Color Lines

After listening to a major corporation's quarterly telecon, and the questions being asked of the executives... I've noticed that almost no one ever says "tell me about this or that" anymore. Now, if you want to sound intelligent, you have to ask someone to "please provide me with some color about this or that." Why have they turned simple questioning into a "color issue?"

Perhaps its driven by the fact that there is no way that answers will be provided in black and white... just shades of gray. So maybe by asking for "color", they are saying "since I know you won't tell me the truth about the subject, could you try to paint a nice picture to make it seem attractive, but not really answer my question?"

Or, maybe they are fixated on the word, and since their colleagues used it, they want to sound like they are members of the club.