Hot button remarks?——查字典英语网_其他

Hot button remarks?——查字典英语网

“Hot button” is literally the red knob we see on some electric water boilers. That’s the red button and there’s, usually, a green button. The green button is the control for cold water. You hit it and cold water flows out. You push the red button, or hot button then hot water streams out.

If the water is boiling hot and you hit the hot button inadvertently, you may get yourself burned.

Hence as a metaphor, when people talk about things like “hot button issues” in current politics, they mean issues that are emotionally charged, that make people angry and riled up.

Gun control, for example, is such a hot button issue in America that if someone talks about banning it on TV, it is not hard to imagine that some gun loving farmer in the countryside may shoot his rifle into the sky by way of showing his displeasure – and position.

Or something like that.

Hot button issues, in short, are not mundane issues that taste bland and blasé, things that don’t arouse any emotion in people. When, for example, another politician gets up and talks about the American Dream, people shrug their shoulders. It’s too vague and general in concept and, what’s worse, they’ve heard it before.

If, on the other hand, someone talks about banning abortion, we’re certain that many women will get upset.

Likewise, if someone talks about gay rights or banning Muslims (more than a billion of them worldwide) from entering the United States, people get touchy. They get hot in the face. Blood rushes to the head. Tempers flare.