Talk:Rule of thumb

message: I was just about to suggest that someone link this with spousal rape since they both have to do with archaic rituals concerning a man's rights over his wife.  Are we certain this is an urban legend?  Anyone else have an idea about its etymology?--Reverend Distopia 21:32, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  spousal rape 

message: Looks longer than a wiktionary entry to me. See the wiktionary entry, which actually is a dictionary entry, and compare.
--rerdavies 03:02, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Whether it's a wiktionary entry or not. 

message: Should "heuristic" in the first paragraph point directly to "heuristic (computer science)"?  I'm not sure. --Hcsteve 07:59, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Link to Heuristic 

message: Some facts from the Oxford English Dictionary:
*Earliest known use was in a book Fencing-Master by Sir W. Hope in 1692: "What he doth, he doth by rule of Thumb, and not by Art".
*In previous centuries, it primarily was used in contrast to scientifically-justified rules (as in the quote above): A rule of thumb was one that seemed to work, but had no theoretical or scientific justification for why it should work. 
--Delirium 20:56, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  etymology from the OED 

message: From the article:  According to the Discovery Science Channel's TV show, "Discoveries This Week" on 19 September 2005, the term comes from brewery industry before the advent of thermometers. The man in charge of aiding yeast would stick his thumb into the vat to check the temperature. This is doubtful, however, as beer is easily contaminated and ruined by casual contact with unsterilized equipment, much less a thumb.
I have doubts about this as the etymology of the term, but not for the reasons stated above.  Although many homebrewers today like to think of their brewing method as more sterile than an operating room, this isn't really necessary.  Beer has been brewed a lot longer than bleach and no-rinse sanitizers and indeed long before the role of microorganisms in food spoilage was known.  Plunging a clean thumb into wort wouldn't necessarily ruin the batch.  However, if the test is to see if the wort is cool enough to add the yeast, this wouldn't work.  Heat becomes painful to the skin above at least 125 F, but this temperature would kill almost all of the yeast.  Yeast shouldn't be added until the wort is at most 80 F.  I fail to see how sticking a thumb into the wort would help one in determining this.   Penismightierthanthesword 20:16, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It also doesn't make much sense because the phrase is stated to have originated in the very late 17th century, and simple thermometers were commonly available well before that. I think we should take it out, or at least note more strongly in the article that this is very unlikely. Kafziel 22:05, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brewing etymology 

message: Well, applying the "Be Bold" motto of WP, I went through and tried to reformat this article to regain some clarity in it's content. It seemed (to me at least) that there was alot of conjecture, and confusion especially around the use of this term and possible connections with domestic violence... Understandable that people have strong feelings about that topic, but it was causing more confusion than it was clearing as it stood here.
There was also a mixture of possible and unlikely origins for the term all mashed together - this term (or at least it's use as a measurement technique) has been around for longer than modern laws, so, whether it was used in any laws at a later stage I have strong doubts that that is it's origin.
Feel free to re-add some of the content which I culled, but, in the interests of all, if we can try and keep the division between mis-conceptions regarding it's origin and plausible origins, as well as a chronological order to any references, I think it will keep this article alot clearer. (Before this edit there were a number of references and quotes which all claimed to be the first instance of the term being used).
--Lucanos 23:06, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major Rewrite 

message: In a decision by Judge Settle in 1874:
"We may assume that the old doctrine, that a husband had a right to whip his wife, provided he used a switch no larger than his thumb, is not law in North Carolina." State v. Richard Oliver, 1874 WL 2346 (N.C. 1874).
This 1874 decision clearly overrules the use of the custom. While the practice is certainly not a myth, the usage of the phrase "rule of thumb" would take more research.
Msross78 00:40, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Supreme Court of North Carolina: State v. Richard Oliver, 1874 WL 2346 (N.C.) 

