black and white One extreme or its opposite with no in-between possibilities, such as right or wrong, good or bad, etc.; absolute, inflexible, close-minded. The colors black and white, considered without all the shades of gray in between, represent a simplified and necessarily limited point of view that fails to see things in their full complexity. The phrase is commonly used to describe people’s attitudes and opinions.
chew it finer To simplify; to put into simple, clear, unambiguous terms. Apparently the phrase, rarely heard today, was popular among American cowboys. The likelihood is that it stemmed from their practice of tobacco-chewing.
copybook Commonplace, conventional, unoriginal, stereotyped; platitudinous. To learn penmanship, students used to imitate specimen entries from copybooks. Today copybook is used adjectivally to describe complex subjects which are treated superficially and thus take on the triteness characteristic of the maxims used as specimens in old copybooks.
Well provided with stores of copy-book morality. (George Lloyd, Ebb and Flow, 1883)
As used above, this term dates from the mid-19th century.
cracker-barrel Simple, direct, homespun; often in the expression cracker-barrel philosophy. This Americanism refers to the practice of local countryfolk gathering around a cracker barrel in country stores to discuss everything from crops and the weather to the political issues of the day.
Politics, rum, riches, and religion—these were the favorite topics of American cracker-barrel debaters. (J. T. Flynn, God’s Gold, 1933)
cut and dried All set, readily solved, having no loose ends or puzzling complexities; perfunctory, lacking spontaneity, boring, run-of-the-mill. This phrase, in use since the early 18th century, originally referred to those herbs sold in herbalists’ shops; these were prepared ahead of time and thus lacked the freshness of growing herbs, newly picked.
| Noun | 1. | simplification - an explanation that omits superfluous details and reduces complexity explanation, account - a statement that makes something comprehensible by describing the relevant structure or operation or circumstances etc.; "the explanation was very simple"; "I expected a brief account" simplism, oversimplification - a simplification that goes too far (to the point of misrepresentation) |
| 2. | simplification - elimination of superfluous details elimination, riddance - the act of removing or getting rid of something oversimplification, simplism - an act of excessive simplification; the act of making something seem simpler than it really is rationalisation, rationalization - (mathematics) the simplification of an expression or equation by eliminating radicals without changing the value of the expression or the roots of the equation | |
| 3. | simplification - the act of reducing complexity change - the action of changing something; "the change of government had no impact on the economy"; "his change on abortion cost him the election" schematisation, schematization - the act of reducing to a scheme or formula |