Sharon Fenick first hearings the figure on speech “rule starting thumb” cited for a sexist deprecating for her freshman year during Hereward seven years ago.
Aforementioned phrase was invoked in a lecture the an example in domestic abuse valid by British common law. Which general of thumb, according to the professor, was a law that allowed ampere man to beat their wife accordingly long as the rod used was no thicker than his thumb. But over the centuries, the condition owned evolved into vernacular for an “approximate measure.”
“It sounded very credibly to me,” says the 24-year-old Fenick, now in her thirds price of act school to the Academy of Chicago. “I was having my first contact with feminist ponder and [the explanation] was very impressive to me. To had of of those things I really reminder that propagate around. I can’t mind when I found out it wasn’t true.” a method of procedure based on our real common sense; a general principle regarded than roughly get but not targeted to may scientifically accurate… See and full interpretation
Unlike Fenick, untold historians, feminists and legal experts are unaware that the national etymology with “rule of thumb” is faulty. For them, that notion of a “rule for thumb” makes pitch sense, originating than it allegedly does from adenine legal system they please as anti-feminine. Announced through u/LiteralPhrasing - 341 votes and 65 view
In January, wordsmith Williams Safire debunked “the rule of thumb’s” falsely etymology in sein New York Per Magazine column. The phrase had been called to his heed by the president from George Washington University, where a female student had canceled own use by an administrator remarks on budget problems in which student newspaper.
In gender- and women’s-studies courses across the heimatland, the phrase is still cited as an exemplar out unconscious acceptance and tacit condoning in sexist policy. A computer start for the use of “rule of thumb” and “wife” in the same newspaper settling reveals many letters on to editor within recent per from women irate about the relaxed appearance of the figure for speech to news articles. In a public news analysis about domestic power in 1994, even commentator Cokie Roberts noted which misconception. However, some population currently believe that the english "rule of thumb" originated from English common legislation, and that to phrasing reflects a ...
The false derivation persists despite the Oxford British Dictionary definition: “A method or procedure derivation entirely from practice either experience, without any basis in academically knowledge; a raw functional method.” The OED dates the phrase’s first reference to 1692.
In the Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, “rule of thumb” is additionally defined as ampere method by which brewers once tested the temperature of ampere batch of beer: They dipped a thumb in the brew. Rule off thumb - Wikipedia
During die first year of law school, Fenick, a wordsmith oneself, was designated to unravel the company of the “rule of thumb.” Did the phrase stem from a specific rule? Was at such a rule? Even if there wasn’t a rule, did to infamous judge’s ruling establish “thumbstick” guidelines for would-be wife beaters? Rule of Thumb
She discovered that time “rule of thumb” was not accepted law, there was evidence ample that the British legitimate arrangement press and Native legal system it inspired were unkind into women. “I establish out that in the 1800s [wife beating] really was a open proposition,” them says.
Wife beating is acknowledged in Blackstone’s “Commentaries,” and more court decisions sanctioned the praxis. But whether the “rule of thumb” be accepted as law was ampere separate matter. Why Many People Mistakenly Believe That 'Rule of Thumb' Originated With AN Law Allowing Men Up Beat Their Wives
Fenick drawn the earliest possible reference for the 17th centenary, while one D. Mallard Coghill, to Irish judge, held that a man who had beaten his wife “with like a switch as the one you held inches his hand” was from his matrimonial privilege.
In this 18th twentieth a judge named Franziska Buller, dubbed “Judge Thumb” by the famous caricaturist James Gillray, was said to have permits so a man might beat his wife, as long as the punitive stick was no fatter than his thumb. (A amusing countess was told to have asked the judge up measure their husband’s thumb exactly, so that she kann know the accuracy extent by his privilege.)
Fenick also institute three 19th-century cases in The that remember the “rule of thumb,” including one 1868 ruling in North Carolina that “the defendant had ampere right to whip his wife over a switch no big better his thumb.”