message: I removed the transwiki tag because I felt it was used inappropriately here.  There's a full article here, so the wiktionary link should be enough to alert users that there's also an entry at wiktionary.  If you disagree with my action, you can revert me or discuss it here.  Peace, delldot | talk 17:41, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Rm trnaswiki tag

message: I've also heard from an anthropology professor of mine that "rule of thumb" refers to the fact that, regarding the skeletal system, one can stick a thumb in the pelvic bone of a female skeleton and wiggle their thumb whereas with males one cannot. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Maika0* (talk • contribs) 23:28, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pelvis spacing 

message: I am troubled that this page contains more on the "wife-beating" rule of thumb nonsense than the actual origin. I think giving this much attention to the false origin rather than the true one contributes to the popularity of the false story and thus the acceptance of the falsehood as fact. 71.113.247.118 (talk) 14:24, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Since it's been floating around in folklore or urban legend since the 18th-century, and received a new boost of popularity in the last 30 years, the wife-beating story is fairly strongly associated with this phrase, incorrectly or correctly... Churchh (talk) 05:56, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

text: I said "partially discredited", but then someone insisted on changing it to "fully discredited".  It's clear that there never was a law or prevailing legal interpretation based on the thumb-sized stick rule, but on the other hand, the Judge Buller story was fairly well known, and a husband did in fact have the right to use limited physical force to make his wife obedient... Churchh (talk) 07:29, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

text: I don't know what Del Martin specifically wrote, but it's been claimed or implied by various people in the last 30 to 40 years that the thumb-sized-stick-to-beat-wife thing was once part of the formal judicial Common Law of English-speaking countries, whereas it's quite clear that the thumb-sized-stick-to-beat-wife thing was never part of the formal judicial Common Law of English-speaking countries; so to that extent there has been a need for debunking, and this article will need to report on such debunking (and it's not in fact off-topic).  Any extended discussion of the right of husbands to use moderate physical force on their wives to enforce obedience (something which did exist under the formal judicial Common Law of English-speaking countries) would be off-topic here (though it certainly can be mentioned). Churchh (talk) 22:58, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You seem to be confused about the topic of this article.  The topic is the phrase "Rule of Thumb" (which you don't even refer to in your above comment) *not* the "thumb-sized-stick-to-beat-wife thing".  There is of course a need in this article to de-link "Rule of Thumb" from the "thumb-sized-stick-to-beat-wife thing", but debunking the "thumb-sized-stick-to-beat-wife thing" is off-topic here.  If you wish to do that, start a separate article about the "thumb-sized-stick-to-beat-wife thing". That would go a long way to correcting this mess.68.73.114.58 (talk) 09:25, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The topic of the article is not the phrase "Rule of Thumb", any more than the article Rule of inference is about the phrase "Rule of Inference". The false etymology has considerable currency & must be dealt with. This will necessarily include some reference to the "thumb-sized-stick-to-beat-wife thing", which can hardly be mentioned without a few words about the "thing"'s origin (Buller accused by Gillray) and status as a non-law. Ewulp (talk) 00:07, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

text: I don't see that.  Feminism isn't mentioned until the final two sentences of a two-paragraph passage.  Hoaxing may have been involved in the modern era, but the idea has been lingering since at least 1782, and so is hardly a "feminist hoax" overall, and deserves coverage of its pre-feminist history.  And Hoff-Summers is quite controversial herself.  The law professor "Romulus" thing mentioned on the Christina Hoff-Summers article is not on this article. Churchh (talk) 04:16, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Apocryphal etymology 

