Rose Colored Glasses

It’s one of those metaphors we all know and understand, but don’t know where it originated. Well I’m not about to tell you because I don’t know either. But I do know that it may be more misapplied than we think.

Standard usage of the “rose colored glasses” metaphor is to point out how someone else is blinded by something so much that they can’t see reality. Problem is that when we look for rose colored glasses, we are looking though our own pair. We may be correct that they don’t see right because they have a skewed view of the world, but do we really see any better? If their glasses had been colored just like ours, we wouldn’t even notice that they had any on because we would probably see the same things. Maybe our glasses aren’t skewing “this” particular thing, but what do they skew (or better, skewer)???

Your Results Are Guaranteed

Everything has some sort of guarantee. On the radio, I heard an advertisement for a dietary supplement that would help you lose fat and create lean muscle. I always listen to those ads with some amount of skepticism. Each one has some sort of guarantee. I know there’s got to be a catch, but often can’t figure it out.

It’s Cool

I first heard the term “cool” on “Dobie Gillis” (the show had a much longer name that I can’t remember.) One of the regular characters was a semi brain-dead beatnik named Maynard G. Krebs, played by Bob Denver of Gilligan’s Island fame. Seems that in the beatnik era, everything positive was either “cool” or “groovy” – typically followed by “man” as in “cool, man.”

They say that history repeats itself, but I didn’t expect such a literal repeat. Everything is “cool” again.