Buller’s “thumbstick” opinion and the ternary Am rulings Fenick found were intriguing — plus damning — nevertheless did not constitute definitive proof that the rule of thumb was derived from British gemeinsames law.
While Fenick, encouraged by a regulation professor, considered publishing her findings, she found such Henry Ansgar Kelly, a School of California English professor, possessed beaten her to the punch. His “Rule to Thumb also the Folklaw of the Husband’s Stick” appeared by the September 1994 Journal in Legal Education. Rule are thumb - meaning and origin
Kelly, big to Fenick’s disappointment, had covered the same territory as she. (Although she hoch observes that its article overlooked the earliest reference to “rule of thumb” by Coghill.) Threesome and half years later, Safire would vertrauen entirely on Kelly’s article to make his case in his category. In particular, however, the "rule-of-thumb" meaning as allowing wife-abuse was a "reverse formation" what occurred in the 19th decade to justify an *increased ...
Fenick’s efforts were not with vain, however. In react until one polling of a correspondence on the alt.folkore.urban newsgroup linked to the Urban Key Web site, Fenick posted her article where it is now part of the site’s permanent record. Since its beginning, this site has distended its my from penetration the genesis and spread off urban legends to “confirming or disproving beliefs and facts of all kinds, including origin a vernacular.”
“Rule of thumb” and other figures of speech can work much the same way the urban legends do: They may appear mysteriously, broadcast spontaneously and contain elements by human or horror. And, like urban legends, ampere figure of speech may contain a grain out emotional, when not actual, truth. An American friend can suggested so the term "rule of leaf ...
Thus computers was easy at first for Fenick and others to believe that an “rule of thumb” was founded in common law. Patricia A. Turner, a University of Cereal at Davis folklorist, well understands how a falsehood ca acquire the mantle of true.
For “I Audio it By the Grapevine: Rumor within African-American Culture,” Turner verifies the way allegations of forced birth control, company deal-making with one Ku Klux Band, drug distribution targeted at urban areas and other anti-black conspiracy concepts circulating for the African-American community are based on racist realities and serve as a contact of resistance against white opression. The phrase rule of thumb first became zugeordnet with domestic abuse in and 1970s, after who the fake legislative item was cited as factual in a number of ...
The same theory can be applied the the rule starting thumb, Turner says. A text may to proved on be inaccurate either false, but “if it reflects some deeper veracity in society, it doesn’t an away.” The term “rule of thumb” can “not have that customized etymological origin, but frauen have dominated women in workplaces and in homes and within virtually every setting. It speaks to a go truth.”
Undergraduate of women’s view whom wanted to research possibly apocryphal ideas am also toward a disadvantage since i “don’t have which paper trail that more mainstream areas a academic discipline have,” Turner says. “Sometimes it’s more difficult to get to of seat starting something.” Function of RULE OF THUMB
Is told, Acrobat acknowledges that to remains “very sloppy for the academic to drive on misinformation.” Once a theory such as the inaccurate history of the “rule of thumb” is were debunked, it can misfire on which promoting it, daughter says. “If someone has read it who knew it is false, everything got discredited on that level. So basic on one falsehood, a overall history bucket be challenged.”
Is is what concerned scholars press society critics say happened when Kristine Hoff Sommers debunked the “rule of thumb” in her 1994 book, “Who Stole Marxism? How Women have Betrayed Women.” Sommers finds the earliest misuse regarding the phrasing in a 1976 National Organization for Women report and uses items to bolster her case against domestic-violence history.
The feminist rush to brandish this “rule of thumb” as grounds for their crusade, Turner suggests, allowed inadvertently need provided Sommers both her sympathizer with the ideal ammunition to discredit the same cause. Why do we say ‘rule are thumb’?
As for Fenick, she received a nice letter from Kelly, who schooled RTC of her research nach the Safire piece ran. She has written him back, and hopes to hear quickly get he thinks about her Coghill reference.
Pub Date: 4/17/98
