24 May 06

A Way of Being in the World

I co-taught a class yesterday on Culturally Inclusive and Non-violent Language as part of the Diversity Awareness Series here at UC Davis (and also the Communications Series).

It’s the third time Karen and I have taught this together, and every time we get a new surprise. It’s very powerful to have a group of people brainstorm a huge list of expressions that are loaded in some way but that are such a part of everyday speech we rarely question them or even, in some cases, know what they meant originally (a good example here is “rule of thumb,” which refers to the girth of a stick with which it used to be permissible to beat one’s wife—if it was thicker than a thumb, presumably a man’s, it was illegal).

To raise our awareness of how our speech affects others and transforms the world is one of the things addressed in a post by Rana over at Frogs and Ravens. She draws the distinction between Political and political. It’s a good post. Please read it.

Posted by at 09:21 PM in Politics | Link |
  1. Are you sure about that “rule of thumb” thing? I’ve known the expression for decades, heard of that etymology only recently, and always thought it stemmed from something like the “thumb-jump” method of estimating height, which has been around for a long time. Or from one of those estimating things that start with measuring one’s own digits and such so as to always have a yardstick of sorts handy. I learned those both from my mother’s Girl Scout handbook.

    That book had some interesting survival skills in it. I wonder if I have it here somewhere, hmm.
    — Ron Sullivan    25. May 2006, 08:30    Link
  2. And oh yeah—one hunderd percent Yes on the weight of language thing. It’s great to be able to de-normalize the stuff that gets said without much thought about its social penumbra.
    — Ron Sullivan    25. May 2006, 08:32    Link
  3. I fail to remember where to find the extensive discussion in alt.folklore.urban debunking the alleged spouse abuse origin of the phrase “rule of thumb,” but the wikipedia entry dismisses it rather breezily:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thumb
    — Chris Clarke    26. May 2006, 08:34    Link
  4. Thanks, Ron and Chris, for the clarification. I will be passing this along.

    I have to says this always struck me as a little odd because until recently and only in some countries, what did the law care at all about how or when men beat their wives, girlfriends, or other female acquaintances or relatives?
    — Pica    27. May 2006, 07:57    Link
  5. Do you have Brasch’s “Book of Beginnings” Pica? Excellent book! I quite like the 1692 derivation of “rule of thumb” where it is linked with brewing. Brewers used to stick their thumbs into fermenting liquor to gauge if it was the correct temperature. Brasch has two other explanations for the phrase but nothing about wife beating.
    — Jenny    27. May 2006, 21:20    Link
  6. Your post citing that debunked “rule of thumb” origin made me feel angry and frustrated. When there are so many denigrating terms in common usage, why pick one that is so readily found to be false? A simple search on Google revealed a huge batch of sites putting paid to that one. Passing it on as true to a class full of people who are hoping for help in crafting their language appropriately seems to give credence to those who still trumpet the line about feminists wanting to “PC-ify” the langage. It would be a valuable service to those staff members if the class contained a few words about overreacting and keeping a sense of perspective. Sorry; this one just got me feathers ruffled.
    — Babz    29. May 2006, 21:54    Link

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