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Reader question: Please explain “brick wall” as in this headline – Manufacturing hits brick wall as economy slows. My comments: To save a word, manufacturing has hit a wall, getting blocked in progress in the same way as a car may come crashing into a wall and get stopped in its tracks. If wall is sufficient, then why brick wall? Traditions, I suppose. We can imagine that before the advent of cement, concrete and steel, bricks had been one of the most durable and commonplace building materials everywhere for many centuries. A brick wall is tougher than a wall made of, say, mud, and therefore, over time, “brick wall” became a fixed term standing for something strong and tough. Literally if a person runs into a brick wall headfirst, he or she (mostly he, I am sure) would get lump in the forehead and possibly sustain injuries to the torso and limbs also. Same thing for a car to be crashing headlong into a wall – carcasses of the car will be seen and the brick wall remains the same, strong, tough and immovable. Figuratively speaking, therefore, to say the manufacturing hits a brick wall is to say that manufacturing is stagnating – not making any progress because, as the economy slows, people stop ordering as much manufactured goods as before. Brick itself as a commodity may hit a wall as well, as people stop buying bricks because they’ve stopped building new houses. | 
