Pope Joan? - 12/30/05 11:17 PM
ABC's Bogus "Pope Joan" Story Also Hocked Debunked the "Rule of Thumb" Myth.
"The bogus story of "Pope Joan" was not the only fiction that ABC and Diane Sawyer tried to hustle on the American public in last night's Primetime (Thursday night). In trying to convey the environment of ninth-century Europe, host Diane Sawyer and a guest, Donna Cross (author of Pope Joan), promulgated the debunked feminist myth that the phrase "rule of thumb" originated from a centuries-old law about wifebeating. The popular hoax purports that a man was once allowed to clobber a woman as long as the club was no wider than his thumb.
"The 'rule of thumb' ... turns out to be an excellent example of what may be called a feminist fiction .
"That the phrase did not even originate in legal practice could have been ascertained by any fact-checker who took the trouble to look it up in the Oxford English Dictionary, which notes that the term has been used metaphorically for at least three hundred years to refer to any method of measurement or technique of estimation derived from experience rather than science.
"According to Canadian folklorist Philip Hiscock, 'The real explanation of 'rule of thumb' is that it derives from wood workers... who knew their trade so well they rarely or never fell back on the use of such things as rulers. Instead, they would measure things by, for example, the length of their thumbs'."
It's ironic that Ms. Hoff-Sommers notes that the truth could have been attained within about 30 seconds and access to a good dictionary.
____________________________________________________________
Ok, Wordsmiths, this is a word origin question.
Can you debunk the debunk?
"The bogus story of "Pope Joan" was not the only fiction that ABC and Diane Sawyer tried to hustle on the American public in last night's Primetime (Thursday night). In trying to convey the environment of ninth-century Europe, host Diane Sawyer and a guest, Donna Cross (author of Pope Joan), promulgated the debunked feminist myth that the phrase "rule of thumb" originated from a centuries-old law about wifebeating. The popular hoax purports that a man was once allowed to clobber a woman as long as the club was no wider than his thumb.
"The 'rule of thumb' ... turns out to be an excellent example of what may be called a feminist fiction .
"That the phrase did not even originate in legal practice could have been ascertained by any fact-checker who took the trouble to look it up in the Oxford English Dictionary, which notes that the term has been used metaphorically for at least three hundred years to refer to any method of measurement or technique of estimation derived from experience rather than science.
"According to Canadian folklorist Philip Hiscock, 'The real explanation of 'rule of thumb' is that it derives from wood workers... who knew their trade so well they rarely or never fell back on the use of such things as rulers. Instead, they would measure things by, for example, the length of their thumbs'."
It's ironic that Ms. Hoff-Sommers notes that the truth could have been attained within about 30 seconds and access to a good dictionary.
____________________________________________________________
Ok, Wordsmiths, this is a word origin question.
Can you debunk the debunk?