message: 1. The idea that the "thumb-diameter stick rule" is the origin of the phrase "Rule of Thumb" is not a "hoax"; it is misinterpretation of what Del Martin wrote, which has since blossomed into an urban legend.  The word "hoax" implies intent to deceive, and there has certainly been no evidence of that.
2. Whether there was ever a "thumb-diameter stick rule" is an entirely different subject, and quite off-topic for this article; to make matters worse, this section does not distinguish enough between the concept of whether (and to what extent) the "thumb-diameter stick rule" ever existed and the concept of whether it was the origin of the "Rule of Thumb", which only serves to confuse the reader as to what actually is being discussed.
3. My guess is that part of the problem is that the editors have been using anti-feminist sources and have been carrying over the agendas of those sources into the article.  There are plenty of academic sources that can be used.  I suggest starting with:
Kelly, Henry Ansgar. "Rule of Thumb and the Folklaw of the Husband's Stick." Journal of Legal Education.  September 1994.
68.73.114.58 (talk) 09:00, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know what Del Martin specifically wrote, but it's been claimed or implied by various people in the last 30 to 40 years that the thumb-sized-stick-to-beat-wife thing was once part of the formal judicial Common Law of English-speaking countries, whereas it's quite clear that the thumb-sized-stick-to-beat-wife thing was never part of the formal judicial Common Law of English-speaking countries; so to that extent there has been a need for debunking, and this article will need to report on such debunking (and it's not in fact off-topic).  Any extended discussion of the right of husbands to use moderate physical force on their wives to enforce obedience (something which did exist under the formal judicial Common Law of English-speaking countries) would be off-topic here (though it certainly can be mentioned). Churchh (talk) 22:58, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You seem to be confused about the topic of this article.  The topic is the phrase "Rule of Thumb" (which you don't even refer to in your above comment) *not* the "thumb-sized-stick-to-beat-wife thing".  There is of course a need in this article to de-link "Rule of Thumb" from the "thumb-sized-stick-to-beat-wife thing", but debunking the "thumb-sized-stick-to-beat-wife thing" is off-topic here.  If you wish to do that, start a separate article about the "thumb-sized-stick-to-beat-wife thing". That would go a long way to correcting this mess.68.73.114.58 (talk) 09:25, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The topic of the article is not the phrase "Rule of Thumb", any more than the article Rule of inference is about the phrase "Rule of Inference". The false etymology has considerable currency & must be dealt with. This will necessarily include some reference to the "thumb-sized-stick-to-beat-wife thing", which can hardly be mentioned without a few words about the "thing"'s origin (Buller accused by Gillray) and status as a non-law. Ewulp (talk) 00:07, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

text: I don't see that.  Feminism isn't mentioned until the final two sentences of a two-paragraph passage.  Hoaxing may have been involved in the modern era, but the idea has been lingering since at least 1782, and so is hardly a "feminist hoax" overall, and deserves coverage of its pre-feminist history.  And Hoff-Summers is quite controversial herself.  The law professor "Romulus" thing mentioned on the Christina Hoff-Summers article is not on this article. Churchh (talk) 04:16, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin Section is an Incoherent Mess 

message: Removed "See also mnemonic" from the first paragraph. What does the Rule of Thumb have to do with mnemonics? If there's a link between the two, state it. Akel Desyn (talk) 05:25, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mnemonic 

message: "Thumb as measurement device
The term is thought to originate with wood workers who used the width of their thumbs (i.e. inches) rather than rulers for measuring things"
I thought that the length of the thumb from tip to first joint was approximately an inch. 212.219.75.245 (talk) 14:08, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Width of thumb? 

message: Essentially a mnemonic for a rule that can be easily remembered because it is short and close at hand like the thumb.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Inning (talk • contribs) 10:54, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is short and close at hand? 

message: This article says nothing about the use of the thumb neither by artists for measuring, nor by Renaissance, medieval, and ancient architects, builders, and engineers for measuring things relative to the expert's thumb. Such a procedure was useful for estimating the heights of towers, columns, temples, bridges, etc. I think that the knowledge of such antiquated things has been lost among the general public (which cares little), but I studied it in a three-course sequence called "Technology and Civilization" in college. Such courses are quite popular at schools like Auburn University and the Georgia Institute of Technology, which I know well because I have degrees from both schools.
Don't they have courses like this at M.I.T., Cornell, G.W.U., the Univ. of Michigan, the Univ. of Texas, the Univ. of California, Stanford, and U.S.C. ?
98.67.160.114 (talk) 16:13, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Art, architecture, and ancient engineerinvg 

