Reader question: What does “a rose-tinted view” mean, as in “He has a rose-tinted view of history”?

My comments: Have you ever worn a pair of rose-tinted spectacles? With glasses tinted with a rosy hue, you’ll get a rose-colored view.

The color of rose is considered to be bright and cheerful. A rosy view, therefore, is optimistic. People talk about rosy futures as well as making rosy predictions. That means they are looking forward to the future. If you have a rosy view of history, on the other hand, you are happy with what’s happened.

People also talk about painting rosy pictures. When they paint a rosy picture of something, they have an optimistic view of it. Conversely, if they paint a bleak picture, then it’s a picture that has nothing to make your feel cheerful and hopeful.

Alright, here are media examples of “rose-tinted view”, “rosy scenarios”, “paint a rosy picture” and “through rose-tinted spectacles”: 1. However, Robert Peston, the BBC’s business editor, denied that a British Stewart was necessary. “Cramer has been attacked by Jon Stewart for being too optimistic after the crisis started in the summer of 2007,” he said yesterday. “The allegation against him and CNBC is that they were taking too rose-tinted a view of what was subsequently going on at various institutions. That is simply not a criticism that I think can be levelled at most UK financial journalists.” - America cheers as satirist delivers knockout blow to TV finance gurus, Guardian Observer, March 15, 2009.

2. Although Rumsfeld's comment came in response to Clinton’s statement that “[t]his is not 2002, 2003, 2004-5, when you appeared before this committee and made many comments and presented many assurances that have, frankly, proven to be unfulfilled,” Rumsfeld did not limit his assertion that he had “never painted a rosy picture” to statements before the Senate Armed Services Committee. After Rumsfeld’s testimony, Clinton promised “to submit for the record a number of the secretary’s former comments,” also without referring to Armed Services Committee testimony exclusively. Similarly, earlier in the hearing, Clinton stated that Rumsfeld had spun “rosy scenarios” about Iraq without such a limitation: “[W]e hear a lot of happy talk and rosy scenarios, but because of the administration's strategic blunders and, frankly, the record of incompetence in executing, you are presiding over a failed policy.” - Defending Rumsfeld, Novak cherry-picked from Sen. Clinton's list of past "rosy picture" statements, Mediamatters.org, August 11, 2006.

3. Elderly people are able to look at the world through rose-tinted spectacles because negative memories fade more quickly as we age, scientists have found. - Elderly ‘userose tinted spectacles to overcome negative thoughts’, Telegraph.co.uk, December 18, 2008.

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About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.