Don’t get deluded by..

Don’t let flash TV ads delude you into believing creams will make you fairer.

The tried and trusted way to get better English speaking skills is to improve a little every day. This post helps you take one more of such steps. The phrase we discuss here is, “Delude into something”.

Delude comes from delusion which means an erroneous belief that something is true (or false) even when there is evidence to suggest that its not so. Thus, if you see a rampaging lion baring its teeth rushing towards you with red eyes and you believe he is your long lost brother of the past birth coming to hug you, you are deluded.

Similarly, if your son comes home late every night, asks for money every second day, never shows you his mark sheets and you still think he is the topper of his college, you are deluded.

Let’s take some examples:

1. For a long time politicians have deluded people into believing that just because they belong to their caste, they will fight for their welfare. The truth is that the politicians will only fight for their own and family’s interests. And that’s human too. You cannot hope to outsource your fights to the politicians and then believe that they will work for you.
2. The flashy ads on TV deluded her into believing that the cream would make her fair. She spent a lot of money but would always be sad because she was not getting any fairer. Then she met this poet who taught her to lover herself for what she is. Now she is happy and doesn’t need fairness creams.

Getting deluded means being in some kind of a false illusion – believing something when one should rather not.

Let’s close with some more examples:

1. Stop deluding yourself. Your girlfriend doesn’t love you.
2. Many a times we delude ourselves by seeing things as we want to see them and not as they really are.