Comments on: Work-brickle

By: Ben of the North

Ben of the North — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 14:23:26 +0000

“work-brittle” is a metallurgical and manufacturing term, for the hardening/embrittlement that happens when metals are formed under pressure. Hammering or pressing a piece (especially in stages) makes the metal harder, but in that perverse way of things, the brittleness also increases.

This can also happen to a part that is designed to take impacts as part of it’s operation: loss of elasticity over time, until it fractures. Work-hardening is the process, or verb, work-brittle is the condition after the process.

FWIW, I’m not an engineer, but I’ve heard these terms in use from manufacturing and aerospace engineers.

By: dale mead lawrence

dale mead lawrence — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:34:16 +0000

I remember encountering the word in the novel “Friendly Persuasion” by Jessamyn West about the Quakers. The father of the family said that the hired man was not “work brickle,” meaning that he was lazy.

By: Debby

Debby — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 18:29:27 +0000

The term “work brittle” is usually used in rural West Texas as in a person is not work brittle meaning he is lazy.

I think the term may have come from tradesmen working with metals. In working with fine metals, such as silver, the more and harder you work it, the more brittle it becomes until it finally breaks from overwork.

By: R Madding

R Madding — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 21:31:44 +0000

I just looked this up as my mom used to say this perhaps too much back in the ’50′s when we were kids. “You’re not very work-brittle today.” And it meant all you said above. Our family has a Welsh/Scot/Pennsylvania Dutch/English background and we grew up in SE Illinois near Vincennes, IN

I haven’t heard it since and those I have recently asked have never heard the phrase.

By: Mary

Mary — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 23:03:12 +0000

I just heard it from a 63 year old co-worker speaking about two of our younger co-workers; I guessed at what she meant. She was born and raised in southeastern Kansas – I just thought it was an old country term.

By: Jean

Jean — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 02:38:02 +0000

I should add that Grandma was born in 1904 in a small town in Iowa.

By: Jean

Jean — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 02:34:26 +0000

My grandmother used the term as a noun with a “-y” sound as in “workey brickle”. My memory of her use was to describe herself when she was eager and bustling around working – she was a “workey brickle.” I don’t know how she spelled the term though.

By: Linda

Linda — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 01:15:35 +0000

My Mother used the phrase “He/she is not very work brickle”, meaing not a very good worker…a little lazy. She was born in 1910 in Wyoming County, West Virginia from German and English descent.

By: janet

janet — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 20:41:28 +0000

My mother was from Jasper, Alabama near Birmingham. I always remember her using this term out in the garden when we were hoeing. She used the term “work brittle” to describe someone who had learned to work and accomplish what needed to be done. If someone had reached this point, they were deemed to be “work brittle”. If someone was lazy or not “broken in to hard work”, they were not “work brittle”.

She was born in 1921 and her ancestors came over from Ireland in 1730. I am sure she learned this term from them. They were prosperous, hard working farmers.

By: Linda

Linda — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 14:41:12 +0000

Appalachian usage is ambiguous. My family used work brickle (brittle) to mean lazy, perhaps “broken by work,” but regional dictionaries “work brickle/brittle” is used both ways: industrious or not so.

By: belle

belle — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 12:49:30 +0000

My grandfather termed me as “work brickle” recently. It’s a great word. He heard the term from his mother, origin Scotland, then landed in NC, and made way to Powell, TN. but again he said she was the only one he ever heard say the term, and not sure where it came from.

By: FRED

FRED — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 18:15:42 +0000

My parents were of German descent, southwest Ohio and I’ve heard this term also as someone that was Lazy.