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I can't get the meaning of these sentences. Military context. The woman fell short of being killed by an explosion.

Man : “She's good as gold.” […]

Woman : “Feel like I got scorched that color,” she said as she shoved aside the pain. She huffed hard but didn't limp a lick.

(Source)

Is it an idiom about being “scorched” (as in “burned”) a certain color, or specifically gold ? Anyway, I couldn't find the meaning of this online.

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  • What is the source of your quote?
    – user3169
    Mar 14, 2016 at 17:07
  • It's actually that colour - specifically referring back to preceding good as gold, without which it would be decidedly weird. No-one would be likely to say I've been scorched gold (or indeed any other colour) - it's just part of a context-specific interchange. Mar 14, 2016 at 17:17
  • Apart from her actual name, there's some indication that the speaker (Svendottir, often referred to as just "Daughter") may not be a native speaker. Just glancing at the text, I see she says Did they perhaps already get the thing for which we came here? a bit later. That's not really the kind of phrasing I'd expect from a native speaker, but the writer himself seems to be quite conversant with idiomatic English, so it may have been deliberate on his part. Mar 14, 2016 at 17:47

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By my reading, this is intentionally subverting a common idiom.

“[something is as] good as gold.”

This is commonly used to express something of high quality, or working perfectly. In this case, it is used to express how the woman is uninjured from the explosion.

"[I] Feel like I got scorched that color,”

The woman is conveying that while she may appear unharmed (as good as gold), she feels terrible (ie. she is only superficially unharmed). This is deliberately drawing attention to the literal interpretation of the preceding idiom. The preceding idiom implies that she is a color, so she implies that it is only superficial.

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