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.

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.

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.