sour grapes (noun):
- Used to refer to an attitude in which someone adopts a negative mindset to something because they cannot have it themselves.
- E.g., he didn’t win the race; hence he said the medal was made of cheap metal.
sweet lemons (noun):
- Used to refer to an attitude in which someone adopts a positive attitude to something that is supposedly negative.
- E.g., although she didn’t win the race, she was glad that she at least broke her previous record.
On the surface, the former sounds more negative than the latter, and we tend to judge the sour-grapes guy for being jealous and praise the sweet-lemons gal for being positive.
But when you look at them closely, you will realise that both sour grapes and sweet lemons have the same effect on the person adopting either attitude. i.e. self-consolation.
Both are trying to look at the bright side, albeit the sour-grapes guy uses a “negative” method.
Who knows, maybe that’s his built-in mechanism to protect himself from feeling lousy or depressed? Or perhaps he’s going through a nasty patch and has only enough energy left to convince himself that the grapes are sour instead of turning lemons into lemonade? Who are we to say which method is positive and which is negative?
So, if we see a sour-grapes person in future, be quick to understand and slow to judge.
