Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[sweata]

hello and thanks for clicking in!

I saw a t shirt one day and it has this writing on it:

"think outside the box"

what does it mean? i checke the yahoo dictionary but couldnt get the answer...

[Shinae]

Hi,

I am an amateur on this but let me try to answer you until the real answers come in.

Personally, I think the phrase you mentioned is a gibberish and needs not be taken seriously. I have seen a lot of t-shirts that had unintelligible phrases with grammars all wrong.

Not much of help, I think.

[May Ko]

Hi,

I think that phrase means to think more creatively. I found the following statements from a website. I hope that helps.

Thinking outside the box requires different attributes that include:

Willingness to take new perspectives to day-to-day work.
Openness to do different things and to do things differently.
Focusing on the value of finding new ideas and acting on them.
Striving to create value in new ways.
Listening to others.
Supporting and respecting others when they come up with new ideas.

May Ko

[ebb]

This is certainly not gibberish. Rarely do T-shirt slogans contain true gibberish, because that would hardly be humorous. Rather, they contain slang.

This is a standard piece of English (primarily I believe American) slang. "The box" refers to the "box" of categories and accepted knowledge that a person brings with him to solve a problem -- i.e., the "box" of concepts, beliefs, -- the conventional wisdom that makes up the raw material of thought.

"think outside the box" thus means: think creativity. Do not be captive to accepted knowledge or procedures or prejudices.

Or, as the Irish poet William Butler Yeats said: "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."
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