by Tinako
I saw a Word-a-Day Calendar vocabulary, “Hobson’s choice,” defined by the calendar as “an apparently free choice when there is no real alternative.” The example given was Henry Ford’s reported comment that customers can have their car any color they want as long as it’s black. The phrase “Hobson’s choice” apparently originated as a result of a 16th-17th century English stabler, Thomas Hobson, who rented horses out to university students. Students would have their favorite horses, and those horses became overworked, so Hobson offered his customers this choice: take the horse nearest the stable door or none at all. According to the calendar, people were soon using the term to mean no real choice.
