Hearts are very popular for idioms.  There’s “heart to heart,” “wearing your heart on your sleeve,” “broken heart,” “bleeding heart,” and this week’s winner, “heart of gold.”  

To have a heart of gold means to be a kind, caring and giving person. While English is a living, breathing language and new idioms are constantly popping up, this one has been around for a while. Its first recorded use was in the late 1500’s when gold was extremely rare and valuable.

Two of the most famous examples occurred almost 400 years apart. Shakespeare used it in Henry V, “The king’s a bawcock, and a heart of gold…” In case you’re curious, a bawcock is a good guy. That one didn’t really withstand the test of time. When’s the last time you heard someone described as a bawcock? 

Neil Young wrote Heart of Gold in 1972. Whether you’re homeschooling, road-schooling or school-schooling, ’60 music should be part of any curriculum.

I want to live

I want to give

I’ve been a miner for a heart of gold

It’s these expressions

I never give

Click here for the pdf.