Colorless Green Ideas

There is a sentence that linguists use. "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously." This is a sentence which follows every rule of the English language, and yet it has absolutely zero meaning. And yet, if I show it to a writer, and tell them that this sentence has no meaning, I will have just started an argument.

Writers will find a way to tell me how something can be simultaneously colorless and colored. They will tell me how the intangible concept of an idea can have a color (or lack of color). They will tell me how an idea can sleep and how sleeping can be done furiously.

This sentence is pure nonsense, and yet I will be told how it is perfectly sensical. Why do writers have to argue every little thing? Why can't they just accept that something is impossible and move on?

I think it is in our blood. Writers have to challenge the accepted way. If they didn't, there would be nothing to write about. If we didn't challenge conventional ideas, we wouldn't have any other ideas. Creativity comes from exploring that which does not already exist. When we are told something is impossible, it therefore doesn't exist, so we no longer need to think about it. Writers, therefore, must think about it, to be sure that people are right or wrong.

It can be quite unpleasant being contradictory to everything (or worse, being around somebody so controversial), but such is the burden of those who wish to find that which has never been found before.

So, please, by all means, tell me about your colorless green ideas that furiously sleep.