Hi, everyone and welcome back to one of your favorite segments 【詞源考古研究所】, in English we call it It Means What?

Hi, 安瀾.

hi, Lulu, hi everyone.

So in this segment we will get to the bottom of a lot of the words, phrases, idioms and explore their back story. Yes. So What word are we gonna look at today, 安瀾?

We're gonna take a look at a word that comes from literature.(okay) Pollyanna.

That's another name.

It's another name, but it's not named after a real person. It's named after a character.

A fictional character

A fictional character called Pollyanna from the book Pollyanna.

Well yeah, namesake novel.（同名小說）

Yes.

This was not a very ancient work. I think it was in the 20th century.

Yeah, it was a novel by a very little-known author called Eleanor Porter, and it was written in1913.

Her famous work is basically Pollyanna, exactly. It was a children's book, wasn't it?

It was a children's book. And basically, Pollyanna was this really optimistic, cheerful child that made everyone around her happy and affected everyone's happiness and just made everyone feel a little bit better about themselves.

She was basically like happiness personified (exactly), positivity personified.

Yes.

一說到波莉安娜, 感覺她是一個特別積極正向, 就隨時都跟打了雞血一樣, in the novel she played something called the glad game.

Oh Yeah.

什么快樂理論,快樂游戲where she just basically tried to find something to be happy about in every situation.

Yes, so for example, one Christmas, she was hoping to get a doll and when she kind of went to... go into a barrel to pick out what she thought was a doll, she could only find a pair of crutches(拐杖/支撐物).

Crutches?

Yes.

Like you would use if your legs are not doing well.

Exactly. So if you broke your leg, you would use crutches. So you could walk around.

Okay, why would her family give her that?

Well, it wasn't her family that gave her that, it was basically like a lucky dip(抓取袋：一種游戲，參與者從一個裝有各種小禮品的袋子中隨機抓取一個禮品).

They were trying to find a present. And Pollyanna just went, okay, I'm really glad because I don't have to use crutches.

Okay, I thought she was gonna say I'm gonna break my own legs so that I can use crutches.

Exactly. But that's the whole thing, that's playing the glad game that no matter whatever happens, you have to be positive, you have to be happy. So as you can imagine, this gets very old, very, very quickly.

Yeah, this is something we need to mention, the reason why we're making jokes about her because from what we've told you so far, you probably think it's good to be positive, right? It's good to be optimistic. It's good to be cheerful. But when you refer to someone or something as Pollyanna in English right now, it's actually definitively negative.

Yes, it has a slightly negative connotation because it's someone who is too optimistic or cheerful to the point where they're unrealistic or just naive.

And really annoying

And really annoying.

I really hate Pollyanna type of people.

Oh yeah, so it's fine to be positive. It's a great thing to be positive. But if you're positive all the time, and you expect everyone to be positive with you. I can imagine you might want to kill that person after a while.

You know that in Chinese we say 雞湯 that because it was originally from chicken soup for the soul, and that theory is all about positivity, staying positive, staying optimistic, sort of the affirmation that sort of thing, because of that... and it's all very empty, a lot of the things they're not inspiring. They're just empty.

Well exactly. And that's why Pollyanna is often used to say there's a lack of awareness of real problems because, let's be honest, it is great to be positive, being optimistic is brilliant. But there are also things that you can't be positive about and you have to accept those.

And I think what really annoys me is like you being positive for yourself, for your own situations, I find that inspiring. I hate it... I would call someone Pollyanna if someone is trying to perk me up, trying to say oh Lulu, you know life is great, blah, blah, blah. It just in Chinese, we say站著說話不腰疼.

Yeah.

So basically they're not putting themselves in your shoes. They don't understand what you're going through, all they can say are these empty chicken soup type of words.This is when I will call them Pollyanna.

Exactly. And that's what I mean. I think it is about that you should be positive, but you should also try to understand what other people are going through because a lot of people go through some really tough situations.

Exactly.

And in those situations you need to support them. You don't need to tell them what you're feeling is wrong.

And in fact, in face of a lot of the toughest challenges and losses in life, just being positive or positivity means nothing. It's... I would say it's resilience that means a lot.

Exactly,

就是韌勁Resilience means a lot. And this is also why when we try to comfort people in one of my courses we're trying to do like how to comfort someone who's really down who have been through some tough times. A lot of people would want to jump in... either English or Chinese and just go “cheer up, you step out of it, pull yourself together”. But no, you first need to acknowledge the fact that they are in pain.

Exactly. Sometimes when you comfort someone, the best thing to do is not say anything just listen to them.

Yeah, or say things like I can't imagine what you're going through. You must be really devastated.

You listen to them first and then you can try to help.

In other words, don't be a Pollyanna about it.

Absolutely.

So bringing it back to us as we're nearing the end of this episode. 安瀾, I know you are not a Pollynna, you know I am not a Pollyanna, but what happens when you're going through some challenges and there is a Pollyanna type of person trying to say, oh 安瀾, cheer up, look on the bright side, blah balah...

I appreciate it. I know that they're coming from a good place. But it doesn't help me. It doesn't make me feel better about myself. In some cases, it will actually make me feel worse about myself because it feels like ok, what you're saying is how I feel doesn't really matter or it's stupid.

What would be your response to these people?

I would just say thank you and leave.

Okay, you are more civilized than I am.

Well, I can imagine that, what would you do then.

I'd probably be sarcastic.

Okay, yes, I am a lot more civilized than you are.

Yeah, I'll be sarcastic. You know I probably use a sarcastic tone to thank her or him to make sure that they get the sarcasm.

Exactly.

Okay, but that is not to say that it's wrong to be positive, it's great to be positive. It's just you have to also acknowledge the pain or the challenges other people go through.

Exactly.

And don't really push them to that extent, especially if you're not even that close to them, you don't really know their life. You can't really just push them, snap a finger and just say get out of it.

There's a point where I think that a Pollyanna is just putting themselves as the lead character in that person's life.

It's another form of self-centeredness and narcissism. Yes

So what do you think about Pollyanna? Have you ever been a Pollyanna or have you met Pollyannas in your life? Leave us a comment in the comment section or if you wanna put in any request for any other words or phrases or idioms that you want us to talk about in this segment.

Thank you, 安瀾for coming to the show.

Thanks, Lulu. Thanks everyone.

We'll see you next time.

Bye.

Bye.