]'' and the ''[[Ladies Home Journal]]''. These magazines were distributed to subscribers through a delivery network that used youths, primarily boys, to sell subscriptions in residential neighborhoods. The boys received a small commission; in addition, if they met certain sales targets, they could also earn company [[scrip]], consisting of green and brown vouchers, referred to as "greenies" and "brownies." One brownie was worth five greenies. The greenies and brownies could be redeemed for goods from the company's catalogue.<ref name="worldwidewords" />

===Scatological===
The ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' conjectures that this expression could also have derived from [[United States|U.S.]] [[military]] slang for [[sycophancy|sycophant]]s, "[[wikt:brown noser|brown-nosers]]", while also mentioning the popular etymology that derives it from the awards system of the [[Brownies (Girl Guides)|Brownies]]. The term "brownie" in the sense of "brown-noser" was in use in the 1940s. It has been suggested that the term was given impetus through its coincidence with related scatological slang.<ref name="worldwidewords">[http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bro3.htm World Wide Words: Brownie points]</ref>

===Earliest use===
The earliest published citation given in the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' dates from 1963 (when it was reported in the journal ''[[American Speech]]''), but the term is in fact somewhat older. Its frequent appearance in newspapers in the 1950s date back to the earliest known usage in 1951, where a man in the ''Los Angeles Times'' speaks of earning favor with his wife in terms of brownie points.<ref name="worldwidewords"/><ref>{{Cite news|last=Miles|first=Marvin|date=15 Mar 1951|title=Brownie Points--A New Measure of a Husband|page=5|work=Los Angeles Times|department=Part 2|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/385457065|access-date=30 Jul 2021}}</ref>