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Reader question: Please explain this sentence: “Johnson blames the brass for the company’s woes.” Blames the brass? My comments: In other words, he believes it’s the fault of the company’s bosses that has put the company in trouble at present. Bosses, plural. That’s what “the brass” is about – all of them together, the management as a whole. And let me explain how “brass” comes to mean leading officials as a group. Brass is the shiny golden (bright yellow, in fact) metal made from a mixture of copper and zinc. In the military of the UK or US, high ranking officers wear brass hats, that is, hats that have brass braids (narrow band) circling the edging on the top. This decoration is used to symbolize the importance of these ranking officials, as distinguished from ordinary soldiers, or the rank and file. You must have heard of the phrase “rank and file”. “Rank” stands for the ranks, as in rise from the ranks, or the lowest ranks as a matter of fact. “File” stands for those without ranks at all, who are always seen walking in file, i.e. in a line, one behind another. Anyways, since only high-ranking officials wear brass hats, the brass gradually becomes synonymous for these people. You also hear people talking about “the top brass”, that means officials at the very top. Same thing. Not just militarily. These days “the brass” is used in any walk of life. In our example, the brass stands for the company’s bosses as a group, or management as a whole. When Johnson puts the blame on the brass, he means to say that decision-makers at the company are the culprits. In other words, rank and file workers at the assembly line are not at fault. | 
