Goldilocks also goldilocks

used to describe a situation in which a particular set of qualities or conditions are or have to be exactly right

There's nothing more satisfying than tasting a dish you're preparing and discovering that you're spot on with the seasoning – it's neither too bland nor unpleasantly strong, the optimal sensation as it hits the tongue. Or what about collapsing onto a hotel bed after a long day and making the delightful discovery that it has the perfect mattress, soft enough to cocoon you in comfort but hard enough to protect your back? Or remember the teacher who hit the ideal balance – strict enough to make learning happen but fun enough to make lessons interesting? Yes, there are so many situations in life where there's a broad spectrum of possibilities and the ideal, most advantageous scenario sits at a specific, often central point within it. This is the essence of what is now affectionately known as the Goldilocks principle.

there are so many situations in life where there's a broad spectrum of possibilities and the ideal, most advantageous scenario sits at a specific, often central point within it

Creative language use has now cleverly adopted the word Goldilocks as a noun modifier (a descriptive word that always sits before the noun) to convey the idea of a 'just right' scenario in relation to the thing, person or situation described. It all started in the world of astronomy, where the Goldilocks zone is an area around a star in which temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold, and so conditions are optimal for supporting life. Correspondingly, a Goldilocks planet is one that is potentially habitable because it sits in the Goldilocks zone. Physicists as prolific as the late Stephen Hawking talked about Goldilocks scenarios, though the term's use is by no means restricted to scientists. Another domain in which it's commonly seen is economics, with the phrase Goldilocks economy describing an 'ideal' situation of steady growth, low interest rates and low inflation, etc. But beyond these rather technical scenarios, we can see the term applying anywhere where a particular circumstance falls at the 'ideal' point within a range of extremes. As the citations above illustrate, Goldilocks can refer to things as diverse as people (e.g. in US politics, a Goldilocks candidate is one who garners appeal from a wide range of voters), concrete objects (e.g. a Goldilocks car has just the right parameters of power, luxury, fuel efficiency etc), places (e.g. a Goldilocks destination has the perfect balance for a particular set of holiday requirements), or even English Language Teaching materials (e.g. Goldilocks examples are just the right length and complexity to illustrate a particular language point).

Background – Goldilocks

This clever use of the proper noun Goldilocks is of course inspired by the 19th century children's story 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears', one of the most well-known fairy tales in the English language. The story tells of a little girl named Goldilocks who finds a house inhabited by three bears, each of whom have particular preferences for the softness of their beds, temperature of food, etc. After checking out the options when the bears aren't at home, Goldilocks rejects the two extremes and declares one of each of the three items to be 'just right' for her.

Fairy tales have long given inspiration for interesting metaphors, e.g. ogre started life as a man-eating giant but now forms an oblique reference to a nasty and frightening person. More recently, troll gravitated from a pesky little chap in Scandinavian fairy tales to an online bully. And the story of Cinderella provided us with fairy godmother as a way of describing a particularly helpful person, who in turn might wave a magic wand as an idiomatic alternative to finding an immediate solution to a problem.