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Reader question: Please explain “no brainer” as in this sentence: “I’m a free app guy, but it was a no brainer to buy this product.” My comments: The speaker is a free app (short for application) guy. That means he believes apps (specialized programs which allow you to do things, such as checking the weather, on your mobile phone or other devices) should be free. In other words, he believes no-one should pay for apps. However, he paid to buy “this product” and thought this particular app was worth the money. And he thought it was a “no brainer”, too. That means it was an easy decision to make. The brain, of course, is the organ in our head that allows us to think. In colloquialism, brains (plural) represent our intelligence, or smarts, cleverness, what have you – our “ability to think clearly and learn quickly”, according to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. And Longman gives this example: “If you had any brains you’d know what I meant.” See what I meant? Anyways, a no-brainer, literally, is a person with no brains. Used to describing something else, on the other hand, a no-brainer often refers to a problem that takes no brains (or, rather, doesn’t take any brains) to solve. In other words, you don’t have to work your brains into frenzy in order to reach a conclusion. In the top example, the decision to buy that particular app is a no-brainer, i.e. a logical and easy one to make. In other words, not a tough and painful decision – You don’t have to think back and forth whether it is useful enough to be worth the money you have to pay, etc and so forth. | 