message: What does the edit summary "no WP:FRINGE views from Judge Thumb that was ridiculed even in the day. Fringe is covered adequately" even mean? Who is "Judge Thumb" whose views are declared to be WP:FRINGE? I re-attributed Matthew Hale's opinion to Matthew Hale per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV and WP:Primary. And I restored the quote from the JAC journal. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 16:52, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The references to the judges that ever used "rule of thumb" were ridiculed.  Every source that has searced the history of "rule of thumb" has found the interpretation as "wife beating" rule to be lacking any credibility.  It's a WP:FRINGE viewpoint and it is adequately covered in this article.  Adding fringe material is WP:UNDUE considering how many sources say "It has nothing to do with wife beating."  Your two citations roundly reject it's origins and meaning.  Your quote of Blackstone doesn't even mention a rule of thumb and the source you quoted it from rejects that wife beatings were legal in Blackstones day.  It's an entire treatise on how the "rule" didn't exist in English common law, canon law or Roman law.   --DHeyward (talk) 00:24, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: And what sources do you have to support your claim? Chris Troutman (talk) 01:30, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:   His own source for one:  Kelly, Henry Ansgar (September 1994). "Rule of Thumb and the Folklaw of the Husband's Stick". Journal of Legal Education 44 (3): 341–365.  it's available on JSTOR.  It's free.  Sonicyouth is misquoting it greatly.  None of what he's written is an accurate summation. It's a fringe view that "Rule of thumb" has a legal history of wife beating and his use of Kelly is egregiously misquoting. This is the source where SY alleges Blackstone allowed for wife beating.  Kelly says exactly opposite of what SY says.  Kelly disputes that Blackstone acknowledges legal wife beating (let alone a "rule of thumb").  --DHeyward (talk) 05:48, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: How absurd. This is a direct quote from Blackstone: "But this power of correction was confined within reasonable bounds; and the husband was prohibited to use any violence to his Wife, aliter quam ad virum, ex causa regiminis et castigationis uxoris suae, licite et rationabiliter pertinet." You can find that quote everywhere. Kelly quotes this exact sentence on page 356. It's freaking unbelievable that you are disputing that Blackstone wrote that, that Kelly quoted it and that I used this exact quote in the article. Stop following me around and targeting my sourced additions! --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 12:19, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  Two Points: What does it have to do with the rule of thumb?  and Kelly explains the primary source quote further on if you bothered to read it and concludes that Blackstone was not referring to the law in his time.  Look below and you will see Kelly asking people to quit maligning Blackstone by saying wife beating was accepted in his time.  You don't seem to have the whole source and since Kelly, the expert, disagrees with you, we need to stick to the reliable sources.  There is nothing from Kelly that concludes "Rule of Thumb" was anything more than a fringe theory.  I pointed you to this article when you made the same fringe points elsewhere.  The fact you are adding Blackstone quotes here that have nothing to do with the article is your attempt at desperation.  When you get the whole Kelly source, read it.   --DHeyward (talk) 15:14, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

text: Kelly's work is analyzed by Professor Jennifer Freyd and she concludes that, while Kelly is correct in that the phrase "rule of thumb" did not refer to the size of tool used for wife beating, historic law cases prove that there was indeed a tradition allowing a husband to punish his wife with a small whip or stick, and that this tradition was upheld by courts. She says she looked at the same evidence Kelly looked at, and that Kelly's beliefs led him to his contrary conclusion. Binksternet (talk) 03:12, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't bring Kelly into the debate, only corrected the gross mischaracterization attributed to him by SY86 and as such have read the entire article.  I note the Freyd appears to be a non-peer reviewed essay while Kelly is published in a peer reviewed journal.  Freyd also agrees with virtually everything Kelly writes.  Kelly acknowledges apocryphal account of various stick sizes.  The takeaway though is that common law was fairly amorphous prior to 1600 and there were hardly standards.  I disagree that Freyd concluded the stick tradition was upheld.  What Kelly and Freyd both say is judges and lawyers that used common law apocryphal account of various stick sizes as acceptable instruments of assault were ridiculed (included in our article is the cartoon of "Judge Thumb").  She mentions that some cases were dismissed where a husband hit his wife with a stick though I don't think her conclusion of dismissal=acceptable is as persuasive as Kelly's detailed account of the law (as well as referencing gross mistakes made by a couple judges that repeated "legal stick sizes."  We have domestic violence cases today without legal punishment (i.e. read the news on the NFL).   Freyd's essay, especially by her last sentence, is that the popular feminist movement of the day to boycott the phrase as being offensive is really not supported and domestic violence prevention shouldn't be sidetracked by the phrase.  I don't believe there is much offense taken by that phrase today nor is there any remaining serious attempts to remove it from the lexicon.  She acknowledges Kelly as the foremost authority on it. If you read our article, it mentions the same legal cases that Freyd mentions. --DHeyward (talk) 07:39, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent edits 

