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What's your understanding of this phrase?
I hear it used as an either-or metaphor: offer the carrot but be prepared to use the stick; AHD defines it this way. But I visualize it as a carrot dangling from the end of a stick, just ahead of a donkey, for example, to keep him moving along.
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Pooh-Bah
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I use--well, think of it; I don't really use the phrase--it your way, AnnaS. The first time I ever heard it was at summer music camp, and that's the way it was explained. (Guess he needed to get us going!)
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From the internet: Anyway, I didn’t realize there was a mystery. Then I looked up the expression in the “Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins” by William and Mary Morris (HarperCollins, New York, 1977). It says: “…carrot and stick. A riddle that seems to have confounded many students of language is the origin of the carrot and stick expression. Research in Aesop’s Fables, the Uncle Remus folk tales and other such sources didn’t turn up any answers.”
Mr. and Mrs. Morris cite a couple of instances where the expression was used -- a speech by Winston Churchill and the movie “Maltese Falcon” but it sounds like the animal was tempted with a carrot and beaten with a stick. I am sure this is wrong. The stick is used to keep the carrot out front, not to hit the animal. Mr. Churchill in a press conference, May 25, 1943, states: ‘We shall continue to operate on the Italian donkey at both ends, with a carrot and with a stick,”…
I hate to say this but I believe Mr. Churchill and Mr. and Mrs. Morris got it wrong.
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Interesting, Dr Bill. "Where" on the internet?
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Re: dangling a carrot ahead of a donkey: "offer the carrot but be prepared to use the stick"
Anyone who would choose "the stick" over the carrot is more of an ass than a donkey, AnnaS.
Stick a stick up a donkey's ass, and the donkey will bray like a jackass.
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Carpal Tunnel
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This is the way I've heard it used, and where it comes from (to my knowledge)
There are two ways to make a reluctant mule or donkey (being very pig-headed animals) to move forward.
One of them is to dangle a carrot in front of its face. The carrot dangles on a string from a pole - just like a fishing pole. Mules & donkeys LOVE carrots so they go after it - going to get a treat (not realizing that it will always be a foot too far in front of them).
The same thing was done with water in the desert when the donkey or mule wouldn't move further anymore. They'd be thirsty, and go after the sloshing water gourd.
The other is to hit the mule or donkey in the ass with a stick (conceivably the pole broken in two since it is useless as a lure.)
The expression means...If you want to get somebody to do something, try to use a lure that will make them WANT to do it. Coax them with kindness.
If that doesn't work, then be prepared to use force.
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Interesting, belM, that your take encompasses both versions, just substituting 'pole' for 'stick' in the first.
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Re Coax them with kindness: If that doesn't work, then be prepared to use force.
This was also Teddy Roosevelt's favorite shtick:
"Speak softly and carry a big stick."
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Which would make Teddy, pedantically and euphonically, both trypherophonous and phallophorous.
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