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Reader question: Please explain “gold dust”, as in this sentence: “They have very little to look forward to in their young lives and having a pair of boots or a shirt would be like gold dust to them.” My comments: They were poor growing up. They didn’t expect a lot of good things to happen to them today or tomorrow. Having a pair of boots or a shirt to wear while playing, say, the game of soccer would be like a dream come true. In other words, the boots and a shirt are most precious. They would, in deed, be like gold dust, or gold, period. Gold, you see, being a most valued precious metal, is often synonymous with anything of great value. Oh, gold dust. Gold dust refers to tiny grains of gold scattered round river banks or, especially, stream beds high up the remote mountains. They’re the residue of eons of time. Gold miners used to gather them by hand or using other simple tools. Dust, as in all the fine dusts of the Beijing smog, implies they’re really small in size. They’re few and far between too, needless to say. Hence, they’re hard to come by. They’re usually buried within lots of sand and stones. And since “all that glitters is not gold” (you must have heard this expression), it takes a great deal of work in order to separate the gold from the sand. That is as it should be, of course. Otherwise, gold wouldn’t be so valuable. | 