message: I removed these examples because they have no references to reliable secondary sources for establishing due weight. Entire sections based on primary sources like this run into problems of original research. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 01:36, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Examples 

message: Following WP:SYNTH and WP:INDISCRIMINATE, I've removed these paragraphs pending the discovery of sources that directly relate this info to the article topic. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 23:58, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Miscellaneous content 

message: Parking these references here until I have time to incorporate them into the text:
* 
* 
* 
* 
* 
See also "Rule of thumb" etymology on Google Books. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 11:14, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources January 2018 

message: Abbreviation of "Rule of thumb" in technical texts is:  "ROT".
(Like here: https://asktom.oracle.com/pls/asktom/f?p=100:11:0::::P11_QUESTION_ID:30011178429375)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.190.134.155 (talk) 11:09, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rule of thumb -- abbreviation is in tehnical texts is:  ROT . 

message: Under Folk etymology it is written: "... and wife beating did continue"
This is unnecessary, since it should be clear to anyone that from the existence of a law making something a crime, it does not follow that the illegal activity will
cease to exist entirely. You would not find it necessary to include such a statement for murder, theft etc.
Wikipedia is a cyclopedia, not a political arena, and politicization even subtle should be prohibited and I intend to make sure of that.
Petarded (talk) 10:33, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I've restored the text. It's not "politicization" to summarize factual information reported by published, reliable sources. In any case, Wikipedia is not censored, so finding a given statement to be controversial or "political" is not a sufficient reason to remove it. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 17:50, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Unnecessary politicizing language

message: Per WP:ITALICTITLE, "Use italics when italics would be used in running text; for example, taxonomic names, the names of ships, the titles of books, films, and other creative works, and foreign phrases are italicized both in ordinary text and in article titles." Rule of thumb is none of those things, and is not italicized in running text (I italicized it just now because the phrase is being discussed as a phrase, but you would do that with any word considered as a word; for instance, "Duck can be either a noun or a verb").  Countless examples can be found to demonstrate that this phrase is not ordinarily italicized; see here; here; here; here; here; and so on. Generally, names of articles in [Category:English_phrases] are not italicized. Ewulp (talk) 06:26, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Italicized title 

message: I don't understand why most of the lead is an erroneous "folk" etymology. We obviously can mention the folk etymology in the lead as it's in the body, but the real etymology would be more on topic. I tried doing this but it was reverted. Volunteer1234 (talk) 19:25, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: The lead section should summarize the article as a whole. Most of the article text, and most of the sources, discuss the folk etymology. Hence it's the main reason for the phrase's notability. If you have comparable sources that focus on the "real" etymology, feel free to add them. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 19:31, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  The real etymology is already there. I moved it to the lead and you reverted that move. It's also weird to have an article about such a common phrase be devoted to an erroneous etymology rather than the actual topic. I guess we differ in that I think the common phrase is notable in it's correct usage, and you are saying that the incorrect etymology is the notable thing. Volunteer1234 (talk) 20:04, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  You didn't move the "real" etymology to the lead section, because it was already covered in the first paragraph. Notability is determined by coverage in published sources, not the opinions of Wikipedia users. The "actual topic" includes what sources say about the topic. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 22:09, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Erroneous etymology 

message: This article is a mess... It's almost entirely made up of (or at least dominated by) anecdotal "factoids" attempting to further a discredited fringe theory that itself was based off of misunderstandings. The average person has likely never even heard about this supposed alternative origin of the term. Undue weight alone is serious enough to warrant a major rewrite. One way or another this needs to be reviewed carefully. 74.141.37.107 (talk) 03:38, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: The article has plenty of references, so after reading it, the  will be better informed. Otherwise, please show where the predominant views of published, reliable sources differ from those presented in the article, specifically which parts are used to , and suggest a way to fix it. Thank you. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 03:58, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Serious neutrality, weight and balance issues 

message: The rule of thumb as a domestic abuse issue was mentioned at least as far back as a 1917 Virginia law review article. 2600:1011:A18F:E540:D033:B040:4125:D24E (talk) 03:28, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article lacks citations