pat answer

pat answer

A very simple, concise, or straightforward answer, especially one that fails to fully or adequately explain or respond to something. As tempting as it may be to give your kids a pat answer about simply avoiding drugs and sex when the time comes to have that conversation, you're doing them and yourself a disservice by skirting around such a nuanced, personal topic. The politicians always give the same pat answers whenever they're asked about the state of our healthcare system. I just want someone who's going to actually do a damned thing to improve it!
See also: answer, pat
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

pat answer

a quick, easy answer; a simplified or evasive answer. Don't just give them a pat answer. Give some more explanation and justification. Otherwise you will just end up answering a lot more questions.
See also: answer, pat
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • answer on a postcard
  • tempt fate
  • tempt fate, to
  • tempt fate/providence
  • out of a paper bag
  • (one's) way out of a paper bag
  • (one's) way out of a wet paper bag
  • know what (one) is talking about
  • know what you're talking about
  • (as) easy as one-two-three
References in periodicals archive
If I give a pat answer of "It's all going well" or something, then I am doing them the disservice of dishonesty.
When she asked the boy why, he gave her a pat answer: "Ma'am, because you are fasting."
Perhaps, the most common question is: 'How much sleep do I need each night?' Well, no one can provide a pat answer as each person differs in needs.
We come to realize this last element is entirely appropriate precisely because there is no pat answer, no comfortable place, no way to tie up loose ends for the protagonists of these tales who, as the title notes, are missing an important woman.
Asked about decisions the chief lawmakers made regarding the fight against terrorism, he said "there is no pat answer to the question of terrorism except that it must be confronted.
There's no pat answer, because no two stand sites, or trees, are alike.
But, and this is what makes the book truly successful, Perry avoids giving a pat answer, often leaving the reader with food for thought.
"I will give you my pat answer: 'Commerce, culture and trade,' that is all I can say at this time," Trevino said, then added that his Judo friend, and some other friends from Mongolia who are also here, have been to the Falls repeatedly.
My pat answer is "HAPPI, which is an acronym for Household and Personal Products Industry/That response is usually enough to kill the conversation--but I'm never sure if the silence is because my acquaintance doesn't know what an acronym is or if he finds laundry and shampoos deadly dull.
There are so many variables I can't give a pat answer: range, speed of target, angle, reaction time, speed of swing.
A decade ago I had a pat answer when asked to recommend a Thanksgiving wine.
The pat answer is that leadership is situational--based on time and circumstance.
But instead of coining a cute phrase or pat answer editors Peters and Hinson-Hasty begin this book by asking "What does it mean to be faithful in times of crisis?" How can communities understand and do something about the problems we're now facing?
This pat answer, as well as the simplistic response "The dinosaurs just did not die in the right place" each have a flavor of what I call "pseudoscience".
As reported in your editorial column: The usual pat answer by senior ambulance officers talked of "incidents caused by a catalogue of unforeseen circumstances".