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by Liz Walter

Some people seem to sail happily through life, always looking forward to what’s coming next and always expecting things to go well. Others are quite the opposite, always expecting bad things to happen. Today’s post looks at some of the language we use to describe these two extremes.

People in the first group are optimists, full of optimism. We can say that they are optimistic or positive or that they have a positive outlook on life:

Starting the business was a risk, but I’m an optimist and I expect it to succeed.

When they set off for their new home, they were full of optimism.

People with the opposite character are pessimists, full of pessimism and with a pessimistic or negative outlook on life:

He entered the photography competition but was pessimistic about his chances.

I hate sharing an office with George – he has such a negative outlook on life.

A nice idiomatic way of describing optimistic people is to say that for them the glass is half full, while for pessimists, the glass is half empty. In other words, they have very different reactions to the exact same thing. We often make these phrases adjectival, for instance calling someone a ‘glass half full/half empty kind of person’:

James is a very positive person. For him, the glass is definitely half full.

Unfortunately, Lizzie has a glass-half-empty attitude to life.

An optimistic person sees the best in or thinks the best of everyone and everything, while a pessimistic person sees the worst in or thinks the worst of them:

My mother was a cheerful woman who always saw the best in everything.

Why do you have to think the worst of everyone?

If you look on the bright side, you think about the good parts of a situation, even when it is mostly bad. On the other hand, if you give up hope, you stop believing or expecting that a good thing will happen, and if you lose heart, you stop believing that something will succeed:

Yes, it’s raining, but look on the bright side: you won’t have to water the tomato plants now.

The men had been lost for three days, and we started to give up hope.

Don’t lose heart. I’m sure you’ll get a job soon.

Of course, it’s usually more pleasant to be around optimists than pessimists, and we should all remember that it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good. In other words, even the worst things that happen usually have at least some good consequences.